The set of Zulu demonstratives which express the three distances of near, farther, farthest, are very complex, but a remark as to their use shows how thoroughly symbolic sound enters into their nature. The Zulus not only say nansi, 'here is,' nanso, 'there is,' nansiya, 'there is in the distance,' but they even express the greatness of this distance by the emphasis and prolongation of the ya. If we could discern a similar gradation of the vowels to express a corresponding gradation of distance throughout our list, the whole matter would be easier to explain; but it is not so, the i-words for instance, are sometimes nearer and sometimes farther off than the a-words. We can only judge that, as even children can see that a scale of vowels makes a most expressive scale of distances, many pronouns and adverbs in use in the world have probably taken their shape under the influence of this simple device, and thus there have arisen sets of what we may call contrasted or 'differential' words.
How the differencing of words by change of vowels may be used to distinguish between the sexes, is well put in a remark of Professor Max Müller's: 'The distinction of gender ... is sometimes expressed in such a manner that we can only explain it by ascribing an expressive power to the more or less obscure sound of vowels. Ukko, in Finnic, is an old man; akka, an old woman. ... In Mandshu chacha is mas. ... cheche, femina. Again, ama, in Mandshu, is father; eme, mother; amcha, father-in-law, emche, mother-in-law.'[1] The Coretú language of Brazil has another curiously contrasted pair of words tsáackö, 'father,' tsaacko 'mother,' while the Carib has baba for father, and bibi for mother, and the Ibu of Africa has nna for father and nne for mother. This contrivance of distinguishing the male from the female by a difference of vowels is however but a small part of the process of formation which can be traced among such words as those for father and mother. Their consideration leads into
- ↑ Max Müller, l.c.
