characteristics of bantu languages pdf
Though most Bantu languages are reported as having voiced and voiceless series of plosives, three-way contrasts in plosives based on Voice Onset Time (VOT) do occur. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. (eds. Language Documentation and Conservation Van de Velde, M. Figure 3.6 Special mention may be made of Carl Meinhofs work in the 1890s, in which he sought to reconstruct what he called ur-Bantu (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 Witwatersrand, South Africa, in the period 192353. In this and following figures of the same type, the origin of the axes is in the upper right, with first formant (F1) values increasing down from the origin, and second formant (F2) values increasing to the left. Biesele , / all represent a voiced nasal (post)alveolar click. , De Wit, G. https://www.britannica.com/art/Bantu-languages, Royal Society of Chemistry Publishing - Cultural phylogeography of the Bantu Languages of sub-Saharan Africa. Figure 3.2 Mabuta Lengthened vowels are much closer in duration to underlying long vowels in Ganda JE15 than they are in Sukuma F21. In addition we may note that the front pair /i/ and // and the back pair /u/ and // have F2 values which are identical or nearly so, whereas Nyamwezi F22 /e o/ have F2 values intermediate between the higher and lower vowels in the system. (eds. There is often only one contrastive liquid, i.e., /l/, // or /r/, though Chaga E60 is among those with more (Davey et al. ), Beitrge zur 1. Hayward, K. M. The tongue surface appears as a curved white line. Final lowering is fairly common across Bantu, but is not attested in Basaa A43a (Downing & Rialland 2016b). (eds. Figure 3.11 Clem /) as well as glottalised and ejected clicks (e.g., / & Stevick, E. W. The question of the role of ATR interacts with the question of the nature of the high vowels, as the *super-high/*high contrast might have been an expression of an ATR contrast or transformed into one in daughter languages. Sands 31(1): 149. S. . In Sukuma F21, the nasal portion of the voiceless nasals is often at least partly voiced or breathy voiced, as described in Maddieson (1991), whereas the parallel segments in Rwanda JD61 are fully voiced (except after voiceless fricatives), but produced with a modified kind of voicing described by Demolin and Delvaux (2001) as whispery-voice. (1959) A Grammar of Northern Transvaal Ndebele. Byrd Stanford: CSLI Publications. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. & Herman, R. , as indicated by the positioning of the horizontal white lines superimposed on each photograph. Arlington: University of Texas, PhD dissertation. Except in post-nasal environments and sometimes before his reconstructed super-high vowels, the reconstructed voiced plosives most commonly correspond to voiced continuants of one type or another or to implosives in the modern languages. . 2014). & In the Gur language Minyanka, the pharyngeal fricative [] is a variant of // (Dombrowsky-Hahn 1999: 52). ), Bantu Historical Linguistics: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, 235295. & The Structure of a Bantu Language with Special Reference to Swahili, or Form and Function through Bantu Eyes Author(s): E. O. Ashton Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol. Voen Trenton; Asmara: Africa World Press. Means of Fwe vowel formants are shown in in & Zsiga, E. C. A majority of Bantu languages have a tonal distinction of High and Low tones, which often may combine into contour tones. Click loss is an on-going process in Chopi (Bailey 1995) and in Imusho Fwe (Gunnink forthcoming). V. (eds. Yoder Toda (1991) Articulatory Phonology and Sukuma aspirated nasals. In In the five-vowel system of Xhosa S41, for example, /e o/ are genuinely mid in character. & Boyer, O. Roux, J. C. 3. Gick, B. Huffman, M. K. (1992) Kinyamwezi: Grammar, Texts, Vocabulary. , M. I. P. Jacottet, E. (1981) A Handbook of the Venda Language. These vowels bring to mind the super-high or super-close vowels /i u/ used by Meeussen (1967, 1969) and Guthrie (1967, 1970a, 1970b, 1971) and notated as / / by Meinhof (1899), in addition to normal high /i u/. Journal of Phonetics Demolin, D. Clicks do not occur in Venda S21 (Ziervogel et al. ), Oxford Handbook of Information Structure, 790813. Languages of the North-West, the Eastern coastal area and the South-East often have at least one implosive, most frequently a bilabial, but implosives are generally absent in the languages of the Congo basin and the South-West. Roux , B. & & in the word /ko/ avarice has a higher F2 (above 1000 Hz), and the higher formants are much more prominent than those of /o/. Sands (ed. The Bantu Languages, 2019. Rueck, M. J. Connell, B. Zulu, for example, has nine pairs of singular and plural prefixes. A. Y. Fulop, S. A. Windhoek: Gamsberg Macmillan System. The current variation between clicks and velars in Imusho Fwe may eventually lead to the loss of clicks in the variety altogether, as clicks are replaced by velars. A particularly interesting claim is made by Mathangwane (1999) concerning her pronunciation of parallel forms in Kalanga S16. Gouskova , The maxima in Zerbian, S. ), Prosodic Categories: Production, Perception and Comprehension, 243265. Downing, L. J. 26(1): 314. For instance, there are languages with and without downdrift, though the former are more common (Downing & Rialland 2016b). 35(4): 330341. S. D. Rialland Paper presented at Second World Congress of African Linguistics, Leipzig. Thornell I. Only Guthrie's Zone S is (sometimes) considered to be a genealogical group. shows a realisation of a medial instance of the same segment in the word /k/ to suck. In this case there is no consonantal nasality. (eds. Figure 3.29 Figure 3.19 L. Sands, B. Figure 3.2 C. In languages which have lost the contrast, each TBU is both a syllable and a mora (and pre-consonantal nasals are typically non-syllabic). In Glasgow: University of Glasgow, retrieved from. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Maddieson, I. Depressors also occur in Digo E73 and other Mijikenda E70 group languages and in Kalanga S16 and other Shona S10 group languages (Downing 2010). Figure 3.34 Executive Director, Summer Institute of Linguistics Ltd., High Wycombe, England. van der Hulst, H. G. Click consonants do not occur Herero R31, Umbundu R11, Totela K41 or Lozi K21, nor are they found in languages of the Wambo R20 cluster, such as Kwanyama R21, Mbalanhu R214 and Ndonga R22. In this variety, some speakers fail to devoice, and others devoice intervocalically as well as after nasals (Zsiga et al. Chen, Y. The Bantu Languages Print publication date: February 2019 Online publication date: January 2019 Print ISBN: 9781138799677 eBook ISBN: 9781315755946 Adobe ISBN: 10.4324/9781315755946-3 Download Chapter Abstract Chapter 3 is about the sounds of Bantu languages. , (2007) Question Prosody: An African Perspective. Nchimbi, A. S. A. Leiden: Leiden University, PhD dissertation. Bonny Sands, Print publication date: February 2019 , Articulatory positions of six of the vowels of Fang A75 (variety of Bitam). Amsterdam: Institute for Functional Research into Language and Language Use. (2002) Language-Specific Patterns of Vowel-to-Vowel Coarticulation: Acoustic Structures and Their Perceptual Correlates. Most Bantu languages have a full set of nasals at each place of articulation where a stop or affricate appears, but often intricate (morpho)phonological processes govern nasal/oral alternations and syllabification and other prosodic processes concerning nasals. London: SOAS. 7: 270414. G. Wesi Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Sands Fwe has four accompaniments including a voiceless nasal accompaniment (Gunnink forthcoming) not known to occur in any other Bantu language. Goedemans (2011) Grounded Constraints and the Consonants of Setswana. San Diego: Academic Press. (eds. Differences in lip posture appear to enhance the contrast between labio-dental /f v/ and labial fricatives / / in Kwangali K33 and in Manyo K332 (Ladefoged 1990). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. & In The Scottish Consortium for ICPhS 2015 (ed. B. Pakendorf, B. B. T. Downing, L. J. Elderkin Prieto Cape Town: Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society. 2017); from Nguni (primarily Zulu S42), they subsequently spread into other SEB languages (Letele 1945, Bailey 1995). (2007) The UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive. Journal of the International Phonetic Association Mbochi C25, which does not have downdrift, still has final lowering due to a L% boundary tone (Rialland & Aborobongui 2016). you are agreeing to our use of cookies. ), Selected Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 8289. Journal of the International Phonetic Association While the deviations from the "pure" type are recognized, this typological method is the chief one utilized in untangling the complex African & Leiden: Brill. Corrections? African Studies Clicks have not been reported for Manda group languages and are unlikely to occur unless efforts to revitalise Malawian Ngoni on a Zulu model prove effective (Kishindo 2002). , T. C. The majority of Bantu languages with some notable exceptions, particularly in the North-West have simple-looking systems of five or seven vowels in which the expected relationships between the features of vowel height, backness and rounding hold. (2015) The Bantoid Languages. In Oxford Handbooks Online. In addition, there may be retraction of the tongue tip, dorsum or tongue root for some clicks (Miller 2008, Miller & Finch 2011). Nande JD42 contrasts with Bitam Fang A75 in that it uses ATR for phonetic distinctions. (2010) Accent in African Languages. Sands a thorough treatment of both the syntactic and semantic characteristics of the external and internal arguments. ISBN: Chapter 3 is about the sounds of Bantu languages. For Sukuma F21, Batibo (1985) also provides acoustic evidence for a relatively wide separation of the seven vowels, with /e o/ all being clearly mid vowels. C. 10(4): 166172. 1982, Philippson & Montlahuc 2003). Bergen, B. K. The possible variations are thus very numerous, and many different categories of individual clicks are found when all the languages which use them are considered (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996). In (eds. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Kln: Institut fr Afrikanistik der Universitt zu Kln. R. K. Soquet 2016). Reports and Papers, 211234. Miller 2007, Miller et al. For example, in Chewa N31b, as is common cross-linguistically, the High pitch peak is realised at the end of the syllable to which it is associated (Kim 1998, Myers 1999a). Particularly striking in this connection is the velar ejective lateral affricate [k] of Zulu S42 (cf. While the deviations from the "pure" type are recognized, this typological method is the chief one utilized in untangling the complex African linguistic situation. Figure 3.6 ), The Bantu Languages, 639651. , Journal of the International Phonetic Association Mickey High tone is generally the phonologically marked tone, with Low tone being unmarked (Stevick 1969, Downing 2011) (see also Chapter 5). R. She reports that the labial closure is formed first. Maho, J. F. ), Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society Namaseb Figure 3.21 Downing, L. J. , M. (2002) Flogging a dead cow?: The Revival of Malawian Chingoni. B. & Sands, B. Bastin, Y. The book discusses the phonetic and morphological characteristics of these 2 zones and a classification of the groups, clusters and dialects is provided. Figure 3.2 The Western Bantu Tradition Most of Central Africa was colonized by farmers stemming from a single area in Nigeria near the border of Cameroon. Kgler Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Fridjhon In Broken vertical lines indicate the five points in time corresponding to the rtMRI images shown in the bottom row. , Tswana S31 has a voiceless uvular affricate and voiceless uvular fricative (Bennett et al. Fonetik 2012, 15th Swedish Phonetics Conference, May 30June 1, University of Gothenburg, 7376. Bokamba, E. G. (eds. (1985) Le kesukuma (langue bantoue de Tanzanie): phonologie, morphologie.