All nouns are assigned to a noun class, where the number of noun classes varies between 12 and 20. Bantu languages, iii methods of classification and iv the bantu languages classified. Mwenyi k352 yukawa 1987b, use a high amount of initial. The island nation of madagascar is excluded because of its distinct language and cultural heritage.
Several inferences from linguistics, archaeology, and physical anthropology support this correlation. In africa today there are more than 400 bantu languages all linked. Apparently in the parent language this particle had already these alternative forms, which resemble those in some west african negro languages. Nouns generate grammatical agreement by means of class prefixes. The other language, northern sotho sesotho sa leboa, also known as sepedi after its standardized dialect is a southern bantu language and is one of the eleven official languages of the republic of south africa. A note on bantu extensions and syntactic word formation. Southern africa, southernmost region of the african continent, comprising the countries of angola, botswana, lesotho, malawi, mozambique, namibia, south africa, swaziland, zambia, and zimbabwe.
Aug 02, 2015 the timne and cognate languages of sierra leone and the north guinea coast use pronominal prefixes and a system of concord, the employment of the latter being precisely similar to the same practice in the bantu languages. Bantu is usually known more as a language than an ethnic group. One of the weak points e classification is group 30, where the available data are altogether inadequate. The 250 or so narrow bantu languages are conventionally divided up into geographic zones first proposed by malcolm guthrie 19671971. With the exception of their spread to indian ocean islands such as the comores and zanzibar, they are restricted to tropical and subtropical continental southern, central, and eastern africa. Bantu words in american english montclair state university. The west bantu languages were paraphyletic, that is, they did not share a unique common ancestor. The largest group within the west bantu languages includes zones c and h, bira d32 and kumu d37. To appear in the oxford guide to the bantu languages 1. New developments in the classification of bantu languages and. Written by an international team of experts, this comprehensive volume presents grammatical analyses of individual bantu languages, comparative studies of their main phonetic, phonological and grammatical characteristics and overview chapters on their history and classification. The still older types of these prefixes met with in one or two languages, and deduced generally by the other forms of the particle used in. 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. The bantu languages are a large family of languages spoken by the bantu peoples throughout.
Besides a clear description of digo morphology and syntax, with multiple illustrative examples, this grammar includes several glossed texts, a 1700item wordlist, and a list of over 100 botanical names. A comparative study of the bantu and semibantu languages. New developments in the classification of bantu languages. The most prominent grammatical characteristic of bantu languages is the extensive use of affixes see sotho grammar and ganda noun classes for detailed discussions of these affixes. Bantu languages root, prefix, prefixes, vowel and language. The linear ordering of tamneg markers in the bantu. To appear in the oxford guide to the bantu languages. From a comparative perspective, it is in fact the medial.
Languages, classification of article about languages. Bantu language speakers and their languages share similarities in structure, grammar, and key words. These languages have some prosodic features different from english, not widely discussed in the literature. Download pdf the bantu languages of africa free online. Download pdf the classification of the bantu languages.
Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Morphological typology of the 19th century the implicit premise of the first language typology is that morphology, especially inflection, forms the core of the language system. Languages, classification of 1 the genetic classification of languages is based on relationshipthat is, common origin. Most languages employ initial, medial as well as final markers, though individual languages can favour one or the other type. A comparative study of the bantu and semibantu languages by johnston, harry hamilton, sir, 18581927. The impact of bantu languages on english pronunciation paulo hadi e. The word bantu which means people in many bantu languages refers to a group of about 500 african languages and to their speakers, today numbering about 90 million people. All nouns are assigned to a noun class, where the number of noun classes. The bantu languages are a group of some 500 languages, primarily spoken in africa, that belong to the benuecongo branch of the nigercongo language. Mwenyi k352 yukawa 1987b, use a high amount of initial markers, while languages of the northwest and central north, e. Bantu characteristicsvillage life flashcards quizlet.
The bantu languages of africa download the bantu languages of africa ebook pdf or read online books in pdf, epub, and mobi format. Middle passage bantu languages slang black english africanamerican vernacular english play the dozens. The bantu migration was one of the largest movements of people in africas history. Download pdf the classification of the bantu languages free. The widespread migration of the bantu peoples is amazing and breathtaking. West bantu includes zones h, j, k, l, r, parts of d and usually m. One of the bestknown features of the bantu languages is their noun class system. Each noun belongs to a class, and each language may have several numbered classes, somewhat like grammatical gender in european languages. The population who lives in sub saharan african speaks this language. It shows that these differences, the result of morphological loss during historical change, can best be understood synchronically within a theory of partial information structures bresnan 1982.
In most africian cultures, including bantu cultures veneration of the dead plays a prominient role. From the precolonial to the modern day eolss, toyin falola. Guthrie classification of bantu languages wikipedia. These were assigned letters as and divided into decades groups a10, a20, etc.
It was pointed out as early as 1886 that a wide range of. The eastern bantu languages exhibit a number of general similarities, such as the widespread use of demonstratives and much rarer and specialized uses of independent pronouns, but underlying these superficially similar systems of participant reference are some striking differences. The spread of the bantu language bantu is spoken by million people in southern africa. A common characteristic of bantu languages is that they use words such as muntu or mutu for human being or. These languages are clearly related to neighboring language groups also termed bantu, such as jarawan, mamfe, grassfields, and ekoid, and constitute a node on a highly. The vast majority of african languages are tonal, and perhaps most also have vowel harmony especially the type known as atr harmony. This spiritual existence is usually not considered enternal. The southern bantu languages, however, are also a valid linguistic group. Zones k and r are also included in this group on most trees.
It seems likely, however, that a movement of immigrants into southern africa occurred in two streams and was part of a wider expansion of populations speaking bantu languages that ultimately derived from the nigercongo languages of western africa some 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. In her 1989 address, bresnan outlined subareas of syntactic theory which african languages had impacted. The languages under consideration all display outcomes of the sound change known in the literature as bantu spirantisation for mechanisms and cross bantu outcomes, see, e. Medial markers are used by the large majority of bantu languages. Digo is the southernmost language of the mijikenda cluster of bantu languages, spoken along the coast of east africa in kenya and tanzania.
The bantu speaking people of southern africa are believed to have migrated into the region roughly 2,000 years ago from western and central africa. Bantu languages are spoken largely east and south of the present day country of cameroon. In the vast majority of the bantu dialects at the present day. For example, the nyoro or banyoro of the kingdom of bunyoro in. Bantu is a mixture of nearly 600 different ethnic groups combined. Southern africa history, countries, map, population. In addition, many have only h and l in their outputs, e. Bantu words in american english terms you should know for week 11 part 02 are. Southern bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the free. The bantu people are found throughout subsaharan africa.
Today over 60 million people in central and southern africa speak bantu based languages and share some part of bantu culture. Click download or read online button to the bantu languages of africa book pdf for free now. Within this perspective, bantu cm no longer be defined by. In most bantu languages with a large set of changeofstate verbs, there appear to be differences in how these verbs interact with imperfective forms, as seen for southern ndebele in 16. One bantu language, swahili, is used as a lingua franca in east africa by about 50 to 100 million people. Physical characteristics and technical requirements. Special mention may be made of carl meinhofs work in the 1890s, in which he sought to reconstruct what he called urbantu the words underlying contemporary bantu forms, and the descriptive work carried out by clement doke and the department of bantu studies at the university of. The word bantu means the people and is made up of the stem ntu person and the plural prefix ba. The chapter furthermore shows how bantu languages, despite their shared basic svo word order. Multiple tone heights as indicated, most bantu languages have an underlying twoheight system, whether privative or equipollent.
African cultural characteristics certain common features show an underlying cultural unity some scholars have called africanity one common cultural feature concept of kingship kings ritually isolated people arranged in age groups and kinship divisions cultivation with the hoe and digging stick use of rhythm in music functions of dancing and mask wearing in. The linear ordering of tamneg markers in the bantu languages. By theend of thecourse you willbe able to think of a lot of other syntactic and morphological commonalities on your own. The timne and cognate languages of sierra leone and the north guinea coast use pronominal prefixes and a system of concord, the employment of the latter being precisely similar to the same practice in the bantu languages. The still older types of these prefixes met with in one or two languages, and deduced generally by the other forms of the particle used in the syntax, are given in brackets.
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 term bantu people is used to describe the roughly 60 million africans who speak languages in the bantu language family. The bantu languages 53 characteristics of the zone some respects this zone is halfway between g and l, but there is still good reason making it, in spite of its curious geographical distribution. It is probably the origin of rap and has its own origin in the. Bantu languages are usually divided into west and east bantu. In the brief introductory section certain general matters are treated, such as. Talking about the bantu language, there are around 650 languages. Capital letters correspond to language groups mentioned below. The acquisition of bantu languages katherine demuth brown. Other major languages of the group, each with 10 million speakers or more, are rwanda, luba, nyanja, shona, and zulu. The sixteen original prefixes of the bantu languages are given below in the most archaic forms to be found at the present day.
East bantu comprises languages of zones e, f, j, n, p and s. Presentational focus and thematic structure in comparative bantu. The southern bantu languages, also known as bantu zone s, are a group of languages in the bantu language family. Parts of the bantu area include languages from other language families see map. The bantu languages or narrow bantu languages are a branch of the nigercongo languages. Two outstanding characteristics of the bantu language family are the phenomena of nominal classification and concordial agreement see, for example, poulos and louwrens, 1994.
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 proto bantu term for people or humans. Click download or read online button to the classification of the bantu languages book pdf for free now. Nigercongo, voltacongo, benuecongo, eastern benuecongo, south bantoid, bantu. In fact, bafut is one of the languages of the semi bantu bantu. The specific slot system for any given individual language looks different from case to case. Their ironage weaponry and pastoralist way of life enabled them to dominate and displace the original inhabitants of the region, the stoneage hunterforagers collectively known as the khoisan. While there are typological characteristics common to these and other bantu languages, there are. Reviews malcolm guthrie, the classification of the bantu. This section also contains a brief literature overview. Bantu languages are conventionally classified into zones designated by letters a through s, following criteria and an enumeration of languages in guthrie 196771. Much scholarly work has been done since the late 19th century to describe and classify the bantu languages. They moved eastward to the area between central africa and west africa.
Although bantu refers strictly to a linguistic category, people who speak bantu languages also share broadly similar cultures. The classification of the bantu languages download the classification of the bantu languages ebook pdf or read online books in pdf, epub, and mobi format. The bantu languages in africa may be classified as nigercongo languages too. Manuel university of arkansas, fayetteville, united states bantu languages are dialects spoken in the central and southern africa. Based on shared characteristics and on territorial contiguity, guthrie grouped the bantu languages into 15 geographical and partly genetical zones. New developments in the classification of bantu languages and their. A note on bantu extensions and syntactic word formation jochen zeller, university of kwazulunatal, durban.
The definition of the bantu cornes from a variety of sources, most. There are over 650 different bantu languages and dialects. The bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is swahili. Guthries divisions of the bantu languages were based on geography, not on language characteristics.
The 2016 revision key findings and advance tables pdf. Presentational focus and thematic structure in comparative. It is estimated that some 300 to 350 million people, or one in three africans, are bantu speakers. These languages have all the bantu characteristics except a common vocabulary. Each word must end in a vowel though in some mod ern dialects in eastern equatorial, west and south africa the ter minal vowel may be elided in rapid pronunciation, or be dropped, or absorbed in the terminal.
The bantu identities are found in languages such as bemba, ingala, isizulu, ambo, bemba, ndebele, shona, swazi, xhosa, venda, khoikhoi, luhya, makonde, hutu, tutsi and so on. There are about 520 languages in the bantu family, 670 languages in the southern bantoid branch which includes bantu, and 1,532 in nigercongo. Bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the free. The bantu language most often taught in american universities is swahili, but there are many others. Bantu contains hundreds of languages that are spoken by 120 million africans in the congo basin, angola, the republic of south africa, mozambique, zimbabwe, zambia, malawi, tanzania, and kenya. Reflections on the system of bantu education in namibia and possible alterations in the present situation by henning melber. Nouns are grouped together into classes in a grammatically significant way. Pagibete c401 reeder 1998, tend to favour final markers. Again, this is a bias in my training and research, but it also reflects the fact that bantu languages have had a significant impact on syntactic theory. The relationship of some languages is considered proved if a common origin is revealed for a significant portion of the morphemes of the languages, all the grammatical affixes if they exist, and many of the roots including the.
The last and most important ion of them is a critical one in johnstones great work, a comparative study of the tu and semi bantu languages, 1919, to which those interested should refer i 1891 torrend published his comparative grammar of the southafrican bantu. It is accompanied by a separate map in which the bantu languages are numbered in accordance with the system described in the fourth section. 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. West mrican languages exhibited nounclass features analogous to those classified. In other words, the differences are quite large and the separation must have been a long time ago with almost. These languages are spoken in the equatorial forest, modern zambia and southwest africa. It is spoken in the northern provinces of south africa by more than 4 million speakers statistics south africa, 2004. In this paper, we describe important characteristics and major actional distinctions attested across bantu languages. The migration of the proto bantu language group started around 3000 years ago. Twelve bantu languages are spoken by more than five million people, including rundi, rwanda, shona, xhosa, and zulu. In languages which have lost the contrast, each tbu is both a syllable and a mora and preconsonantal nasals are typically nonsyllabic.
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