That is, nearly a third of all africans speak a bantu language as their native. Nilosaharan languages, a group of languages that form one of the four language stocks or families on the african continent, the others being afroasiatic, khoisan, and nigercongo. However, languages vary with respect to what morphological processes are available, how frequently they are used, and what types of information can be encoded in these processes. Bringing together linguistic and genetic evidence to test the bantu expansion. The bantu languages are a large family of languages spoken by the bantu peoples throughout. Despite the large number of languages and great geographic expanse that they cover, the most noteworthy properties concerning bantu syllable structure, consonantvowel inventories, and phonological. In other words, the differences are quite large and the separation must have been a long time ago with almost. The nilosaharan languages are presumed to be descended from a common ancestral language and, therefore, to be genetically related. The homogeneity of this family is so striking, as compared with the inexplicable confusion of tongues which reigns in africa north of the bantu borderland, that the close relationships of these dialects have perhaps been a little exaggerated by. Guthries divisions of the bantu languages were based on geography, not on language characteristics. Bantu languages, lexical comparison, morphosyntactic comparison, automated cognate judgement, subgrouping. The comparison is based on 27 morphophonological and morphosyntactic parameters, supplemented by a lexicon of 500 items. Sesotho sa leboa english online northern sotho english dictionary pukuntsu ya sesotho sa leboa seisimane. The migration of the proto bantu language group started around 3000 years ago.
It offers a strategy for orthography development, combined with a list of resources for bantu linguistic information and the condensed advice of a coterie of respected bantu linguistic experts. Scholars of bantu languages have long posited a common proto bantu pb source from which modernday bantu languages have evolved. Bantu languages root, prefix, prefixes, vowel and language. The bantu expansion is the name for a postulated millennialong series of migrations of speakers of the original proto bantu language group. Within this perspective, bantu cm no longer be defined by. The balkan sprachbund comprises albanian, romanian, the south slavic languages of the southern balkans bulgarian, macedonian and to a lesser degree serbocroatian, greek, balkan turkish, and romani. In most africian cultures, including bantu cultures veneration of the dead plays a prominient role. This article discusses lexical and grammatical comparison and subgrouping in a set of closely related bantu language varieties in the morogoro region, tanzania 1. The southern bantu languages, also known as bantu zone s, are a group of languages in the bantu language family. 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.
Capital letters correspond to language groups mentioned below. 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 dropped, or absorbed in the terminal consonant, generally a nasal. The linguistic features have little genetic validity, which was as he. Revising the bantu tree american museum of natural history. Researchers in bantu languages have identified syntagmatic features that occur in most bantu languages, which include nominal classes and concords. New developments in the classification of bantu languages. This can be done more effectively by applying a feature mechanism which constructs strings of characters i. The interaction with another common bantu sound change, i. Southern bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the. In this lecture, well look at differences in morphology among a variety of languages and learn to categorize these languages based on their morphological. Although tanda is a common verb in zulu, it has not in zulu all these variations, and in some other language where it may by chance exhibit all the variations its own form is changed to londa or randa. Bantu words in american english terms you should know for week 11 part 02 are. The southern bantu languages, however, are also a valid linguistic group the southern bantu languages are a group of languages in.
Grammatical and lexical comparison of the greater ruvu. Challenges to the promotion of indidegous languages in sou. The greater ruvu bantu language varieties include kagulu g12, zigua g31, kwere g32, zalamo g33, nguu g34, luguru g35, kami g36 and kutu g37. Relative clause formation in the bantu languages of south africa jochen zeller linguistics programme, faculty of human sciences, university of kwazulunatal. Bantu words in american english montclair state university. One of the bestknown features of the bantu languages is their noun class system. 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 by torrend, j. The bantu languages are a group of some 500 languages, primarily spoken in africa, that belong to the benuecongo branch of the nigercongo language. There is no mistaking a bantu language, which perhaps is what renders the study of this group so interesting and encouraging. Bantu languages have a number of features that are of interest to l2. Bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the free.
Over 500 languages are classified in this family, including swahili, xhosa, and zulu. Second language acquisition of bantu languages jstor. Introduction as in other parts of the grammar, bantu segmental phonology can be characterized as a theme and variations. Twelve bantu languages are spoken by more than five million people, including rundi, rwanda, shona, xhosa, and zulu. A note on bantu extensions and syntactic word formation jochen zeller, university of kwazulunatal, durban. The primary evidence for this expansion has been linguistic, namely that the languages spoken in subequatorial africa are remarkably similar to each other. The bantu orthography manual is a resource for developing writing systems among the bantu subgroup of nigercongo languages. Middle passage bantu languages slang black english africanamerican vernacular english play the dozens. Grammatical gender as it features in dp syntax is primarily a categorizing fea ture that. A comparative grammar of the south african bantu languages. Congobrazzaville national languages online dictionary, bantu web site. 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.
Talking about the bantu language, there are around 650 languages. The bantu languages are a large family of languages spoken primarily in the southern part of africa. Proceedings of the royal society of biological sciences 279. The acquisition of bantu languages katherine demuth brown. The definition of the bantu cornes from a variety of sources, most. By theend of thecourse you willbe able to think of a lot of other syntactic and morphological commonalities on your own. Relative clause formation in the bantu languages of south. 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. In the literature on southern bantu languages, a distinction is sometimes drawn between so. The term bantu people is used to describe the roughly 60 million africans who speak languages in the bantu language family.
Apparently in the parent language this particle had already these alternative forms, which resemble those in some west african negro languages. The comparison is based on 27 morphophonological and. The bantu migration was one of the largest movements of people in africas history. Based on shared characteristics and on territorial contiguity, guthrie grouped the bantu languages into. This spiritual existence is usually not considered enternal. Today over 60 million people in central and southern africa speak bantu based languages and share some part of bantu culture. In the first section, i will start out by discussing some social and cultural aspects of swahili, followed by the morphological characteristics of.
A note on bantu extensions and syntactic word formation. Morphosyntax of swahili introduction a meaningful analysis of child language is impossible without a clear understanding of the adult language. In bantu languages, gender features determine noun class, and we see that derived nominals like. The classification of the bantu languages malcolm guthrie, international institute of african languages and cultures international african institute, 1948 bantu languages 91 pages. All nouns are assigned to a noun class, where the number of noun classes varies between 12 and 20. The linear ordering of tamneg markers in the bantu. All but one of these are indoeuropean languages but from very divergent branches, and turkish is a turkic language. A survey report for the bantu languages sil international. Bantu languages while most linguists agree that the bantu languages are related to the west african language group, there is a great deal of debate about how closely they are related and about when the bantu languages separated. Bantu languages are spoken largely east and south of the present day country of cameroon.
Bantu articles on this topic in other wikimedia projects can be found at. The bantu languages, from the nigercongo language family, blend with arabic, creating a new language called swahili which become a widely spoken language among the peoples of east africa. A common characteristic of bantu languages is that they use words such as muntu or mutu for human being or. Njila, the latest common ancestor language of the southwestbantu. Most languages employ initial, medial as well as final markers, though individual languages can favour one or the other type. Mwenyi k352 yukawa 1987b, use a high amount of initial markers, while languages of the northwest and central north, e. The homogeneity of this family is so striking, as compared with the inexplicable confusion of tongues which reigns in africa north of the bantu borderland, that the close relationships of these dialects. The scope of the series is the major modern languages of asia and africa.
Relative clause formation in the bantu languages of south africa article pdf available in southern african linguistics and applied language studies 2212. Meeussen 1967 was particularly instrumental in reconstructing what is thought to be the noun class system of proto bantu see also guthrie 196771 and welmers 1973. The bantu languages or narrow bantu languages are a branch of the nigercongo languages. The population who lives in sub saharan african speaks this language. It is probably the origin of rap and has its own origin in the. Each volume in the language handbook series is intended to provide an outline of the salient features of a particular language and a summary of the language situation and language problems of the country or area in which it is spoken. The 2016 revision key findings and advance tables pdf. English to xhosa translation page a website that translated words and phrases to and from xhosa by martha r. Given that there are approximately 400 of these closely related languages, it should come as no surprise that these people are incredibly diverse, and that societies and governments among bantus can be radically different. The pronouns in bantu are in most cases traceable to some such general forms as these.