Zanzibar; city, island, and coast. Vol. 1 (of 2)Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
Zanzibar; city, island, and coast. Vol. 1 (of 2)
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Africa, East -- Description and travel; Ethnology -- Tanzania -- Zanzibar; Zanzibar -- Description and travel
Captain Guillain (vol. iii. p. 107, et passim) is correct upon the
subject of the word ‘Mrima.’ Mr Cooley (Memoir on the Lake Regions,
&c., p. 8) informs us that ‘Wamrima’ (the mainland people) signifies
‘of the mainland; for it is a mistake to suppose that Mrima is but a
dialectic variation of Mlimá (read, Mlíma) hill, in its primary sense,
cultivable ground; it is, in truth, a corruption of the Arabic word
Marâ’im, signifying the land to the west, or under the setting sun.
When the early Portuguese navigators told us that the Querimba Islands
were peopled by the Morimos, we must understand by this name the
people of the mainland.’
This is an excellent illustration of how dangerous a thing is a
smattering of philology. The ‘Arabic word Marâ’im’ is absolutely
unknown to the Arabs of Zanzibar. It is evidently coined out of the
dictionary from ‘رَعَمَ observavit occidentem solem.’ I would also ask
how ‘Comazinghi is Arabic?’ (Geography, art. 15). Similarly, we find
(Journal Royal Geographical Society, xix. 190) the Somali ‘Aber’
(error for Habr) derived from the Arabic (Hebrew?) Bar, and explained
by Benú (sons), when it really signifies mother or old woman.
It may be noted that in the Kisawahili of Zanzibar, Mríma is applied
to the coast generally, especially between Mtangata and the Rufiji
River, and it is mostly synonymous with the Arabs’ ‘Bar el Moli,’
whereas Mlíma means a mountain. From the latter comes the diminutive
Kilima, a hillock, also synonymous in composition with the French
mont. It enters into many East African proper names, e. g. Kilima-
njaro, Kilima-ni, &c.
I cannot agree with Messrs Norris and Beke, despite their authority as
linguists, in stripping the national and racial names of their
inflections, e. g. Sagara for Usagara, Zaramo for Uzaramo. Mr Cooley
is equally wrong in stating that the ‘Sawáhily and the Arabs write
Nika, Zeramu, and Gogo.’ The Arabs may, the Wasawahíli do not, thus
blunder. Captain Guillain, I have remarked, is no authority. He
confounds (vol. i. p. 231) the land of Wak-wak (the Semitic Gallas)
with the South African Wamakua; and, worse still, with the ‘Vatouahs.’
And (vol. i. p. 281) he writes the well-known ‘Abban’ of the Somal,
‘Hebban.’ He also unduly neglects the peculiar initial quiescent
consonant M, e. g. (i. p. 456) ‘Foumo’ for ‘Mfumo.’ The bare root-
word, I repeat, is never used by the people, who always qualify it by
a prepositive. This, in our language Brit or Brut may be the
monosyllable upon which Briton and British are built, but it is
evidently barbarous to employ it without suffix. In the Zangian
tongues the prefixes are clearly primitive words; nouns, not as the
Rev. J. L. Doehne explains them in his Zulu-Kafir Dictionary (Cape
Town, 1857), ‘pronouns, in the present state of the language, used as
nominal forms compounded with other words.’
Footnote 31:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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