[Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone]@TWC D-Link bookMissionary Travels and Researches in South Africa CHAPTER 18 23/53
This opinion is not given with any degree of positiveness.
It is stated just as it struck my mind in passing across the country, and if incorrect, it is singular that the dialects spoken by the different tribes have arranged themselves in a fashion which seems to indicate migration along the lines of color.
The dialects spoken in the extreme south, whether Hottentot or Caffre, bear a close affinity to those of the tribes living immediately on their northern borders; one glides into the other, and their affinities are so easily detected that they are at once recognized to be cognate.
If the dialects of extreme points are compared, as that of the Caffres and the tribes near the equator, it is more difficult to recognize the fact, which is really the case, that all the dialects belong to but two families of languages.
Examination of the roots of the words of the dialects, arranged in geographical order, shows that they merge into each other, and there is not nearly so much difference between the extremes of east and west as between those of north and south, the dialect spoken at Tete resembling closely that in Angola. Having, on the afore-mentioned date, reached the village of Njambi, one of the chiefs of the Chiboque, we intended to pass a quiet Sunday; and our provisions being quite spent, I ordered a tired riding-ox to be slaughtered.
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