Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/195

AFRICA, LANGUAGES OF by such discoveries as those of Lake Ngami, Lake N'yassa, and the Victoria falls of the Zambesi. The explorations of Speke, Baker, and Burton have already been mentioned in connection with the sources of the Nile ; and the travels of Petherick on the Bahr-el-Gazal, and of Du Chaillu in equatorial Africa, should not be forgotten. Sir Samuel Baker has re- cently been commissioned by the khedive to destroy the slave trade and extend the author- ity of Egypt on the upper Nile, and furnished with a military force for that purpose. AFRICA, Languages of. The languages of Africa fall into five groups: 1. The Semitic idioms of Abyssinia, exhibiting special rela- tions with the Himyaritic of southwestern Arabia, from which region the Abyssinians are unquestionably immigrants, across the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. One of these idioms, the Ethi- opic or Geez, was long a language of literary cultivation, under Christian influence, and pos- sesses a considerable body of literature. More recently, the Amharic, a kindred dialect, has been the official and learned language of the country. 2. The Egyptian and the dialects related with it. Between these and the Semit- ic there are generally held to exist evidences of an ultimate but exceedingly distant connec- tion. The Berber language (descendant of the ancient Libyan), occupying, except so far as it has been displaced by the Arabic, the whole north of the continent, and a group of dialects south of Abyssinia, of which the Galla is the most prominent member, are the other rela- tives of the Egyptian. 3. The Hottentot and Bushman dialects, in the extreme south. Bleek has within a few years declared that these are branches of the Egyptian group, and that those degraded communities, almost the lowest and most savage of men, are therefore a fragment from the same stock which produced the cul- ture of Egypt ; and many linguistic and ethno- logical writers have accepted his view, but the most recent authorities reject it. 4. The South African group or family, sometimes called the Caffre, or Zingian, or Bantu. This fills the whole southern part of the continent (except the territory of the preceding group), and is made up of a considerable number and variety of dialects the Zulu, Sechuana, Suaheli, Mpongwe, &c. all plainly and closely related. Its most striking peculiarity is its prevailing use of prefixes instead of suffixes; a word without a formative prefix is as rare here as in the older languages of our own family one with- out a suffix; and the grammatical agreement of words is in their prefixes, or alliterative, in- stead of in their suffixes, or rhyming. A pho- netic peculiarity shared by some of the dialects of this group with those of the preceding is their use of clicks, or sounds made with the tongue by suction, as consonants composing words. 5. There remains a broad band across the middle of the continent, filled with a large number of widely diverse languages so diverse that between them, for the most part, no con- AGADEZ 171 nections can be clearly traced; although, as sharing to a certain degree the peculiarity of formation by prefixes with the South African family, they are probably ultimately related with the latter and with one another. Con- spicuous among them are the Borneo, Uaussa, Mandingo, Grebo, Yoruban, and Foolah. AFRHAMS, Sextos Julius, a Christian writer of the 3d century. Though of African birth or descent, he lived in the city of Emmaus, Pales- tine, of which, in a mission to Rome about 220, he procured the rebuilding after it had been burned. The new city was called Nicopolis. He is said to have been afterward a bishop. He composed a Chronicon in five books, com- mencing with the creation and closing with the year 221 of the present era, fragments of which have been preserved by Eusebius, Syncellus, and others. Two letters by him are also extant. AFZELIUS. I. Adam, a Swedish naturalist, born in West Gothland, Oct. 18, 1750, died Jan. 30, 1836. He was a pupil of Linnaeus. In 1792 he visited the English colony of Sierra Leone, and made some valuable collections illustrating the botany of the west coast of Africa. After his return in 1794 he was secretary of the Swedish embassy at London, and in 1812 be- came professor of materia medica at Upsal. He wrote several works on botany, and pub- lished the autobiography of Linnaeus. II. Arvid August, a Swedish author, born at Brod- detorp, May 6, 1785, died in Enkjoping, Sept. 25, 1871, where he was pastor for 49 years. With Geijer he published Svenska Follcvisor ("Swedish Folk Songs," 3 vols., Stockholm, 1814-'15), of which a selection ap- peared in German (Berlin, 1830). He is also the author of a collection of original poems in the style of the ancient ballads, wrote a tragedy, translated into Swedish the Hervarar Saga and the Samundar Edda, and prepared with the assistance of Rask an Icelandic edi- tion of the latter. His principal work is Sven- slca Folketi SagaMfder (1839-'70), ending with Charles XII. Ludwig Tieck wrote a preface to Fngewitter's German translation of the first 3 vols. of this work (Volkssagen und Volkdie- der am Schwedens alterer und neuerer Zeit, Leipsic, 1842). AGA, originally the appellation of an elder brother, now a title of distinction, among the Turks and Tartars. The aga of the janissaries was the commandant of that corps. The title is also given to wealthy men of leisure. AGADEZ, the capital of the sultanate of Air or Asben, Africa, in lat. 16 40' N., Ion. 7 30' E., about 400 m. N. W. of Lake Tchad ; pop. about 8,000. It is believed to' have been founded at the end of the 15th century by Berbers, as an entrep6t for their commercial intercourse with the capital of the Songhay empire. The principal article of trade was gold, the town having its own standard weight, which still regulates the circulating medium. But the commerce of the present day is incon- siderable, and its chief importance to the world