The present number of Africa is devoted to linguistic questions and deals with a number of tasks with which the Institute is concerned. The notes on the results achieved by the publication of the Short Guide to the Recording of African Languages bear on the survey and classification of African languages, and are related to the general report published in the January number of Africa, and at the same time to Dr. Lukas's article on the situation in the area lying between the Nile and Lake Chad. Dr. Lukas's contribution is the first of a series of articles in which it is intended to cover the whole of Negro Africa and to show in detail the present condition of linguistic research of the area dealt with in each article, the existing gaps in our knowledge, and the work to be undertaken in the near future; the articles will also help to classify the languages spoken in each area.

L'auteur a récemment terminé une mission linguistique (avril-nov. 1937) chez les Uálúvà du Katanga et chez les Bálúbà et Bέ·ná Lúlúvà du Kasai (Congo Belge). Le but de cette mission était avant tout de rechercher l'existence des tons musicaux dans la langue luba, d'en déterminer la valeur sémantique et grammaticale, de définir l'influence réciproque des tons syllabiques, pour reconstruire tout le système tonologique du luba.

The anthropologist is in general mainly concerned with peoples who have no means of writing. He has therefore paid little if any attention to an extensive field for research which may be said to lie between folk-lore and literature. It is a field which provides him with written material in poetry and prose existing among peoples who, although they are commonly regarded as illiterate, include in their society a group or social class which has acquired some means of writing. In postulating the existence of a field between folk-lore and literature we have to consider what is commonly understood by those terms and try to determine what are the essential differences between the cultural elements which they describe.

The future of the Bantu languages in South Africa is a question often discussed both by Europeans interested in them and by thinking Natives who use them. The ideas and views expressed on this question are extremely varied, for the subject has its economic and political aspects as well as its natural and cultural aspects, and to-day there is a tendency, particularly among the educated and semi-educated Natives, to stress the economic and political at the expense of the other aspects.

This short sketch of Wolof (or Jolof) is based upon an examination of the speech of John C. Faye and Elliman Bah, both of Bathurst, Gambia, and on work with four or five Wolof speakers from French territories at the Paris Exhibition in 1937. A comparison of the two types from a phonetic point of view is interesting.

In the vast countries which stretch between Kordofan and the Bahr el Ghazal Province in the east, Tripolis in the north, Lake Chad and the north-western frontier of the Cameroons in the west, and a line in the south which is formed by the southern border of the colony Ubangui-Chari, linguistic research work is still only in its beginnings. The languages spoken in the above regions which comprise the highlands of Tibesti, Borku, Enedi, and the old kingdoms of Darfor, Dar Banda, Wadai, Bagirmi, Bornu, Adamawa, and their neighbouring countries, are still to-day the least known of all the languages of Africa. This part of Central Africa lies far from the animated coastal areas and was occupied by European Powers only in a comparatively recent period. But the study of languages of newly occupied countries is not the first object of a Native Administration, especially where Arabic is a first means of communication; and Arabic plays an important role indeed in some parts at least of Central Africa. Besides the use for purposes of administration, linguistic research work is linked to two undertakings: the missions and native education. Missionary work is especially important in pagan countries, but may have little or no influence in a large part of Muhammadan Central Africa.

In 1933 a Short Guide to the Recording of African Languages was published as a Supplement to Africa in response to many requests for a publication of the kind. It later appeared as Memorandum XI in the series published by the Institute in connexion with the Journal. The Guide was intended as a first step towards the systematic recording of African languages, and in particular of those about which little or nothing is known. It has been widely used in Africa, both for practical purposes and for the scientific studies of research workers. A number of people have sent to the Institute material collected in this way and a list of the languages so recorded is given here.