Abstract
IN this volume, Miss Bleek has worked on eleven vocabularies, the materials for which for the most part have been collected by herself at one time or another. In her previously published study of the Naron she gave a preliminary account of the classification of Bushman languages which is here elaborated. The languages are divided into three groups, of which six belong to the southern group, three to the northern, and two to the central. The groups differ in the characteristic clicks and in change in root and grammar, especially the last. In the introductory section which deals with the peculiar features and characteristics of the groups, Miss Bleek has analysed Bushman physique and culture with the view of a possible coincidence in distribution of language and race. The smallest average in height is found in the southern group. As regards culture, all Bushmen live in bush huts, and are hunters and collectors of food. The Hottentots, who have taken to a pastoral life, used huts in the old days, but they differed from those of the Bushmen in being made of reed mats and not bush. The clothes of all Bushmen are similar, a leather loincloth and small kaross. The ancestors of the southern group painted and engraved in stone down to a recent date, but have now lost the art. The general conclusion at which the author arrives is that, while a number of features are common to all, a good many differences in custom coincide with differences in speech.
Comparative Vocabularies of Bushman Languages.
D. F.
Bleek
By. (University of Cape Town: Publications of the School of African Life and Language.) Pp. vi + 94. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1929.) 7s. 6d. net.
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Comparative Vocabularies of Bushman Languages . Nature 124, 224 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/124224a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/124224a0