The Classification of the Bantu Languages bound with Bantu Word Division

Malcolm Guthrie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351601436
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Syntax in Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The first volume of this pair, The Classification of Bantu Languages, originally published in 1948, investigates the questions arising out of the use of the term Bantu. It establishes and illustrates the criteria used in identifying languages as members of the Bantu family. The technique used in classification is described and its results shown in the form of a series of descriptive classifications of each of the principal areas. As well as the map (not included in the volume due to modern methods of reproduction, but available to view on routledge.com), there is a complete list of languages classified in their groups. The second volume, Bantu Word Division published in the same year, discusses a question which for many years was the subject of protracted controversy, namely the dispute between the conjunctivist and the disjunctivist, with regard to word division. This pamphlet discusses word division from a different angle, and solves the problem in a more conclusive way.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

THE latter half of the nineteenth century saw the end of most of the great exploratory journeys into that part of Africa which lies to the south of the Equator. The expansion of missionary work Which followed on the opening up of the previously unknown areas during this period gave rise to intense interest in the languages of the newly discovered peoples. This resulted in the production of a surprising number of dictionaries and grammars describing the various languages which were found.

As early as 1862 Bleek drew the attention of scholars to the fact that there was a startling family resemblance between widely separated languages in this area. When more grammars became available it became evident that the Bantu family was indeed a very large one. Moreover, its peculiar characteristics have been of considerable interest to linguistic students in other fields. Up to this time not a few of the languages have been fairly completely documented, while one or two have received special attention. This is particularly so in the case of the work of Doke on Zulu, and of Laman on Kongo, to mention only two cases in which such studies have reached a high level.

Nevertheless, there are still two things to be done in this field. No satisfactory method of classification has yet been developed for this great number of clearly related languages. In addition there is still no work of reference from which research workers may know where are the principal gaps in our knowledge. The recently published bibliography of Bantu by Doke has given us a very useful book, in which is set out in considerable detail an account of the works so far published on the various members of the Bantu family of languages. As part of the framework of his monograph Doke used a broad classification based on certain features chosen for the purpose. What he did not do, because it would have been outside the scope of the work, was to give us any complete picture of what is known about the whole family, or to make any reference to the many languages which have no documentation. To achieve this it is necessary to survey the whole field in a different way, and that is what this present work sets out to do.

The aim of this monograph then is twofold. It is intended first of all to establish some framework which may serve for future reference in identifying and classifying Bantu languages. Then in the second place, as an important by-product, it will throw into prominence the places where our knowledge is fragmentary or even non-existent.

The important thing to bear in mind when consulting this work is that the classification is essentially tentative. In a few areas, where our data are reasonably adequate, the grouping may lay claim to a certain amount of finality. In many cases, however, where whole sets of languages are known chiefly as names only, the classification is necessarily experimental, and must not be taken as authoritative in any way.

In some cases the conclusion reached from fragmentary data will probably be found to be only partially correct. It is hoped, however, that the publication of this tentative work will stimulate any who are in a position to do so to contribute more complete information on the subject. In other cases little-known languages have been grouped together because a supposed relationship has been asserted by some earlier writer. It may well be that those who have direct contact with these languages possess data which show that such grouping is unjustified. Here, too, the co-operation of such workers will be appreciated, since it is desirable that in any subsequent edition the needful revisions should be made. In this way the setting out of all that can be known from the available data, however inconclusive, will have served its purpose.

THE PLAN OF THE WORK

There are four principal parts to this study. In the first we shall investigate the questions arising out of the use of the term Bantu. Among other things this involves establishing and illustrating the criteria to be used in identifying languages as members of the Bantu family. The following chapter is then devoted to a discussion of the various aspects of the problems of classification. Chief among these is the method to be adopted in attempting to classify the Bantu languages. Then in Chapter IV the technique which has been described is applied, and its results shown in the form of a series of descriptive classifications of each of the principal areas in turn. Finally there is a map, together with a key in the form of a complete list of the languages classified in their groups.

One difficulty that had to be faced arose from the fact that some languages have been called by more than one name. This has been dealt with in two ways. In general the name accepted as correct is that used by the speakers of a language to refer to it. Where the name has a class prefix, the usual practice is followed of omitting this prefix, and where, as in the case of MWAŊGA (known as iciinamwaŋga), the name is preceded by the word iciina ‘the language of the people of’, this is naturally not used. The element -nya- which occurs in some names, e.g. NYAŊKOLE (called olun- yaŋkole), is retained, since its meaning is obscure, and sometimes it has become universally recognized as part of the word, e.g. it would be of small value to call NYAMWES

by the shortened form MWES

. In the full list of languages accompanying the map, the other names which have been used for a given language are placed in parentheses, and then at the end of the work there is an alphabetical index to all the names. It would clearly have been neither practicable nor useful to give all the spelling variants of certain names, so a peculiar spelling is only noted if it alters the position of the word in the index.

In the fourth chapter a system of numeration is developed by means of which any language may be referred to by a letter and two figures. Since this also enables any language to be found on the map, the numbering is given in parentheses after the name, each time a language is mentioned, even before the significance of the numeration has been explained.

ORTHOGRAPHY

In any study of the Bantu languages in general the problem of orthography becomes very difficult. It is clear that the considerations governing the designing of a practical orthography do not necessarily operate in this case. On the other hand, to use any system of spelling that did not conform in most respects to the orthography based on the ‘Africa’ alphabet would be unsatisfactory, while to depart too much from the conventional spelling of important languages would in itself reduce the usefulness of the work.

One of the biggest difficulties in a general study of the Bantu languages arises from the existence of fivevowel languages side by side with the seven-vowel languages. On the one hand it would be misleading to represent identical pronunciation differently in different languages, but on the other the spelling of one language can hardly be determined by the characteristics of its neighbours. Fortunately the most serious aspect of this problem has been overcome by the recent development of the ‘Africa’ alphabet to include a system of nine vowel characters. This has meant that the two new characters

and

could be used for the extra close vowels of the seven-vowel languages. As a result of this, those who only know the traditional five-vowel symbol system in the seven-vowel languages of East Africa will easily recognize the spelling, as will those who have no acquaintance with other than five-vowel languages. For the seven-vowel languages of the north and north-West, however, the spelling of the words has had to be adapted. There can be little doubt that the seven vowel characters of the original ‘Africa’ alphabet are the most suitable for any practical orthography of these languages, but clearly in a work which covers the whole of the Bantu field consistency must mean slight inconvenience in certain cases. Anyone using this work who has been accustomed to the open vowel characters will therefore have to interpret the spelling in this way:

= i, i= e, e = Ɛ,

= u, u = o, o = ɔ. It must be emphasized, however, that the use of the new letters implies no suggestion that they would be suitable for general use in these particular languages. As already stated, it seems reasonably certain that the use of the two open vowel characters is the most satisfactory thing for them.

Another problem in a work of this kind is how to write fricative consonants. It would not be practicable to use the special symbol in every case, especially as it frequently happens that the exact nature of the articulation is unimportant. For example, in ḆEMBA (M.42a) there is only one voiced bilabial consonant, and the fact that it is fricative in a word like abantu ‘people’ would in no sense justify the use of a special character. When we come to other languages, however, such as MBUNDU (R.11), there is the difficulty that an identical sound, which has an almost identical value in the language, is written ‘v’, e.g. ovandu ‘people’. Such a spelling could not be used in this work, but in view of its existence there does arise the necessity for indicating that the sound in such words is a simple fricative bilabial. Purely as an expedient for our present purpose, therefore, and in no way supporting the undesirable practice of using such diacritics in current orthographies, any sound which is known to be fricative will be represented by the character for the plosive underlined, e.g. ḇ = β (ʋ in the ‘Africa’ alphabet), ᵽ = ɸ (f in the ‘Africa’ alphabet), ḵ= X, = ɤ.

The symbols c and j have been used consistently throughout to represent either palatal plosives or simple affricates of the type tʃ, d3. Although this involves the use of the same character for quite different sounds, the fact is that in many cases we do not really know which of the two sounds occurs, and so it is convenient not to have to distinguish them in the spelling.

In the case of ʃ and ʒ the problem is somewhat similar, except that here we do not know Whether these sounds are essentially distinct from s and z respectively. To use the phonetic symbols for them would frequently mean introducing an extra character unnecessarily, and would also obscure the relationship between words in different languages. For this reason the symbols

and ᶎ have been adopted, since they will also cover the possibility of other palatalized fricatives such as ç and ᶎ.

The usual method of representing dental sounds presents several problems, and on the whole seems unsatisfactory for our present purpose. As a tentative measure, then, the fact that a sound has a dental pronunciation will be shown by the placing of a cedilla beneath it. This means that θ can be written ş, and in some cases this is most useful, especially where words with θ in some languages appear with s in others. Where θ is not related to an s in other languages, as in KELE (A.73) the phonetic symbol is retained for the dental fricative, but only in these cases.

The character ŋ for the velar nasal is required in the case of a number of languages,such as FAŊ (A.66), where it represents a sound that has to be distinguished from ŋg. For this reason it has been used throughout as the nasal in compounds with velar consonants, even in those languages where to do so in a practical orthography would be an unnecessary complication. This is simply because it is desirable that similar words should be spelt identically in different languages in a study of this kind.

The question of word-division hardly enters into the scope of this present work. It must be pointed out, however, that the grammatical system which is presupposed throughout the work demands what would be called a ‘conjunctive’ system of writing. Consequently in none of the examples cited is any regard paid to the current practice of word-division in force in the language in question. This is not to be interpreted as any premature pronouncement on the matter, where a language happens to be written more or less disjunctively, but merely as an attempt to achieve grammatical consistency.

DATA

Much of the information needed for this study has had to be derived from observations made by other people. Inevitably this means that the reliability of the data collected in such a way is extremely variable. In some cases, too, further research may show that certain conclusions are invalid through their having been based on statements that were misleading rather than incorrect. Such, however, are the limitations due to the inadequacy of our present knowledge of the Bantu field.

In some respects, however, the present work may claim to have a certain distinctiveness, since I have been fortunate enough to be able to gather a very large proportion of the data at first hand. It so happens that the only area where I have had no personal contact with any of the languages is the one I call Zone A. Everything said about the languages of this region therefore has had to be taken from the work of others and is of indeterminate reliability. In much of Zone T also are languages concerning which I have had to rely on What others have told me or have stated in their published works. The net result of this is that of the languages illustrated in the chapter dealing with criteria the only ones I have not personally studied on the field are FAŊ (A.66) and ROŊGA (T.24), while in the chapter on differentia every example given has either been obtained from or verified by native speakers of the language in question.

The map at the end sufers from the same disabilities as the rest of the work. Every eflort has been made to check all the available data in order to fix the geographical limits of each language, but our knowledge is extremely patchy. Some areas, such as Southern Rhodes...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Chapter I: Introduction
• Chapter II: Identifying the Bantu Languages
• Chapter III: Methods of Classification
• Chapter IV: The Bantu Languages Classified
• Full Classified List of the Bantu Languages
• Index to the Languages
• Bantu Word Division