ABSTRACT
The area covered by this work is one that has long been recognized as presenting many problems from the point of view of Bantu linguistic studies. In my Classification of the Bantu Languages it was pointed out that the languages of Zones A and B were those about which there was least reliable information. There had been a number of scattered studies of some of the languages, but most of these either were written during the last century or were confined to one or two important languages. A certain amount had been written on the distribution of individual tribes and groups of tribes by German and French writers. Most notable among these is G. Tessmann, whose ethnic map Of Cameroun has long been the main authority for this area. G. Bruel in his work on L’Afrique Equatoriale Française gave a map and some information on the tribes of Gabon, Moyen Congo, and Oubangui-Chari, but this was entirely ethnographic and his linguistic statements were very fragmentary and scarcely authoritative.
