Jul 07, 20 in this study, we have used language phylogenies in conjunction with the explicit mapping of ancestral locations to make inferences about the specific route taken during the dispersal of bantu languages. 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. Bantu characteristicsvillage life flashcards quizlet. Bantu languages are spoken largely east and south of the present day country of cameroon. 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. Bantu language crossword clue answer crossword heaven. One such phenomenon is vowel harmony, where suffixes typically alternate in height depending on the preceding vowel. Relative clause formation in the bantu languages of south africa jochen zeller linguistics programme, faculty of human sciences, university of kwazulunatal, king george v avenue, glenwood, durban 4041, south africa email. Cultural phylogeography of the bantu languages of sub. Grammatical and lexical comparison of the greater ruvu bantu languages malin petzell university of gothenburg, sweden harald hammarstrom max planck institute for psycholinguistics, the netherlands abstract this article discusses lexical and grammatical comparison and subgrouping in a set of. If not a few bantu languages, the verb used in a negative sense changes its terminal a to i. Southern bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the free. The analysis of prefixlike elements such as tswana s31 from.
The linear ordering of tamneg markers in the bantu languages. Over 500 languages are classified in this family, including swahili, xhosa, and zulu. Most bantu languages have tones which serve to make lexical andor grammatical distinctions. Introduction verb stems in bantu languages may include a number of derivational suffixes called extensions that express various functions, such as causative, applicative, reciprocal or passive. Files are available under licenses specified on their description page. All nouns are assigned to a noun class, where the number of noun classes varies between 12 and 20. Most bantu languages have typologically unremarkable consonant inventories, typically. There is disagreement about the routes taken by populations speaking bantu languages as they expanded to cover much of subsaharan africa. The migration of the proto bantu language group started around 3000 years ago. Middle passage bantu languages slang black english africanamerican vernacular english play the dozens. Talking about the bantu language, there are around 650 languages. 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. Bantu words in american english terms you should know for week 11 part 02 are.
Cultural phylogeography of the bantu languages of subsaharan. This chapter provides an overview of the common syntactic features as well as the syntactic. New developments in the classification of bantu languages and. They then combine many of these to form 26 intermediate groupings of which about half are controversial.
The nguni languages are unique among bantu languages in that they have imploded clicking phonemes. In 2 i address two leftright asymmetries, one morphological, one phonological. The results clearly support the pathway through the rainforest scenario for the expansion of bantu through much of subsaharan africa. Directional asymmetries in the morphology and phonology of. A survey report for the bantu languages by derek nurse cartographer. However, the fact that bantu languages are more than five hundred 500 in number means a great fraction is still unaccounted for, and there is evidence that runyakitara is not yet participating in the literature available. Grammatical and lexical comparison of the greater ruvu. The pronouns in bantu are in most cases traceable to some such general forms as these. A note on bantu extensions and syntactic word formation.
Bantu, syntax, bantu languages, morphology, information structure, word order. Nguni languages of southern africa, which include zulu and xhosa, are believed to have borrowed their clicks from khoisan languages. The somali bantu lutheran family services rocky mountains. The subjunctive is very frequently formed by changing the terminal a. To these sixteen prefixes, the use of which is practically common to all members of the family, might perhaps be added no.
In favour of the tree model, bantu languages are thought to have spread and diversi. The bantu languages of africa the bantu languages of africanorthwestern area references on classifying bantu languages general according to the most recent estimate grimes 2000 the world has 6,809 languages, of which. The vast majority of african languages are tonal, and perhaps most also have vowel harmony especially the type known as atr harmony. The linear ordering of tamneg markers in the bantu. Bantu language article about bantu language by the free. 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. A comparative grammar of the south african bantu languages. The southern bantu languages, however, are also a valid linguistic group. The list is first summarized, with links to articles on accepted groups of bantu languages bold decade headings.
Meeussen 1967 was particularly instrumental in reconstructing what is thought to be the noun class system of protobantu. Introduction studies of the noun in bantu languages have traditionally concentrated on the morphology of the noun with its elaborate class system and the underlying semantic strands. 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. Here, we build phylogenetic trees of bantu languages and map them onto geographical space in order to assess the likely pathway of expansion and test between dispersal scenarios. Within this perspective, bantu cm no longer be defined by. Fsm2 and the morphological analysis of bantu nouns first.
Apparently in the parent language this particle had already these alternative forms, which resemble those in some west african negro languages. The southern bantu languages, also known as bantu zone s, are a group of languages in the bantu language family. Morphologythe most distinctive morphological feature of bantu languages is the grouping of nouns in different classes, marked by a prefix. 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. Relative clause formation in the bantu languages of south. Bantu languages form a family in the sens that they share features in common. The principal writers are daniel van lehman and omar eno. 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. There are about 520 languages in the bantu family, 670 languages in the southern bantoid branch which includes bantu, and 1,532 in nigercongo. New developments in the classification of bantu languages. The bantu language with the largest number of speakers is swahili.
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. All structured data from the file and property namespaces is available under the creative commons cc0 license. Since guthries time a zone j made of languages formerly classified in groups d and e has been set up as another possible genealogical group bordering the great lakes. Southern bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the. Linguistics who can now see how their language functions, how their language. The acquisition of bantu languages katherine demuth brown. West mrican languages exhibited nounclass features analogous to those classified. Mar 18, 2020 the bantu languages are a large family of languages spoken primarily in the southern part of africa. Request pdf on jan 1, 2003, ian maddieson and others published the sounds of the bantu languages find, read and cite all the research you need on researchgate. Meeussen 1967 was particularly instrumental in reconstructing what is thought to be the noun class system of proto bantu. Introduction the inflectional morphology of the bantu verb has been the subject of many previous comparative and descriptive studies.
Introduction studies of the noun in bantu languages have traditionally concentrated on the morphology of the noun with its elaborate class. The somali bantu iii preface this booklet is a basic introduction to the people, history, and cultures of the somali bantu. Some languages have limited syllabic nasals and coda syllable. A comparative grammar of the south african bantu languages comprising those of zanzibar, mozambique, the zambesi, kafirland, benguela, angola, the congo, the ogowe, the cameroons, the lake region, etc. One of the bestknown features of the bantu languages is their noun class. It was pointed out as early as 1886 that a wide range of. This chapter surveys the main phonological phenomena found in bantu languages. All members of a given class share the same prefix. Bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For more info on how wikipedia got its name, click here.
It is probably the origin of rap and has its own origin in the. An estimated 2,5003,000 years ago bc to 500 bc, although other sources put the start of the bantu expansion closer to 3000 bc, 19 speakers of the proto bantu language began a series of. View bantu linguistics research papers on academia. They moved eastward to the area between central africa and west africa. Guthries divisions of the bantu languages were based on geography, not on language characteristics. A comparative study of the bantu and semibantu languages by johnston, harry hamilton, sir, 18581927.
Grammatical and lexical comparison of the greater ruvu bantu. A note on bantu extensions and syntactic word formation jochen zeller, university of kwazulunatal, durban. The southern bantu languages are a large group of bantu languages, largely validated in janson 199192. Guthrie classification of bantu languages wikipedia. The following propositions may be laid down to define the special or peculiar features of the bantu languages. The bantu languages are a large family of languages spoken primarily in the southern part of africa. The bantu languages descend from a common proto bantu language, which is believed to have been spoken in what is now cameroon in central africa. Hawaiian aloha hula ukulele wiki as in a wiki or wikipedia wiki means fast in hawaiian. Bantu language is a crossword puzzle clue that we have spotted over 20 times. Bantu words in american english montclair state university. It is designed primarily for service providers and others assisting somali bantu refugees in their new communities in the united states. Publication date 19191922 topics bantu languages publisher oxford, clarendon press.
Swati kunene 1979 studied the acquisition of swati nominal morphology, focusing on noun class prefixes and nominal agreement possessives and demonstratives. Miriti, school of computing and informatics, university of nairobi, p. The structure of the bantu noun phrase researchgate. East bantu, southeast it is particularly controversial whether bantu language history was treelike.
A brief summary of the bantu acquisition literature by language is provided below. This article discusses verbal relative clauses in the bantu languages spoken. They include all of the major bantu languages of south africa, botswana, lesotho, swaziland, and mozambique, with outliers such as lozi in zambia and namibia, and ngoni in. See also khoisan languages, which contains several audio clips. In the vast majority of the bantu dialects at the present day. Bantu languages use prefixes and the harmonic concord. Students of bantu languages have a great deal of material to work with, since the family is so large and speakers are widely scattered across africa. 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. Pdf study of bantu languages morphology of lingala. They are nearly synonymous with guthries bantu zone s, apart from the exclusion of shona and the inclusion of makhuwa. Bantu languages root, prefix, prefixes, vowel and language. Relative clause formation in the bantu languages of south africa. Combinations of nasal plus consonant are also frequently subject to various modifications.
The migration of the protobantu language group started around 3000 years ago. A comparative study of the bantu and semibantu languages. Researchers in bantu languages have identified syntagmatic features that occur in most bantu languages, which include nominal classes and concords. In addition, fsm2 as a scripting language has not yet been applied or implemented to any of the bantu languages. New developments in the classification of bantu languages and their. Bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the free. The bantu migrations agriculture, ironworking technology spread throughout africa because of migration number of groups in africa spoke related languages originated from language called protobantu developed in what is now cameroon, nigeria over time more than 2,000 bantu languages developed. The bantu languages or narrow bantu languages are a branch of the nigercongo languages. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Twelve bantu languages are spoken by more than five million people, including rundi, rwanda, shona, xhosa, and zulu.
386 164 403 195 1445 965 63 1576 38 403 1312 395 1141 115 190 857 546 1263 368 601 1107 1571 1130 1183 1146 1561 1373 1105 355 115 892 599 923 1449 457 1059 1199 717 941 1362 1188 493 1259 398 170