ABSTRACT
Munzinger remarks with justice that he cannot understand the phrase, “a Negro Language,” and that, though it may be a convenient, it is not a logical, method to lump together under one name a lot of people of unknown Ethnological and Linguistic types. The logic of facts must triumph. We have to deal with mighty Phenomena, or a multiplicity of Phenomena. No existing name can be produced more suitable, and I protest against the coining at this period of our knowledge of any new name. Nothing was more illogical than the use of the word “Turanian” in Asia a quarter of a Century ago : it has dropped out of use now, or been restricted to a limited significance : but it had its use, until a more perfect knowledge enabled names of new Families, and Groups, to be struck out. So will it be with the Negro Group. Twenty-five years hence it will give way to some more accurate and Scientific Terminology, as the great mass of Languages, which I now pass under Review, become more understood, and scores of Languages now unknown fall into their proper places.
