_Sentences._—A noun in a sentence demands the concord of adjectives, pronouns, and verbs. This is the only important concord in the language. The absence of gender is a great peculiarity. A native may make a long speech about a person while his audience do not know whether it is a man or a woman that is spoken of. Again, when a native speaks of persons it may be impossible to tell whether he means one person, or several. Originally, the singular of the third person was distinct from the plural, but by the use of a plural of excellence one man is habitually spoken of as _they_. This is a refinement of politeness.[15] In the same way the English language employs _you_ instead of _thou_: these natives go farther on the same lines, throwing away not only number, but person also. In England, where the question is asked “where are you going” the reply will be “I am going to _your_ house”. The African for the same meaning would reply “I am going to _his_ house”. Traces of the same refinement exist in England: thus, instead of “What do you want” we may hear “What does _his_ Reverence want?” The following will show the method of tense formation. The present indicative, I love, may be analysed into I-a-loving or I-to-love (person, preposition, and verb). The perfect tense, indicating completed action, is made up of the root meaning love, and an affix which seems to be akin to a demonstrative pronoun, and signifies that the action is _there_ or _at a distance_ now. One future tense is formed from a participle with a negative, so that I shall love = I-a-loving but-_not-yet_. These are the three leading tenses, but the fertility of tense forms is amazing—thus we have a tense for “Why should I neglect to love?” Yao has a great wealth of participles, which seem to be wanting entirely in Chinyasa. Derived verbs are numerous. From a word leka, _to leave_, we have lechela (for lekela) _leave for_; lechesya and lekasya (whose terminations remind one of the Greek idso) with _causative_ meanings; lekana (= leka na; na = with) _leave each other_, or _together_; lekanya, _separate_ with causative lekanisya; as also lekwa and lecheka with passive and neuter meanings. In the study of these languages we are often reminded that what are now to us familiar words, were really formed with much difficulty, and we are not so ready to laugh at the Etymologist who derived the Latin word _nihil_ for _nothing_ from a _bean_, as if it originally meant “not a single pea”! In some African dialects there is great difficulty in getting a word to translate “nothing”. Yet, after all, the English language has not much to boast of here; some of these dialects can also furnish a derivative word like no-thing. CHAPTER XIX. ESTIMATE OF NATIVE CHARACTER.