Ila language

Last updated
Ila
chiIla
Native to Zambia
Ethnicity Ila
Native speakers
106,000 (2010 census) [1]
Dialects
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Either:
ilb  – Ila
shq  – Sala
Glottolog ilaa1246   Ila
sala1266   Sala
M.63,631–633 [2]

Ila (Chiila) is a language of Zambia. Maho (2009) lists Lundwe (Shukulumbwe) and Sala as distinct languages most closely related to Ila. Ila is one of the languages of the Earth included on the Voyager Golden Record. [3]

Contents

Orthography

[4]

Labio-glottal and palato-glottal fricatives

Doke (1928) described several unusual doubly articulated consonants in Ila proper, Kafue Twa and Lundwe. [6]

In Ila proper, /hˠ*,h̰ˠ*,ɦˠ*/ are "modified glottal fricatives in which the air passes through the throat with considerable friction, and is modified by being thrown against the toothless [7] ridge and inside of the upper lip, causing concomitant frication there. ... The tongue is meanwhile kept in velar vowel position as for [u] and these fricatives therefore inherently possess a u-glide, which is noticeable when they are used with any other vowel than u." The 'concomitant lip frication' is evidently something like that of [f] and [v]. Doke transcribed these sounds simply ⟨h, h̰, ɦ⟩.

Lundwe and Kafwe Twa have a palato-glottal fricative /ɦ͡ʒ/. "This sound is produced with a tongue position similar to Ila [ʒ] but with considerable voiced frication in the throat at the same time."

Tonality and stress

Tone is demonstrated by contrasting aze with high pitch on the first syllable ( = "with him") with aze with high pitch on the second syllable (= "he also"). [4]

Some words and phrases

Some comparisons

Bemba: IMFIFI - darkness; Kisanga: mfinshi - darkness; and Bulu (Ewondo): "dibi" - darkness.

Ideophones or imitation words

Words in English such as "Splash!", "Gurgle", "Ker-putt" express ideas without the use of sentences. Smith and Dale [4] point out that this kind of expression is very common in the Ila language:

You may sayNdamuchina anshi("I throw him down"), but it is much easier and more trenchant to say simplyTi!, and it means the same. [8]

Some examples:

Class prefixes

As in many other languages, Ila uses a system of noun classes. Either the system as presented by Smith and Dale [4] is simpler than that for Nyanja, [9] ChiChewa, [10] Tonga, [11] or Bemba, [12] or the authors have skated over the complexities by the use of the category "significant letter":

The locatives form a special category:

Thus:

The Ila verb system

The root is the part of the verb giving the primary meaning. To this can be added prefixes and suffixes: many elements can be united in this way, sometimes producing long and complex polysyllabic verb words. For example, from the root anga, "to tie", we can derive such a form as Tamuna kubaangulwila anzhyi? meaning, "Why have you still not untied them?"

Prefixes can show:

Suffixes can show:

Here are some of the forms of the verb kubona, "to see". (Note that there are also negative forms, e.g. ta-tu-boni, "we do not see", that there is also a subjunctive mood, a conditional mood, a jussive mood and the imperative. Many subjunctive forms end in -e.

The root of the verb is in two forms:

The above English renderings are approximate.

Certain suffixes add new dimensions of meaning to the root. Although these follow some logic, we again have to feel a way towards an adequate translation into English or any other language:

These can be used in composites: e.g. langilizhya - to cause to look on behalf of. [4]

Oral literature

In 1920, Edwin W. Smith and Andrew Murray Dale published The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia in two volumes; the second volume features a large number of Ila texts with English translations. [15] The texts come from Ila people living along the Kafue River in what was then Northern Rhodesia. There are 60 folktales, [16] including a long cycle of stories about the trickster hare, along with proverbs, [17] riddles, [18] and dilemma tales. [19] Here are some of the proverbs:

Here are some of the riddles:

The Ila stories of the trickster hare have many affinities with the Br'er Rabbit stories collected by Joel Chandler Harris from African American storytellers in Georgia in the 19th century. [20] Some of the enslaved people of the southern United States were captured and purchased in this area of Zambia. [21] [22] In addition, African American storytellers, including those consulted by Harris, made use of ideophones in English that resemble the ideophones of African languages such as Ila. [23]

Bibliography

Smith, Edwin William & Dale, Andrew Murray, The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia. Macmillan and Company, London, 1920.

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References

  1. ↑ Ila at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Sala at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
  3. ↑ "Languages". re-lab.net. Archived from the original on 1999-11-22.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Edwin Smith & Andrew Murray Dale, The Ila-Speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia, 1919, reprinted by University Books Inc., New York, 1968.
  5. ↑ e.g. D.V.Perrott, Teach Yourself Swahili, English Universities Press, London, 1969.
  6. ↑ Didier Demolin & Cédric Patin, "Phonetics". In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Bantu Languages.
  7. ↑ The Ila had the custom of knocking out the six upper central teeth of adults. The pronunciation of these sounds by children with teeth, however, is very close to that of the adults.
  8. ↑ Smith & Dale, volume 2, page 293.
  9. ↑ Thomas Price, The Elements of Nyanja for English-Speaking Students, Church of Scotland Mission, Blantyre (Malawi), 1959.
  10. ↑ ChiChewa Intensive Language Course, Language Centre, Lilongwe, 1969
  11. ↑ C.R.Hopwood, A Practical Introduction to ChiTonga, Zambia Educational Publishing House, Lusaka, 1940, 1992.
  12. ↑ Grammar notes in Rev. E. Hoch, Hippocrene Concise Dictionary: Bemba: Bemba - English, English - Bemba, Hippocrene Books, Inc., New York, 1998.
  13. ↑ Mukanda wa Leza (The Bible in KiSanga/Sanga, southern Congo D.R.), Trintarian Bible Society, London SW19, 1991.
  14. ↑ Lyndon Harries, A Grammar of Mwera Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 1950.
  15. ↑ Smith, Edwin; Dale, Andrew, M. (1920). The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia, volume II.
  16. ↑ Smith and Dale (1920), vol. 2, pp. 334-333.
  17. ↑ Smith and Dale (1920), vol. 2, pp. 311-417.
  18. ↑ Smith and Dale (1920), vol. 2, pp. 324-331.
  19. ↑ Smith and Dale (1920), vol. 2, pp. 331-333.
  20. ↑ For a detailed account of the African origins of the majority of Joel Chandler Harris's stories, see Baer, Florence E. (1980). Sources and Analogues of the Uncle Remus Tales.
  21. ↑ Smith and Dale (1920), volume 1, page 39.
  22. ↑ Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave trade 1440-1870, Picador, London, 1997. page 706: "From...Ambriz and Benguela...500,000 slaves were probably shipped during the...era 1800-1830;...and...over 600,000 may have been shipped after 1830..."
  23. ↑ Noss, Philip A. (1972). "Description in Gbaya Literary Art" in African Folklore, ed. Richard M. Dorson, pp. 73-101.
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