Introduction unmarked word order in bantu languages is svo with the subject triggering obligatory agreement on the verb. With a supplement on the ethiopia languages by wolf leslau. During the twentieth century, several classifications of the bantu languages have. Most bantu and most non bantu nigercongo languages share the verb nucleus root extension final vowel, outlined in section 2.
The bantu languages are a large family of languages spoken by the bantu peoples throughout. I believe there is a relationship, as attested to by the shared roots of several words, but this relationship doesnt mean that words shared between bantu languages and nonbantu west african languages are due to influence of one upon the other, but just that, sharing a recent origin in the same place, they diverged from a common root. This book is the first comprehensive study of the sound system of ikalanga, a bantu language of the shona group, and its distribution in the phonology. London, etc oxford university press for the international african institute, 1966. A number of the differentia in the list were described as useful and this no means incorrect. Some bantu languages spoken in southwestern zambia and neighboring regions of botswana, namibia, and angola are characterized by the presence of click consonants, whereas their closest linguistic. For example, zulu and the other nguni languages are listed separately from each other, as are the shona and sothotswana languages. Such a hypothesis depended on the assumption that the historical links with west african languages were unimportant.
Most bantu languages have tones which serve to make lexical andor grammatical distinctions. Southern bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the free. All members of a given class share the same prefix. Palatalization in southern bantu languages presents a number of challenges to phonological theory. It is probably the origin of rap and has its own origin in the. The consequences of the contacts between bantu and non. Bosch university of south africa, southafrica abstract northern sotho and zulu are two south african bantu languages that make use of different. According to the most recent estimate grimes 2000 the world has 6,809 languages, of which 2,058, approximately 30%, are spoken in africa an additional 44 are described as extinct. Description i report the results of investigation of lexical changes in indigenous languages that aimed at examining how ethnic communities and their languages, namely cushitic iraqw, nilotic datooga, nyilamba bantu, isanzu bantu, sukuma bantu, and. Map of the major bantu languages shown in purple, with the non bantu southern bantoid languages indicated in violet northwestern corner the word bantu for the language families and its speakers is an artificial term based on the reconstructed protontu term for people or humans. Unfortunately, however, this is far from what is found when the attend made.
Bantu words in american english terms you should know for week 11 part 02 are. The phenomenon, in fact, is even more constrained and unproductive than in romance notable exceptions are attested in some bantu languages, e. Compounding and tonal nontransfer in bantu languages 19 in the chichewasam dialect, as shown in 21, we. The acquisition of bantu languages katherine demuth brown. The southern bantu languages, also known as bantu zone s, are a group of languages in the bantu language family.
As the source of bantu languages is generally argued to be in southwest adamawa, new data on bantu and related languages is important to the. Genetic perspectives on the origin of clicks in bantu. There was transformation of languages into new ones. The nonbantu languages of northeastern africa routledge.
New developments in the classification of bantu languages and. Pdf the consequences of the contacts between bantu and non. The bantu languages are spoken in a very large area, including most of africa from southern cameroon eastward to kenya and southward to the southernmost tip of the continent. Pdf compounding and tonal nontransfer in bantu languages. The linear ordering of tamneg markers in the bantu.
Protobantu nouns that are inflected to display grammatical relations other than the main form. This chapter does not intend to provide an overview of all aspects of the syntax of bantu languages for which see bearth 2003 and buell forthcoming, but instead aims to highlight current areas of interest and recent developments in the field of bantu syntactic research. The 2016 revision key findings and advance tables pdf. Irene tucker sil international 2001 contents on classifying bantu languages general referential classifications historical classifications appendix the bantu languages of africa the bantu languages of africanorthwestern area references on classifying bantu languages general. The bantu languages are listed in such a way that almost every language is placed under a unique subheading. I believe there is a relationship, as attested to by the shared roots of several words, but this relationship doesnt mean that words shared between bantu languages and non bantu west african languages are due to influence of one upon the other, but just that, sharing a recent origin in the same place, they diverged from a common root. A brief summary of the bantu acquisition literature by language is provided below. This was brought about due to bantu intermarrying with the non bantu peoples, whom they came across. There is no true genealogical classification of the narrow bantu languages.
The list of parameters and the specific languages we discuss, as well as the results we draw from this discussion, are preliminary because a comprehensive study of microvariation in bantu would. If we consider word stems in bantu languages, what. Bantu definition, a member of any of several peoples forming a linguistically and in some respects culturally interrelated family in central and southern africa. The bantu languages are a group of some 500 languages, primarily spoken in africa, that belong to the benuecongo branch of the nigercongo language. Bantu noun class systems in comparative and diachronic perspective scholars of bantu languages have long posited a common proto bantu pb source from which modernday bantu languages have evolved. Oxford university press for the international african institute handbook of african languages, 1966. The real difficulty lies in the fact that none of the different.
Pdf the consequences of the contacts between bantu and. This paper uses historicalcomparative approaches in combination with quantitative methods to analyse data from a survey of varieties of the bantu languages herero and kuvale spoken by ethnically. As seen, both in proto bantu pb and in most bantu languages which have these suffixes, the default suffix ordering is causativeapplicativereciprocalpassive, or carp. The area in which these languages are spoken stretches from dakar, senegal, at the. This chapter surveys the main phonological phenomena found in bantu languages. Nearly all tonal bantu languages are fundamentally twolevel languages with one tone per syllable, frequently augmented with downstep. There is also a morphological slot within the verb template for object marking, though this is optional in most constructions, depending on. Meeussen 1967 was particularly instrumental in reconstructing what is thought to be the noun class system of protobantu. As hal fleming once memorably said, i always find more cognates after a good lunch. Bantu languages are especially known for their often complex tone systems.
Palatalization and other nonlocal effects in southern bantu. Twelve bantu languages are spoken by more than five million people, including rundi, rwanda, shona, xhosa, and zulu. Introduction the inflectional morphology of the bantu verb has been the subject of many previous comparative and descriptive studies. Included are those languages that constitute at least 1% of the population and have at least 10% the number of speakers of the largest bantu language in the country.
The arrangement is primarily linguistic, in as much. Bantu languages of northaeastern africa anthrosource wiley. In the bantu language kikuyu, every tone shifts exactly one syllable to the right, domino fashion, so. Fundamental all languages protobantu nonlemma forms. This led to the dying down of some of the bantu languages, while others remained. Explain the case study on grass cutters vs gas cutters. As seen, both in protobantu pb and in most bantu languages which have these suffixes, the default suffix ordering is causativeapplicativereciprocalpassive, or carp. Modes of compounding in bantu, romance and chinese 207 several theoretical and empirical analyses, comparatively, nn compounding in bantu languages has been largely neglected. A survey report for the bantu languages by derek nurse cartographer. New developments in the classification of bantu languages and their.
It particularly highlights the importance of information structure for the analysis of morphosyntax in this language family. The consequences of the contacts between bantu and nonbantu languages around lake eyasi in northern tanzania amani lusekelo1a abstract in rural tanzania, recent major influences happen between kiswahili and english to ethnic languages rather than ethnic languages, which had been in contact for so long, influencing each other. Map of the major bantu languages shown in purple, with the nonbantu southern bantoid languages indicated in violet northwestern corner the word bantu for the language families and its speakers is an artificial term based on the reconstructed protontu term for people or humans. The vast majority, perhaps 97%, have distinctive tone. There is probably more linguistic variation in africa than in, for example, western europe but not than in other parts of the third world. Protobantu inflected forms of other lemmas, categorized by their part of speech category.
There was loss of culture due to cultural absorption. Combinations of nasal plus consonant are also frequently subject to various modifications. With these basics in place, we can move on to more specific issues in bantu syntax. Using both phonetic factors and typological evidence from other languages of the world, bantu as well as non bantu, the book provides a careful and elaborate study on different phonological processes such as high vowel frication spirantization. Articles on this topic in other wikimedia projects can be found at. Bantu language article about bantu language by the free.
A comparative study of the bantu and semibantu languages. Unlike canonical palatalization, the process generally affects labial consonants rather than coronals or dorsals. This chapter provides an overview of the common syntactic features as well as the syntactic microvariation found in the bantu languages. Using both phonetic factors and typological evidence from other languages of the world, bantu as well as nonbantu, the book provides a careful and elaborate study on different phonological processes such as high vowel frication spirantization.
We can update it by adding new languages, but should deter from recoding old languages. It applies in the absence of an obvious palatalizing trigger and it can apply non locally, affecting labials that are some distance from the palatalizing suffix. In favour of the tree model, bantu languages are thought to have spread and diversi. Bryan, with a supplement on the ethiopic languages by wolf leslau. In some languages, words are limited to a small set of fixed tone melodies, or tone melodies may mark certain morphological distinctions. Heacknowledges the striking morphological parallels even with geographically remote languages such as temne, but considers that the reduced numbers of cognates with bantu exclude them from consideration. East bantu, southeast it is particularly controversial whether bantu language history was treelike. Middle passage bantu languages slang black english africanamerican vernacular english play the dozens. Nguni may be duplicated several times for related languages. Department of economic and social affairs in 2015 world population prospects. An attempt at a full list of bantu languages with various conflations and a puzzlingly diverse nomenclature can be found in the bantu languages of africa, 1959. The southern bantu languages, however, are also a valid linguistic group.
Bantu languages, or narrow bantu languages, are a family of 522 nigercongo languages in subsaharan africa. Bantu actional types do not map neatly onto commonly accepted categorizations of actionality, although these are frequently assumed to be. Second, distinct from the template, bantu languages sometimes show a tendency for specific suffixes to be ordered according to semantic compositionality, or scope. Each word must end in a vowel though in some modern dialects in eastern equatorial, west and south africa the terminal vowel may be elided in rapid pronunciation, or be. It applies in the absence of an obvious palatalizing trigger and it can apply nonlocally, affecting labials that are some distance from the palatalizing suffix. Most bantu and most nonbantu nigercongo languages share the verb nucleus root extension final vowel. Nigercongo languages, a family of languages of africa, which in terms of the number of languages spoken, their geographic extent, and the number of speakers is by far the largest language family in africa. Guthries divisions of the bantu languages were based on geography, not on language characteristics. Bantu words in american english montclair state university. Bantu noun class systems in comparative and diachronic perspective scholars of bantu languages have long posited a common protobantu pb source from which modernday bantu languages have evolved.
Linguistic ties between ancient egyptian and bantu x not generally the case in the ancient egyptian language. Bantu languages, group of african languages forming a subdivision of the benueniger division of the nigercongo branch of the nigerkordofanian language family see african languages african languages, geographic rather than linguistic classification of languages spoken on the african continent. New developments in the classification of bantu languages. Thus, a comparison of the acquisition of bantu languages offers an extremely rich area for research, providing insights not only into how language is learned, but also into the possible impact that language learning may exert on processes of historical change. Kulab and nhlanhla thwalac a school of oriental and african studies, b university of leiden and school of oriental and african studies, c university of the witwatersrand and school of oriental and african studies abstract bantu languages are fairly uniform in terms of broad typological parameters. Most language subheadings include only a single language, though the subheading itself e. The consequences of the contacts between bantu and nonbantu. Morphologythe most distinctive morphological feature of bantu languages is the grouping of nouns in different classes, marked by a prefix. Southern bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the. Nov 30, 2010 bantu languages vs non bantu languages. Originally published in 1956, this volume presents a survey of the nonbantu languages in the area extending south of the sahara from lake chad to the indian ocean, together withj those of south africa.
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