DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49270#0165
92
H. F. Mathews
Live stock is limited to the pagan types of small goats and sheep, and to chickens
and dogs.
All these tribes use the duodecimal system of counting, as do also a number of others
living to the north and northeast — i. e. along the bottom and top of the western escarp-
ment of the Bauchi Plateau. I have had no opportunity of investigating the geographical
limits of the system of duodecimal numeration. None of the tribes have any system of
writing. The various languages extend over very limited areas and shade off at the edges
into the neighboring ones. A native traveling twenty miles from his village would in most
cases have great difficulty in making himself understood. This appears to be due to two
causes: first, the languages, not having been reduced to writing, tend to alter rapidly; and
second, the mutual distrust and hostility between villages and tribes restrict intercourse
so much that the alterations are quite local, and the languages tend to diverge. Owing to
the primitive character of the people, and to the limited time at my disposal for such
researches, I have been unable to collect very large vocabularies, or to get sufficient data
to compare fully the various inflexions, particles, prefixes, and suffixes they employ, but I
have collected enough to show that the languages are very varied both in grammar and
vocabulary. I have also been able to compare the numerals in four of the languages,
namely, Nungu, South Mada, Mama, and Ninzam and have made the appended compara-
tive table. I have drawn certain conclusions from the data given thereby, and these
conclusions I will first state and then explain. My conclusions are: (1) originally the tribes
from which the present ones are descended used a quinary, and then a decimal system of
numeration, (2) that at a comparatively recent date some influences, which affected a large
area comprising many tribes, introduced words for eleven and twelve on which, with their
previous decimal system, were built the present duodecimal vocabularies. This introduc-
tion was not only original, but was a stroke of genius, for it produced a system which is far
more convenient than the decimal system, the twelve-group being divisible by two, three,
four, and six whereas the ten-group is only divisible by two and five.
The data which seem to support the two conclusions stated are as follows. Even at
the present day there remain sufficient indications that the numbers from six to nine
were originally formed by some sort of compounding of five with the numbers from one to
four respectively — the essential characteristic of a quinary system. The Nungu shows
this least. But even here we see ata (= 5) with tarnba (—7). It is true that the termina-
tion -ba (=2), very common around the Niger-Benue confluence, seems to be lost here,
unless it emerges in the Mama word bari. We have also a similarity between anne (= 4)
and sane (=9).
In South Mada the words from six to nine have af- in common for their first syllable,
and four and nine are enye and afwunye respectively.
H. F. Mathews
Live stock is limited to the pagan types of small goats and sheep, and to chickens
and dogs.
All these tribes use the duodecimal system of counting, as do also a number of others
living to the north and northeast — i. e. along the bottom and top of the western escarp-
ment of the Bauchi Plateau. I have had no opportunity of investigating the geographical
limits of the system of duodecimal numeration. None of the tribes have any system of
writing. The various languages extend over very limited areas and shade off at the edges
into the neighboring ones. A native traveling twenty miles from his village would in most
cases have great difficulty in making himself understood. This appears to be due to two
causes: first, the languages, not having been reduced to writing, tend to alter rapidly; and
second, the mutual distrust and hostility between villages and tribes restrict intercourse
so much that the alterations are quite local, and the languages tend to diverge. Owing to
the primitive character of the people, and to the limited time at my disposal for such
researches, I have been unable to collect very large vocabularies, or to get sufficient data
to compare fully the various inflexions, particles, prefixes, and suffixes they employ, but I
have collected enough to show that the languages are very varied both in grammar and
vocabulary. I have also been able to compare the numerals in four of the languages,
namely, Nungu, South Mada, Mama, and Ninzam and have made the appended compara-
tive table. I have drawn certain conclusions from the data given thereby, and these
conclusions I will first state and then explain. My conclusions are: (1) originally the tribes
from which the present ones are descended used a quinary, and then a decimal system of
numeration, (2) that at a comparatively recent date some influences, which affected a large
area comprising many tribes, introduced words for eleven and twelve on which, with their
previous decimal system, were built the present duodecimal vocabularies. This introduc-
tion was not only original, but was a stroke of genius, for it produced a system which is far
more convenient than the decimal system, the twelve-group being divisible by two, three,
four, and six whereas the ten-group is only divisible by two and five.
The data which seem to support the two conclusions stated are as follows. Even at
the present day there remain sufficient indications that the numbers from six to nine
were originally formed by some sort of compounding of five with the numbers from one to
four respectively — the essential characteristic of a quinary system. The Nungu shows
this least. But even here we see ata (= 5) with tarnba (—7). It is true that the termina-
tion -ba (=2), very common around the Niger-Benue confluence, seems to be lost here,
unless it emerges in the Mama word bari. We have also a similarity between anne (= 4)
and sane (=9).
In South Mada the words from six to nine have af- in common for their first syllable,
and four and nine are enye and afwunye respectively.