Dialect Variation in a Minority Language: the Case of Bena
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Here Referred to As Class 18A (See Hyman 1980:187)
WS1 Remarks on the nasal classes in Mungbam and Naki Mungbam and Naki are two non-Grassfields Bantoid languages spoken along the northwest frontier of the Grassfields area to the north of the Ring languages. Until recently, they were poorly described, but new data reveals them to show significant nasal noun class patterns, some of which do not appear to have been previously noted for Bantoid. The key patterns are: 1. Like many other languages of their region (see Good et al. 2011), they make productive use of a mysterious diminutive plural prefix with a form like mu-, with associated concords in m, here referred to as Class 18a (see Hyman 1980:187). 2. The five dialects of Mungbam show a level of variation in their nasal classes that one might normally expect of distinct languages. a. Two dialects show no evidence for nasals in Class 6. Two other dialects, Munken and Ngun, show a Class 6 prefix on nouns of form a- but nasal concords. In Munken Class 6, this nasal is n, clearly distinct from an m associated with 6a; in Ngun, both 6 and 6a are associated with m concords. The Abar dialect shows a different pattern, with Class 6 nasal concords in m and nasal prefixes on some Class 6 nouns. b. The Abar, Biya, and Ngun dialects show a Class 18a prefix with form mN-, rather than the more regionally common mu-. This reduction is presumably connected to perseveratory nasalization attested throughout the languages of the region with a diachronic pathway along the lines of mu- > mũ- > mN- perhaps providing a partial example for the development of Bantu Class 9/10. -
Closed Adjective Classes and Primary Adjectives in African Languages Guillaume Segerer
Closed adjective classes and primary adjectives in African Languages Guillaume Segerer To cite this version: Guillaume Segerer. Closed adjective classes and primary adjectives in African Languages. 2008. halshs-00255943 HAL Id: halshs-00255943 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00255943 Preprint submitted on 14 Feb 2008 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Closed adjective classes and primary adjectives in African Languages Guillaume Segerer – LLACAN (INALCO, CNRS) Closed adjective classes and primary adjectives in African Languages INTRODUCTION The existence of closed adjective classes (henceforth CAC) has long been recognized for African languages. Although I probably haven’t found the earliest mention of this property1, Welmers’ statement in African Language Structures is often quoted: “It is important to note, however, that in almost all Niger-Congo languages which have a class of adjectives, the class is rather small (...).” (Welmers 1973:250). Maurice Houis provides further precision: “Il y a lieu de noter que de nombreuses langues possèdent des lexèmes adjectivaux. Leur usage en discours est courant, toutefois l’inventaire est toujours limité (autour de 30 à 40 unités).” (Houis 1977:35). These two statements are not further developped by their respective authors. -
Music of Ghana and Tanzania
MUSIC OF GHANA AND TANZANIA: A BRIEF COMPARISON AND DESCRIPTION OF VARIOUS AFRICAN MUSIC SCHOOLS Heather Bergseth A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTERDecember OF 2011MUSIC Committee: David Harnish, Advisor Kara Attrep © 2011 Heather Bergseth All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT David Harnish, Advisor This thesis is based on my engagement and observations of various music schools in Ghana, West Africa, and Tanzania, East Africa. I spent the last three summers learning traditional dance- drumming in Ghana, West Africa. I focus primarily on two schools that I have significant recent experience with: the Dagbe Arts Centre in Kopeyia and the Dagara Music and Arts Center in Medie. While at Dagbe, I studied the music and dance of the Anlo-Ewe ethnic group, a people who live primarily in the Volta region of South-eastern Ghana, but who also inhabit neighboring countries as far as Togo and Benin. I took classes and lessons with the staff as well as with the director of Dagbe, Emmanuel Agbeli, a teacher and performer of Ewe dance-drumming. His father, Godwin Agbeli, founded the Dagbe Arts Centre in order to teach others, including foreigners, the musical styles, dances, and diverse artistic cultures of the Ewe people. The Dagara Music and Arts Center was founded by Bernard Woma, a master drummer and gyil (xylophone) player. The DMC or Dagara Music Center is situated in the town of Medie just outside of Accra. Mr. Woma hosts primarily international students at his compound, focusing on various musical styles, including his own culture, the Dagara, in addition music and dance of the Dagbamba, Ewe, and Ga ethnic groups. -
A Case of Kibena to Kimaswitule in Njombe District, Tanzania
European Journal of Foreign Language Teaching ISSN: 2537 - 1754 ISSN-L: 2537 - 1754 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu doi: 10.5281/zenodo.496189 Volume 2 │ Issue 2 │ 2017 SOCIAL FACTORS INFLUENCING LANGUAGE CHANGE: A CASE OF KIBENA TO KIMASWITULE IN NJOMBE DISTRICT, TANZANIA Leopard Jacob Mwalongoi The Northeast Normal University, 5268 Renmin Street, Changchin City, Post Code 130024, Jilin, China Abstract: The aim of the study was to examine the Language change from Kibena to Kimaswitule, specifically the study ought to identify social factors of Language change from Kibena to Kimaswitule; also to explore the impact of language change to the society. The study was done in Njombe District. The targeted population was the youth; the middle age and the elders (men and women) from Njombe district, below 15 years were not included in this study since they had little knowledge on the language change and shift from Kibena to Kimaswitule. 50 respondents were included in the study. The study used qualitative and quantitative approaches. The purposive and random sampling were used, the researcher predominantly used snowball sampling method to have sample for the study. Data were collected through, Focus Group Discussion (FGD), structured interview, questionnaire, observation and checklist methods. Data were analysed by scrutinizing, sorted, classified, coded and organized according to objectives of the study. The findings showed that, participant, personal needs, influence of other languages and development of towns are social factors for language change and the research concluded that, changes of Kibena to Kimaswitule has endangered the indigenous education of Wabena because change in the society goes hand in hand with the changes of the norms and values as language embeds culture. -
1 Parameters of Morpho-Syntactic Variation
This paper appeared in: Transactions of the Philological Society Volume 105:3 (2007) 253–338. Please always use the published version for citation. PARAMETERS OF MORPHO-SYNTACTIC VARIATION IN BANTU* a b c By LUTZ MARTEN , NANCY C. KULA AND NHLANHLA THWALA 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. However, they have been noted to display a high degree or more fine-grained morpho-syntactic micro-variation. In this paper we develop a systematic approach to the study of morpho-syntactic variation in Bantu by developing 19 parameters which serve as the basis for cross-linguistic comparison and which we use for comparing ten south-eastern Bantu languages. We address conceptual issues involved in studying morpho-syntax along parametric lines and show how the data we have can be used for the quantitative study of language comparison. Although the work reported is a case study in need of expansion, we will show that it nevertheless produces relevant results. 1. INTRODUCTION Early studies of morphological and syntactic linguistic variation were mostly aimed at providing broad parameters according to which the languages of the world differ. The classification of languages into ‘inflectional’, ‘agglutinating’, and ‘isolating’ morphological types, originating from the work of Humboldt (1836), is a well-known example of this approach. Subsequent studies in linguistic typology, e.g. work following Greenberg (1963), similarly tried to formulate variables which could be applied to any language and which would classify languages into a number of different types. -
The Oxford Guide to the Bantu Languages
submitted for The Oxford Guide to the Bantu Languages Bantu languages: Typology and variation Denis Creissels (3rd draft, August 12 2019) 1. Introduction With over 400 languages, the Bantu family provides an excellent empirical base for typological and comparative studies, and is particularly well suited to the study of microvariation (cf. Bloom & Petzell (this volume), Marlo (this volume)). This chapter provides an overview of the broad typological profile of Bantu languages, and of the major patterns and parameters of variation within the family. Inheritance from Proto-Bantu and uninterrupted contact between Bantu languages are certainly responsible for their relative typological homogeneity. It is however remarkable that the departures from the basic phonological and morphosyntactic structure inherited from Proto-Bantu are not equally distributed across the Bantu area. They are typically found in zone A, and to a lesser degree in (part of) zones B to D, resulting in a relatively high degree of typological diversity in this part of the Bantu area (often referred to as ‘Forest Bantu’), as opposed to the relative uniformity observed elsewhere (‘Savanna Bantu’). Typologically, Forest Bantu can be roughly characterized as intermediate between Savanna Bantu and the languages grouped with Narrow Bantu into the Southern Bantoid branch of Benue-Congo. Kiessling (this volume) provides an introduction to the West Ring languages of the Grassfields Bantu group, the closest relative of Narrow Bantu. Departures from the predominant typological profile -
The Inflectional Structure of Lubukusu Verbs Aggrey
i THE INFLECTIONAL STRUCTURE OF LUBUKUSU VERBS AGGREY WAFULA WATULO C50/NKU/CE/28191/2013 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS OF KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OCTOBER 2018 ii DECLARATION iii DEDICATION In memory of my dear late, mum Edith Nekoye, my late uncles Jeff Watulo and Fred Wenyaa for being my mentors. To my late grand mums Rosa and Rasoa who took good care of me after the demise of my mum. Lastly, to my dear wife Naomi who with unwavering support took good care of our lovely sons Ken and Mike while I was busy connecting dots during mid night and day time to make my writing scholarly. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT With a lot of humility, I appreciate our Almighty God for enriching me with sufficient grace and patience until this moment. I would not have travelled this long journey had it not been for God‟s mercy and guidance in all the activities I carried out in building my research work. My project has finally come to a success because of Dr. Nandelenga‟s dedication to read the many drafts I send to him. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Nandelenga‟s passionate guidance and advice during the time I was struggling to read and write my work. My profound gratitude goes to my linguistics MA lecturers whom I met during my course work. To Dr. Kirigia, Prof. Khasandi and Dr. Wathika thank you for taking me through course work. -
Vidunda (G38) As an Endangered Language?
Vidunda (G38) as an Endangered Language? Karsten Legère University of Gothenburg 1. The position of Swahili and other Tanzanian languages Tanzania is a multi-ethnic and, as a consequence, multi-lingual country. This fact is reflected in the existence of approximately 120 ethnonyms according to the 1967 population census (Tanzania 1971). The most recent edition of Ethnologue (Gordon 2005) lists 128 languages (of which one is extinct) and glossonyms accordingly. This number recently grew even bigger when the results of a country-wide survey under the auspices of LoT1 were released (LoT 2006). Thus, the survey added approximately 80 more glossonyms to the existing lists published by, for example, Polomé & Hill (1980) and Ethnologue. As known, many glossonyms refer to language varieties which are mutually intelligible with those spoken mainly by neighboring ethnic groups or nationalities. People who claim to speak a language of their own frequently understand that of their neighbors, although the latter’s variety is terminologically distinct from the former.2 Hence, the high number of glossonyms is linguistically not relevant for adequately describing the factual situation, which is often characterized by a dialect continuum. In other words, dialect clusters which are comprised of “languages” (as expressed by particular glossonyms) may definitely reduce the number of Tanzanian languages. However, to which number a necessary linguistic and terminological recategorization may ultimately lead is still an open question. The informal and formal spread of Swahili (henceforth called L2) as a language of wider distribution/lingua franca (the national and co-official3 language; see Legère 2006b for discussion) has increasingly limited the use of all other Tanzanian languages (henceforth referred to as L1s). -
Élémentsde Description Du Langi Langue Bantu F.33 De Tanzanie
ÉLÉMENTS DE DESCRIPTION DU LANGI LANGUE BANTU F.33 DE TANZANIE MARGARET DUNHAM Remerciements Je remercie très chaleureusement tous les Valangi, ce sont eux qui ont fourni la matière sur laquelle se fonde cet ouvrage, et notamment : Saidi Ikaji, Maryfrider Joseph, Mama Luci, Yuda, Pascali et Agnès Daudi, Gaitani et Philomena Paoli, M. Sabasi, et toute la famille Ningah : Ally, Saidi, Amina, Jamila, Nasri, Saada et Mei. Je remercie également mes autres amis de Kondoa : Elly Benson, à qui je dois la liste des noms d’arbres qui se trouve en annexe, et Elise Pinners, qui m’a logée à Kondoa et ailleurs. Je remercie le SNV et le HADO à Kondoa pour avoir mis à ma disposition leurs moyens de transport et leur bibliothèque. Je remercie les membres du LACITO du CNRS, tout le groupe Langue-Culture- Environnement et ceux qui ont dirigé le laboratoire pendant ma thèse : Jean-Claude Rivierre, Martine Mazaudon et Zlatka Guentchéva Je remercie tout le groupe bantu : Gladys Guarisma, Raphaël Kaboré, Jacqueline Leroy, Christiane Paulian, Gérard Philippson, Marie-Françoise Rombi et Serge Sauvageot, pour leurs conseils et pour leurs oreilles. Je remercie Jacqueline Vaissière pour ses conseils et sa disponibilité. Je remercie Sophie Manus pour la traduction du swahili du rapport de l’Officier culturel de Kondoa. Je remercie Ewen Macmillan pour son hospitalité chaleureuse et répétée à Londres. Je remercie mes amis à Paris qui ont tant fait pour me rendre la vie agréable pendant ce travail. Je remercie Eric Agnesina pour son aide précieuse, matérielle et morale. Et enfin, je ne saurais jamais assez remercier Marie-Françoise Rombi, pour son amitié et pour son infinie patience. -
Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies (JAIS): ISSN 2523-6725 (Online) February 2018 Vol
Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies (JAIS): ISSN 2523-6725 (online) February 2018 Vol. 2, No. 2 Citation: Hokororo, J. I (2018). Re-thinking Linguistic Universals in Phonology- Evidence from Phonological Processes Affecting Vowels in Tanzanian Bantu.. Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies. 2 (2), 2018: 46 – 62. Re-thinking Linguistic Universals in Phonology: Evidence from Phonological Processes Affecting Vowels in Tanzanian Bantu By Joseph Hokororo Ismail Abstract This study aimed at describing phonological process that operates in Bantu languages and the rule to account such processes in order to establish linguistic universality in phonology. Linguistic universal in phonology has been discussed in a number of works Massamba, (2010, 2011); Yule, (2014); Odden, 2005); Chomsky and Halle 1968) and Yule (2014), just to mention but few. In their discussions, the aspects of phonological processes affecting vowel sounds has been treated as if their independent phenomenon with no relation with universality of phonology. The study uses Auto-segmental phonology, as its theoretical frame work, aims discussing the phonological processes which affect sounds are true linguistic universal but what specific processes that affect particular Bantu language can be taken to a near linguistic universals, the aspects that were not given much the attention it deserves. In this study, phonological process namely glide formation, vowel coalescence and high vowel deletion will be discussed. The examples are drawn from 10 selected Bantu languages spoken in Tanzania. Key words: Nasalization, glide formation, coalescence, vowel deletion Citation Format Hokororo, J. I. (2018). Re-thinking Linguistic Universals in Phonology: Evidence from Phonological Processes Affecting Vowels in Tanzanian Bantu. Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies: 2, 2, 46 – 62. -
An Analysis of the Verbal Marker Tsa in Luguru
AN ANALYSIS OF THE VERBAL MARKER TSA IN LUGURU Malin Petzell University of Gothenburg This paper deals with a morphosyntactic phenomenon found in the under-described Bantu language Luguru, spoken in central Tanzania: the verbal marker tsa. This marker encodes shared knowledge or shared reference. The meanings conveyed by the marker stretch from ‘at a specific time’ or ‘at that place’ to ‘as we know’, or even ‘for that reason’. In Mkude’s grammatical description of Luguru from 1974, there is a mention of a marker (zaa) signalling what he calls “recollected refer- ence”, which restricts the event to one specific moment in the past; this marker is believed to have developed into today’s tsa. 1. INTRODUCTION This paper explores the verbal marker tsa in the under-described Bantu language Luguru, classified as G35 in Guthrie’s (1967–1971) standard classification (ISO 639-3: ruf).1 Luguru is spoken by 403,602 people in the Morogoro region of central Tanzania (Languages of Tanzania Project 2009) and is the major mother tongue in the region. Swahili is the official language and almost all Luguru speakers are bilingual (Petzell & Khül 2017: 36). Below is a map of the languages of the Morogoro region (Figure 1), in which Luguru is marked with green hexagons. The verbal marker tsa, it will be argued, encodes shared knowledge or shared reference. The meanings conveyed by the marker range from ‘at a specific time’ or ‘at that place’ to ‘as we know’, or even ‘for that reason’. Typically, it is used to express determinate moments in the past. -
The Languages of Tanzania There Are About 112 Indi,Enous African Languages in Tanzania (Grimes 1992)
LANGUAGE SHIFI' AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN TANZANIA I Deo Ngonyani Introduction Tanzania is a country of many languages. While Swahili is used by everyone in different situations, vernacular languages are restricted to the different ethnic groups and English is mainly used in education. Vernacular languages, Swahili and English are competitors whose fonuncs are tied to the socio-political changes in the country. In the past flfty years the use of the Swahili language has increased tremendously in Tanzania. Vinually all Tanzanians speak Swahili today and Swahili has become an identity marker for Tanzanians. The use of Swahili has expanded so much that it is now replacing vernacular languages as the language of everyday interaction and is also replacing English as the languaJe of education and government. In this paper, I illusttate that there 1s a process of language shift in Tanzan1a. I also show that due to different factors, Swahili bas become the language of Tanzanian identity. The Language Situtation In order to understand the dynamics propelling Swahili to such a position of prominence, one needs to look at the language situation. In this section I briefly discuss what languages are spoken and for what functions as well as how the different languages relate to each other. The Languages of Tanzania There are about 112 indi,enous African languages in Tanzania (Grimes 1992). The majority o them (101 languages) belong to the Bantu language group. The other African language super-families are also represented. There are 4 Nilotic languages which include Maasai and Tatoga, 5 Cushitic languages such as Iraqw, and 2 Khoisan languages, Hatsa and Sandawe.