Proto-Bantu language

Last updated
Proto-Bantu
Reconstruction of Bantu languages
RegionSanaga and Nyong river regions of Southern Cameroon
Eraca. 4500–4000 BC [1]
Reconstructed
ancestor

Proto-Bantu is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Bantu languages, a subgroup of the Southern Bantoid languages. [2] It is thought to have originally been spoken in West/Central Africa in the area of what is now Cameroon. [3] About 6,000 years ago, it split off from Proto-Southern Bantoid when the Bantu expansion began to the south and east. [4] Two theories have been put forward about the way the languages expanded: one is that the Bantu-speaking people moved first to the Congo region and then a branch split off and moved to East Africa; the other (more likely) is that the two groups split from the beginning, one moving to the Congo region, and the other to East Africa. [3]

Contents

Like other proto-languages, there is no record of Proto-Bantu. Its words and pronunciation have been reconstructed by linguists. From the common vocabulary which has been reconstructed on the basis of present-day Bantu languages, it appears that agriculture, fishing, and the use of boats were already known to the Bantu people before their expansion began, but iron-working was still unknown. This places the date of the start of the expansion somewhere between 3000 BC and 800 BC. [5]

A minority view casts doubt on whether Proto-Bantu, as a unified language, actually existed in the time before the Bantu expansion, or whether Proto-Bantu was not a single language but a group of related dialects. One scholar, Roger Blench, writes: "The argument from comparative linguistics which links the highly diverse languages of zone A to a genuine reconstruction is non-existent. Most claimed Proto-Bantu is either confined to particular subgroups, or is widely attested outside Bantu proper." [6] According to this hypothesis, Bantu is actually a polyphyletic group that combines a number of smaller language families which ultimately belong to the (much larger) Southern Bantoid language family.

Urheimat

The homeland of Proto-Bantu was most likely in the upland forest fringes around the Sanaga and Nyong rivers of Southern Cameroon. [7] [8] [9] It was formerly thought that proto-Bantu originated somewhere in the border region between Nigeria and Cameroon. However, new research revealed that was more likely the original area of Proto-Southern Bantoid, before it spread southwards into Cameroon long before Proto-Bantu emerged. [10] [11] [12]

Phonology

Proto-Bantu is generally reconstructed to have a relatively small inventory of 11 consonants and 7 vowels. [13]

Consonants

Labial Coronal Palatal Velar
Nasal *m*n*ɲ(*ŋ)
Voiceless *p*t*c*k
Voiced *b*d*j*g

The above phonemes exhibited considerable allophony, and the exact realisation of many of them is unclear.

Consonants could not occur at the end of a syllable, only at its beginning. Thus, the syllable structure was generally V or CV, and there were only open syllables. [13]

Consonant clusters did not occur except for the "pre-nasalised" consonants.

The so-called "pre-nasalised" consonants were sequences of a nasal and a following obstruent. [14] They could occur anywhere a single consonant was permitted, including word-initially. Pre-nasalised voiceless consonants were rare, as most were voiced. The nasal's articulation adapted to the articulation of the following consonant so the nasal can be considered a single unspecified nasal phoneme (indicated as *N) which had four possible allophones. Conventionally, the labial pre-nasal is written *m while the others are written *n.

The earlier velar nasal phoneme /ŋ/, which was present in the Bantoid languages, had been lost in Proto-Bantu. [14] It still occurred phonetically in pre-nasalised consonants but not as a phoneme.

Vowels

Front Back
Close *i*u
Near-close *ɪ*ʊ
Open-mid *e*o
Open *a

The representation of the vowels may differ in particular with respect to the two "middle" levels of closedness. Some prefer to denote the near-close set as *e and *o, with the more open set represented as *ɛ and *ɔ.

Syllables always ended in a vowel but could also begin with one. Vowels could also occasionally appear in a sequence but did not form diphthongs; two adjacent vowels were separate syllables. If two of the same vowel occurred together, that created a long vowel, but that was rare.

Tones

Proto-Bantu distinguished two tones, low and high. Each syllable had either a low or a high tone. A high tone is conventionally indicated with an acute accent (´), and a low tone is either indicated with a grave accent (`) or not marked at all.

Morphology

Noun classes

Proto-Bantu, like its descendants, had an elaborate system of noun classes. Noun stems were prefixed with a noun prefix to specify their meaning. Other words that related or referred to that noun, such as adjectives and verbs, also received a prefix that matched the class of the noun ("agreement" or "concord").

Maho offers a broad characterization of five types of Bantu concordial systems. [15] Languages descended from Proto-Bantu can be classified into each of the five types.

The following table gives a reconstruction of the system of nominal classes. Spellings have been normalised to use the ɪ and ʊ notations. Guthrie's original work uses y to describe the palatal semi-vowel, which has been normalised to use the j notation. [15] [16]

NumberBleek
1869		Meinhof
1932		Meeussen
1967		Guthrie
1971		Welmers
1974		Demuth
2000		Typical meaning(s)
1*mʊ-*mʊ-*mʊ-*mo-*mʊ-*mʊ-Humans, animate
2*ba-*ʋa-*ba-*ba-*va-*va-Plural of class 1
3*mʊ-*mʊ-*mʊ-*mo-*mʊ-*mʊ-Plants, inanimate
4*mɪ-*mi-*mɪ-*me-*mɪ-*mɪ-Plural of class 3
5*dɪ-, *lɪ-*li-*i-*ji-*lɪ-*lɪ-Various
6*ma-*ma-*ma-*ma-*ma-*ma-Plural of class 5, liquids (mass nouns)
7*kɪ-*ki-*kɪ-*ke-*kɪ-*kɪ-Various, diminutives, manner/way/language
8*pi-*ʋɪ-*bi-*bi-*ʋi-, *li- ("8x")*ʋi-, *di-Plural of class 7
9*n-*ni-*n-*nj-*nɪ-*n-Animals, inanimate
10*thin-*lɪ, ni-*n-*nj-*li-nɪ-*di-n-Plural of class 9 and 11
11*lʊ-*lʊ-*dʊ-*do-*lʊ-*lʊ-Abstract nouns
12*ka- (13)*ka- (13)*ka-*ka-*ka-*ka-Diminutives
13*tʊ- (12)*tʊ- (12)*tʊ-*to-*tʊ-*tʊ-Plural of class 12
14*bʊ-*ʋʊ-*bʊ-*bo-*ʋʊ-*ʋʊ-Abstract nouns
15*kʊ-*kʊ-*kʊ-*ko-*kʊ-*kʊ-Infinitives
16*pa-*pa-*pa-*pa-*pa-*pa-Locatives (proximal, exact)
17*kʊ-*kʊ-*ko-*kʊ-*kʊ-Locatives (distal, approximate)
18*mʊ-*mʊ-*mo-*mʊ-*mʊ-Locatives (interior)
19*pɪ-*pi-*pi-*pi-*pi-Diminutives
20*ɣu-Putative
21*ɣɪ-Augmentative
(22)
23*i (24)Locative

An alternative list of Proto-Bantu noun classes from Vossen & Dimmendaal (2020:151) is as follows: [17]

Singular (number)Singular (form)Plural (number)Plural (form)Semantics
1*mù-2*βà-humans
3*mù-4*mì-trees, plants
5*lì-6*mà-mixed/cl. 6 liquids
7*kì-8*βì̧-mixed
9*nì-10*lì̧-nì-animals, mixed
11*lù-mixed
12*kà-13*tù-augmentative, diminutive, etc.
14*βù-abstract
15*kù-infinitive
16*pà-location on
17*kù-location at
18*mù-location in
19*pì̧-diminutive

Wilhelm Bleek's reconstruction consisted of sixteen noun prefixes. Carl Meinhof adapted Bleek's prefixes, changing some phonological features and adding more prefixes, bringing the total number to 21. A. E. Meeussen reduced Meinhof's reconstructed prefixes to 19, but added an additional locative prefix numbered 23. Malcolm Guthrie later reconstructed the same 19 classes as Meeussen, but removed locative prefix numbered 23. [15]

Hendrikse and Poulos proposed a semantic continuum for Bantu noun classes. Numbers identifying noun classes in the table are referenced from the above table giving a reconstruction of nominal classes. [15]

Nouns→Adjective-like Nouns→Adverb-like Nouns→Verb-like Nouns
1/2, 3/4, 9/105/6, 7/8, 1112/13, 19, 20, 21, 2216, 17, 18, 231415
Concreteness (five senses)Attribution (two senses)Spatial orientation (one sense)Abstractness (no sense)

This arrangement permits the classification of noun classes via nonlinguistic factors like perception and cognition. Hendrikse and Poulos have grouped singular and plural classes (such as classes 1 and 2) together, and created "hybrid positions" between the varying categories (such as the placement of class 14). [15]

Noun class pairings

Classes 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 13 are generally accepted as being the plural forms of noun classes in Proto-Bantu. Classes 14 onward do not have a plural form defined as concretely as classes 1–13 do.

Meeussen proposed pairings of 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, 11/10, 12/13, 14/6, 15/6, and "probably" 19/13. [15]

Guthrie proposed pairings of 1/2, 1a/2, 3/4, 3, 5/6, 5, 6, 7/8, 9/10, 9, 11/10, 12/13, 14, 14/6. [15] [16]

Maho combines pairings by De Wolf, Meeussen, and Guthrie, offering alternative pairings such as 3/10, 3/13, 9/4, 11/4, 12/4, 14/4, 14/10, 15/4, 19/4, and 19/10. [15]

Vocabulary

During the last hundred years, beginning with Carl Meinhof and his students, great efforts have been made to examine the vocabulary of the approximately 550 present day Bantu languages and to try to reconstruct the proto-forms from which they presumably came. Among other recent works is that by Bastin, Coupez, and Mann, which assembled comparative examples of 92 different words from all the 16 language zones established by Guthrie. [18] [19]

Although some words are found only in certain of the Guthrie zones, others are found in every zone. These include for example *mbʊ́à 'dog', *-lia 'eat', *ma-béele 'breasts', *i-kúpa 'bone', *i-jína 'name', *-genda 'walk', *mʊ-kíla 'tail', *njɪla 'path', and so on. [19] (The asterisks show that these are reconstructed forms, indicating how the words are presumed to have been pronounced before the Bantu expansion began.)

Other vocabulary items tend to be found in either one or the other of the two main Bantu dialect groups, the Western group (mainly covering Guthrie zones A, B, C, H, K, L, R) or the Eastern group (covering zones D, E, F, G, M, N, P, and S). Words reconstructed for these two groups are known as "Proto-Bantu A" ("PB-A") and "Proto-Bantu B" ("PB-B") respectively, whereas those which extend over the whole Bantu area are known as "Proto-Bantu X" (or "PB-X"). [20]

Building on the work done by A. E. Meeussen in the 1960s, a publicly searchable database of all the Bantu vocabulary items which have been established or proposed so far is maintained by the Royal Museum for Central Africa at Tervuren in Belgium (see External links).

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bantu languages</span> Large language family spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Bantu languages are a language family of about 600 languages that are spoken by the Bantu peoples of Central, Southern, Eastern and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niger–Congo languages</span> Large language family of Sub-Saharan Africa

Niger–Congo is a hypothetical language family spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic–Congo languages, and possibly several smaller groups of languages that are difficult to classify. If valid, Niger–Congo would be the world's largest in terms of member languages, the third-largest in terms of speakers, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area. It is generally considered to be the world's largest language family in terms of the number of distinct languages, just ahead of Austronesian, although this is complicated by the ambiguity about what constitutes a distinct language; the number of named Niger–Congo languages listed by Ethnologue is 1,540.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zulu language</span> Nguni language of eastern South Africa and neighbouring countries

Zulu, or isiZulu as an endonym, is a Southern Bantu language of the Nguni branch spoken and indigenous to Southern Africa. It is the language of the Zulu people, with about 13.56 million native speakers, who primarily inhabit the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa, and it is understood by over 50% of its population. It became one of South Africa's 12 official languages in 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xhosa language</span> Nguni language of southern South Africa

Xhosa, formerly spelled Xosa and also known by its local name isiXhosa, is a Nguni language, indigenous to Southern Africa and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Xhosa is spoken as a first language by approximately 10 million people and as a second language by another 10 million, mostly in South Africa, particularly in Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng, and also in parts of Zimbabwe and Lesotho. It has perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants in a Bantu language, with one count finding that 10% of basic vocabulary items contained a click.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proto-Germanic language</span> Ancestor of the Germanic languages

Proto-Germanic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kirundi</span> Bantu language of Burundi and adjacent states

Kirundi, also known as Rundi, is a Bantu language and the national language of Burundi. It is a dialect of Rwanda-Rundi dialect continuum that is also spoken in Rwanda and adjacent parts of Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, as well as in Kenya. Kirundi is mutually intelligible with Kinyarwanda, the national language of Rwanda, and the two form parts of the wider dialect continuum known as Rwanda-Rundi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benue–Congo languages</span> Major subdivision of the Niger–Congo language family

Benue–Congo is a major branch of the Volta-Congo languages which covers most of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Malcolm Guthrie was an English linguist who specialized in Bantu languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chimakuan languages</span> Native American language family

The Chimakuan languages are a group of extinct languages that were spoken in northwestern Washington state, United States, on the Olympic Peninsula. They were spoken by Chimakum, Quileute and Hoh tribes. They are part of the Mosan sprachbund, and one of its languages is famous for having no nasal consonants. The two languages were about as close as English and German. Due to proximity, the Chimakuan languages are also similar to Wakashan.

Phuthi (Síphùthì) is a Nguni Bantu language spoken in southern Lesotho and areas in South Africa adjacent to the same border. The closest substantial living relative of Phuthi is Swati, spoken in Eswatini and the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. Although there is no contemporary sociocultural or political contact, Phuthi is linguistically part of a historic dialect continuum with Swati. Phuthi is heavily influenced by the surrounding Sesotho and Xhosa languages, but retains a distinct core of lexicon and grammar not found in either Xhosa or Sesotho, and found only partly in Swati to the north.

Tooro or Rutooro is a Bantu language spoken mainly by the Tooro people (Abatooro) from the Tooro Kingdom in western Uganda. There are three main areas where Tooro as a language is mainly used: Kabarole District, Kyenjojo District and Kyegegwa District. Tooro is unique among Bantu languages as it lacks lexical tone. It is most closely related to Runyoro.

The Koti language, or Ekoti, is a Bantu language spoken in Mozambique by about 64,200 people. Koti is spoken on Koti Island and is also the major language of Angoche, the capital of the district with the same name in the province of Nampula.

The phonology of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) has been reconstructed by linguists, based on the similarities and differences among current and extinct Indo-European languages. Because PIE was not written, linguists must rely on the evidence of its earliest attested descendants, such as Hittite, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Latin, to reconstruct its phonology.

The phonology of Sesotho and those of the other Sotho–Tswana languages are radically different from those of "older" or more "stereotypical" Bantu languages. Modern Sesotho in particular has very mixed origins inheriting many words and idioms from non-Sotho–Tswana languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ekoid languages</span>

The Ekoid languages are a dialect cluster of Southern Bantoid languages spoken principally in southeastern Nigeria and in adjacent regions of Cameroon. They have long been associated with the Bantu languages, without their status being precisely defined. Crabb (1969) remains the major monograph on these languages, although regrettably, Part II, which was to contain grammatical analyses, was never published. Crabb also reviews the literature on Ekoid up to the date of publication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grassfields languages</span> Branch of Southern Bantoid of western Cameroon and part of Nigeria

The Grassfields languages are a branch of the Southern Bantoid languages spoken in the Western High Plateau of Cameroon and some parts of Taraba state, Nigeria. Better known Grassfields languages include the Eastern Grassfields languages, Bamun, Yamba, Bali, and Bafut and the Ring languages, Kom, Nso, and Oku. Almost all of these languages are closely related, sharing approximately half of their vocabulary.

Afitti is a language spoken on the eastern side of Jebel el-Dair, a solitary rock formation in the North Kordofan province of Sudan. Although the term ‘Dinik’ can be used to designate the language regardless of cultural affiliation, people in the villages of the region readily recognize the terms ‘Ditti’ and ‘Afitti.’ There are approximately 4,000 speakers of the Afitti language and its closest linguistic neighbor is the Nyimang language, spoken west of Jebel el-Dair in the Nuba Mountains of the South Kordofan province of Sudan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jita language</span> Bantu language of Tanzania

Jita is a Bantu language of Tanzania, spoken on the southeastern shore of Lake Victoria/Nyanza and on the island of Ukerewe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. E. Meeussen</span>

Achille Emile Meeussen, also spelled Achiel Emiel Meeussen, or simply A.E. Meeussen (1912–1978) was a distinguished Belgian specialist in Bantu languages, particularly those of the Belgian Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Together with the British scholar Malcolm Guthrie (1903–1972) he is regarded as one of the two leading experts in Bantu languages in the second half of the 20th century.

The augment, also called the pre-prefix or just initial vowel, is a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns in certain Bantu languages.

References

  1. ↑ Klieman, Kairn A. (19 December 2003). The Pygmies Were Our Compass: Bantu and Batwa in the History of West Central Africa, Early Times to C. 1900. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 43. ISBN   978-0-325-07104-6.
  2. ↑ Erhet & Posnansky, eds. (1982), Newman (1995)
  3. 1 2 Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. (2011). Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages, pp. 337ff.
  4. ↑ Newman (1995), Shillington (2005)
  5. ↑ Vansina (1995) quoted by Schadeberg, T. C. in Nurse, D. & Philippson, G. (eds) (2006) The Bantu Languages, p. 160.
  6. ↑ Blench, Roger . Paper circulated before the Niger-Congo conference of September 2012.
  7. ↑ Bostoen, Koen; Clist, Bernard; Doumenge, Charles; Grollemund, Rebecca; Hombert, Jean-Marie; Muluwa, Joseph Koni; Maley, Jean (2015). "Middle to Late Holocene Paleoclimatic Change and the Early Bantu Expansion in the Rain Forests of Western Central Africa". Current Anthropology. 56 (3): 354–384. doi:10.1086/681436. JSTOR   10.1086/681436. S2CID   129501938.
  8. ↑ Bradshaw, Richard; Fandos-Rius, Juan (27 May 2016). Historical Dictionary of the Central African Republic. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN   9780810879928.
  9. ↑ Denham, Timothy P.; Iriarte, José; Vrydaghs, Luc (July 2016). Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives. Routledge. ISBN   9781315420998.
  10. ↑ Asher, R. E.; Moseley, Christopher (19 April 2018). Atlas of the World's Languages. Routledge. ISBN   9781317851097.
  11. ↑ Grollemund, R.; Branford, S.; Bostoen, K.; Meade, A.; Venditti, C.; Pagel, M. (2015). "Bantu expansion shows that habitat alters the route and pace of human dispersals". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 112 (43): 13296–13501. Bibcode:2015PNAS..11213296G. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1503793112 . PMC   4629331 . PMID   26371302.
  12. ↑ Meredith, Martin (14 October 2014). The Fortunes of Africa: A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor. PublicAffairs. ISBN   9781610394604.
  13. 1 2 Hyman, Larry (2003). In Nurse, D. & Philippson, G. (eds) The Bantu Languages. pp. 42ff.
  14. 1 2 3 Derek Nurse, Gérard Philippson (eds) (2006) The Bantu Languages.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Maho, J. F. (1999). A comparative study of Bantu noun classes.
  16. 1 2 Guthrie, M. (1970). Collected Papers on Bantu Linguistics.
  17. ↑ Vossen, Rainer and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). 2020. The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  18. ↑ Bastin, Yvonne, André Coupez, and Michael Mann (1999). Continuity and Divergence in the Bantu Languages: Perspectives from a Lexicostatistic Study. (Annales, 162.) Tervuren: Musée royal de l'Afrique Centrale. 225 pp.
  19. 1 2 Schadeberg, T. C. in Nurse, D. & Philippson, G. (eds) (2006) The Bantu Languages, pp. 154ff.
  20. ↑ Bostoen & Bastin (2016), p. 4 (see External links).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.