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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 August 2012
page 15 note 1 The German variety is more strongly aspirated than the English one, and the French has no aspiration at all.
page 16 note 1 Try a word like ‘hamper’: divide it ‘ha-mper’, then say the second syllable beginning with the m.
page 16 note 2 Ibo has four back vowels (μ, θ, ο, ɔ): μ and θ are difficult to distinguish, but the distinction is essential for meaning. Similarly, Twi and Fante have a nine-vowel system which is not easy, and in the Sotho-Chuana group of languages there are two essential varieties of close e and close o respectively. In Nuer and Dinka and other Eastern Sudanic languages, further complications in the vowel systems are found, which need not be elaborated here.
page 17 note 1 The English a in a final position as in ‘sofa’ is the neutral vowel ә and very different from the a in ‘man’ or ‘father’.
page 18 note 1 In some African languages, a pause can be and frequently is made after a relative pronoun and certain conjunctions.
page 19 note 1 This negative method of testing the teacher's skill can, of course, be applied to other parts of language study, viz. sounds, construction, idiom.
page 21 note 1 Not in Yoruba, however.
page 21 note 2 In most European languages tone is bound up with stress and we find it difficult to separate these two elements. In the present writer's experience, it is better to concentrate on tone and try to forget about stress, at any rate in most West African languages.
page 21 note 3 We find this somewhat difficult to realize, partly because the pitch is usually not recorded in the written form of the word and partly because this element does not play such an important part in our own language.
page 22 note 1 The tone on which a word is pronounced in isolation has been given various names—etymological, lexical, inherent tone.
page 22 note 2 The present writer makes successful use of the following system and finds that students respond to it readily. It has one advantage over other systems of showing visually the relation of the pitch of every syllable and of giving the ‘outline’ of the ‘tune’. The relative pitch of the syllables of single words or short phrases is shown by short lines (or dots) in brackets after the word or phrase:
When rising or falling tones are to be marked, they are shown by sloping lines such as 
(fall from high to low), 
(fall from mid to low), 
(a short fall from high to mid), 
(a short rise from low to mid). In longer sentences and connected texts, the outline of the tune is shown above the line of the text, each syllable having its mark.
page 23 note 1 See, however, an article by the present writer on ‘Grammar and Tone in West African Languages’, published in the Proceedings of the Philological Society, July 1936Google Scholar . The investigation of these tonal changes is work for the trained tonal specialist. It should be noted that the native speaker is rarely aware of the changes he makes in the tones of individual words, even if he knows that tone is an element of his language. Intelligent and trained Africans with whom the writer has worked have shown considerable surprise at the changes they make when these have been pointed out to them.
page 24 note 1 The intonation of English, French, German, and Russian has been analysed fully, and the student whose mother tongue is one of these languages should make himself aware of his own intonations, which will serve as a basis of comparison for the new language.
page 25 note 1 Constance Simmins, Psychology of Foreign Language Teaching. Summary.
page 26 note 1 Aronstein, Methodik des neusprachlichen Unterrkhts. Summary.
page 26 note 2 Jespersen, The Philosophy of Grammar.
page 27 note 1 Malinowski, ‘The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages’, Supplement to The Meaning of Meaning, by Ogden and Richards.
page 27 note 2 ‘It must be remembered that insistence on supposed similarities of structure by Indo-European grammarians has been a chief hindrance to ethnologists in their study of primitive speech, that most vitally important branch of their subject.’(Ogden and Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, Appendix A, on Grammar.)
page 27 note 3 Students of Bantu languages are referred to two articles by Mrs. E. O. Ashton i n the Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, London: ‘The “Idea” approach to Swahili’ (B.S.O.S., vol. vii, pt. 4) and ‘The Structure of a Bantu Language’ (B.S.O.S., vol. viii, pt. 4). In these studies the writer has abandoned the traditional view of Swahili grammar, and shows what the fundamental idea which underlies each formative particle is and the function of these particles in all their contexts.
page 28 note 1 In the Eastern Sudanic languages a form which is usually translated as a perfect and explained as an idiomatic use of this tense actually is used of a kind of emphatic present, so that what appears to be ‘I have gone’ really is ‘I am on the point of going’, ‘I am in a hurry to go’: the going is so near as to be practically past. See also Malinowski (op. cit.), where he learnt by sad experience that what he had taken as ‘they have come’ meant ‘they have already been moving hither’: a double difficulty here of meaning and of time sequence.
page 31 note 1 Cummings, op. cit., p. 22.
page 33 note 1 Malinowski, op. cit.
page 33 note 2 This sentence was: ‘He produced a faked tiger.’
page 33 note 3 This example illustrates the care with which verb paradigms should be used.