Excerpt from An Elementary Introduction to the Taita Language, Eastern Equatorial Africa T the locality in which this language is spoken is a mountainous district called Taita, about one hundred and twenty miles w.n.w. From Mombasa, East Africa. It consists of three mountains, which rise abruptly out of the plain to a height of 5000 to 7000 feet above the sea, viz. Teta or Dabida, Sagalla, and Kasigau, and is inhabited by a wild robber tribe numbering about who speak a number of different dialects. The origin of this tribe is rather interesting, and may go a good way to account for these different forms of speech. Tradition says they came from the surrounding countries, Mangea, Usambara, Pare, Ugweno, and Chaga; and I would suggest that the emigrants were a few turbulent families, who were dissatisfied with their own country, and that their love for plunder led them to seek new homes where they could carry out their pernicious inclinations without let or hindrance. This theory will help to account for the fact of their having neither chief nor head, the only form of government being that of elders, who really have no authority whatever, each village having its own set of elders. That these dialects have existed side by side for many years is very apparent, and it seems likely they will continue to do so, as long as the respective peoples exist, if one may judge from their great antipathy against using each other's dialects. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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