lingvo.wikisort.org - Language

The Bantu languages (English: /ˈbæntuː/, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.

Bantu
Ethnicity	Bantu peoples
Geographic distribution	Central Africa, Southeast Africa, Southern Africa
Linguistic classification	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu
Proto-language	Proto-Bantu
Subdivisions	Zones A–S (geographic) Mbam–Bube–Jarawan Manenguba Sawabantu Basaa Bafia Beti Makaa–Njem Kele–Tsogo Teke–Mbede Mboshi–Buja Bangi–Tetela Mbole–Enya Lega–Binja Boan Lebonya Nyanga–Buyi Northeast Bantu Tongwe-Bende Mbugwe–Rangi Kilombero Kongo–Yaka–Sira Kimbundu Chokwe–Luchazi Luyana Mbukushu Pende Luban Lunda Rukwa Sabi–Botatwe Nyaturu-Nilamba-Isanzu Nyasa Rufiji–Ruvuma Umbundu Kavango–Southwest Bantu Yeyi Shona Southern Bantu
ISO 639-2 / 5	bnt
Glottolog	narr1281
The Bantu languages shown within the Niger–Congo language family. Non-Bantu languages are greyscale.

The total number of Bantu languages ranges in the hundreds, depending on the definition of "language" versus "dialect", and is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages.[1] For Bantuic, Linguasphere[2] has 260 outer languages (which are equivalent to languages, inner languages being dialects). John McWhorter said, using a comparison of 16 languages from Bangi-Moi, Bangi-Ntamba, Koyo-Mboshi, Likwala-Sangha, Ngondi-Ngiri and Northern Mozambiquean, mostly from Guthrie Zone C, that many varieties are mutually intelligible.[3]

The total number of Bantu speakers is in the hundreds of millions, estimated around 350 million in the mid-2010s (roughly 30% of the total population of Africa or roughly 5% of world population).[4] Bantu languages are largely spoken southeast of Cameroon, throughout Central Africa, Southeast Africa and Southern Africa. About one-sixth of Bantu speakers, and about one-third of Bantu languages, are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone (c. 60 million speakers as of 2015). See list of Bantu peoples.

The Bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is Swahili; however, for the majority of its speakers it is a second language (L1: c. 16 million, L2: 80 million, as of 2015).[5]

Other major Bantu languages include Xhosa with 13 million speakers (South Africa and Zimbabwe), Zulu with 12 million speakers and Shona with less than 10 million speakers (if Manyika and Ndau are included); Zimbabwe has Kalanga, Matebele, Nambiya and Xhosa speakers.[6][7] Ethnologue separates the largely mutually intelligible Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, which together have 20 million speakers.[8]

Name

The similarity among dispersed Bantu languages had been observed as early as the 17th century.[9] The term Bantu as a name for the group was coined (as Bâ-ntu) by Wilhelm Bleek in 1857 or 1858, and popularised in his Comparative Grammar of 1862.[10] He coined the term to represent the word for "people" in loosely reconstructed Proto-Bantu, from the plural noun class prefix *ba- categorizing "people", and the root *ntʊ̀- "some (entity), any" (e.g. Zulu umuntu "person", abantu "people").

There is no indigenous term for the group, as Bantu-speaking populations refer to themselves by their endonyms, but did not have a concept for the larger ethno-linguistic phylum. Bleek's coinage was inspired by the anthropological observation of groups frequently self-identifying as "people" or "the true people" (as is the case, for example, with the term Khoekhoe, but this is a kare "praise address" and not an ethnic name).[11]

The term narrow Bantu, excluding those languages classified as Bantoid by Guthrie (1948), was introduced in the 1960s.[12]

The prefix ba- specifically refers to people. Endonymically, the term for cultural objects, including language, is formed with the ki- noun class (Nguni ísi-), as in KiSwahili (Swahili language and culture), IsiZulu (Zulu language and culture) and KiGanda (Ganda religion and culture).

In the 1980s, South African linguists suggested referring to these languages as KiNtu. The word kintu exists in some places, but it means "thing", with no relation to the concept of "language".[13] In addition, delegates at the African Languages Association of Southern Africa conference in 1984 reported that, in some places, the term Kintu has a derogatory significance.[14] This is because kintu refers to "things" and is used as a dehumanizing term for people who have lost their dignity.[15]

In addition, Kintu is a figure in some mythologies.[16]

In the 1990s, the term Kintu was still occasionally used by South African linguists.[17] But in contemporary decolonial South African linguistics, the term Ntu languages is used.[17]

Origin

The Bantu languages descend from a common Proto-Bantu language, which is believed to have been spoken in what is now Cameroon in Central Africa.[18] An estimated 2,500–3,000 years ago (1000 BC to 500 BC), speakers of the Proto-Bantu language began a series of migrations eastward and southward, carrying agriculture with them. This Bantu expansion came to dominate Sub-Saharan Africa east of Cameroon, an area where Bantu peoples now constitute nearly the entire population.[18][19] Some other sources estimate the Bantu Expansion started closer to 3000 BC.[20]

The technical term Bantu, meaning "human beings" or simply "people", was first used by Wilhelm Bleek (1827–1875), as the concept is reflected in many of the languages of this group. A common characteristic of Bantu languages is that they use words such as muntu or mutu for "human being" or in simplistic terms "person", and the plural prefix for human nouns starting with mu- (class 1) in most languages is ba- (class 2), thus giving bantu for "people". Bleek, and later Carl Meinhof, pursued extensive studies comparing the grammatical structures of Bantu languages.

Classification

The most widely used classification is an alphanumeric coding system developed by Malcolm Guthrie in his 1948 classification of the Bantu languages. It is mainly geographic. The term "narrow Bantu" was coined by the Benue–Congo Working Group to distinguish Bantu as recognized by Guthrie, from the Bantoid languages not recognized as Bantu by Guthrie.[21]

In recent times,^[when?] the distinctiveness of Narrow Bantu as opposed to the other Southern Bantoid languages has been called into doubt (cf. Piron 1995, Williamson & Blench 2000, Blench 2011), but the term is still widely used.

There is no true genealogical classification of the (Narrow) Bantu languages. Until recently^[when?] most attempted classifications only considered languages that happen to fall within traditional Narrow Bantu, but there seems to be a continuum with the related languages of South Bantoid.[22]

At a broader level, the family is commonly split in two depending on the reflexes of proto-Bantu tone patterns: Many Bantuists group together parts of zones A through D (the extent depending on the author) as Northwest Bantu or Forest Bantu, and the remainder as Central Bantu or Savanna Bantu. The two groups have been described as having mirror-image tone systems: where Northwest Bantu has a high tone in a cognate, Central Bantu languages generally have a low tone, and vice versa.

Northwest Bantu is more divergent internally than Central Bantu, and perhaps less conservative due to contact with non-Bantu Niger–Congo languages; Central Bantu is likely the innovative line cladistically. Northwest Bantu is clearly not a coherent family, but even for Central Bantu the evidence is lexical, with little evidence that it is a historically valid group.

Another attempt at a detailed genetic classification to replace the Guthrie system is the 1999 "Tervuren" proposal of Bastin, Coupez, and Mann.[23] However, it relies on lexicostatistics, which, because of its reliance on overall similarity rather than shared innovations, may predict spurious groups of conservative languages that are not closely related. Meanwhile, Ethnologue has added languages to the Guthrie classification which Guthrie overlooked, while removing the Mbam languages (much of zone A), and shifting some languages between groups (much of zones D and E to a new zone J, for example, and part of zone L to K, and part of M to F) in an apparent effort at a semi-genetic, or at least semi-areal, classification. This has been criticized for sowing confusion in one of the few unambiguous ways to distinguish Bantu languages. Nurse & Philippson (2006) evaluate many proposals for low-level groups of Bantu languages, but the result is not a complete portrayal of the family.[21][10] Glottolog has incorporated many of these into their classification.[24]

The languages that share Dahl's law may also form a valid group, Northeast Bantu. The infobox at right lists these together with various low-level groups that are fairly uncontroversial, though they continue to be revised. The development of a rigorous genealogical classification of many branches of Niger–Congo, not just Bantu, is hampered by insufficient data.[25][12]

Computational phylogenetic classifications

Simplified phylogeny of northwestern branches of Bantu by Grollemund (2012):[26]

Bantu

Northwest Northwest 1 Northwest 1a   A40-50-60-70: Basaa languages, Bafia languages, Mbam languages, Beti language     A10-20-30: Sawabantu languages, Manenguba languages     Northwest 1b   A80-90: Makaa–Njem languages     B20: Kele languages       Northwest 2   B10: Myene language     B30: Tsogo languages       Central Central 1 Central 1a   C10-20-30: Ngondi–Ngiri languages, Mboshi languages, Bangi–Ntomba languages     C40-D20-D32: Bati–Angba languages, Lega–Binja languages, Bira language     Central 1b   B80-C60-70-80: Boma–Dzing languages, Soko languages, Tetela languages, Bushoong languages     B40-H10-30-B50-60-70: Sira languages, Kongo languages, Yaka languages, Nzebi languages, Mbete languages, Teke languages     L10-H40: Pende languages, Hungana language       Central 2   C50-D10: Soko languages, Lengola language     D10-20-30-40-JD50: Mbole–Enya languages, Komo–Bira languages, Shi–Havu languages

Other computational phylogenetic analyses of Bantu include Currie et al. (2013),[27] Grollemund et al. (2015),[28] Rexova et al. 2006,[29] Holden et al., 2016,[30] and Whiteley et al. 2018.[31]

Glottolog classification

Glottolog (2021) does not consider the older geographic classification by Guthrie relevant for its ongoing classification based on more recent linguistic studies, and Divides Bantu into four main branches (Bantu A-B10-B20-B30, Central-Western Bantu, East Bantu and Mbam-Bube-Jarawan).[32]

Language structure

Guthrie reconstructed both the phonemic inventory and the vocabulary of Proto-Bantu.[1]

The most prominent grammatical characteristic of Bantu languages is the extensive use of affixes (see Sotho grammar and Ganda noun classes for detailed discussions of these affixes). Each noun belongs to a class, and each language may have several numbered classes, somewhat like grammatical gender in European languages. The class is indicated by a prefix that is part of the noun, as well as agreement markers on verb and qualificative roots connected with the noun. Plural is indicated by a change of class, with a resulting change of prefix.[17][12] All Bantu languages are agglutinative.

The verb has a number of prefixes, though in the western languages these are often treated as independent words.[33] In Swahili, for example, Kitoto kidogo kimekisoma (for comparison, Kamwana kadoko karikuverenga in Shona language) means 'The small child has read it [a book]'. Kitoto 'child' governs the adjective prefix ki- (representing the diminutive form of the word) and the verb subject prefix ki-. Then comes perfect tense -me- and an object marker -ki- agreeing with implicit kitabu 'book' (from Arabic kitab). Pluralizing to 'children' gives Vitoto vidogo vimekisoma (Vana vadoko varikuverenga in Shona), and pluralizing to 'books' (vitabu) gives Vitoto vidogo vimevisoma.[20]

Bantu words are typically made up of open syllables of the type CV (consonant-vowel) with most languages having syllables exclusively of this type. The Bushong language recorded by Vansina, however, has final consonants,[34] while slurring of the final syllable (though written) is reported as common among the Tonga of Malawi.[35] The morphological shape of Bantu words is typically CV, VCV, CVCV, VCVCV, etc.; that is, any combination of CV (with possibly a V- syllable at the start). In other words, a strong claim for this language family is that almost all words end in a vowel, precisely because closed syllables (CVC) are not permissible in most of the documented languages, as far as is understood.[36][22]

This tendency to avoid consonant clusters in some positions is important when words are imported from English or other non-Bantu languages. An example from Chewa: the word "school", borrowed from English, and then transformed to fit the sound patterns of this language, is sukulu. That is, sk- has been broken up by inserting an epenthetic -u-; -u has also been added at the end of the word. Another example is buledi for "bread". Similar effects are seen in loanwords for other non-African CV languages like Japanese. However, a clustering of sounds at the beginning of a syllable can be readily observed in such languages as Shona,[37] and the Makua languages.[38]

With few exceptions, such as Kiswahili and Rutooro, Bantu languages are tonal and have two to four register tones.

Reduplication

Reduplication is a common morphological phenomenon in Bantu languages and is usually used to indicate frequency or intensity of the action signalled by the (unreduplicated) verb stem.[36]

• Example: in Swahili piga means "strike", pigapiga means "strike repeatedly".

Well-known words and names that have reduplication include:

• Bafana Bafana, a football team
• Chipolopolo, a football team
• Eric Djemba-Djemba, a footballer
• Lomana LuaLua, a footballer

Repetition emphasizes the repeated word in the context that it is used. For instance, "Mwenda pole hajikwai," while, "Pole pole ndio mwendo," has two to emphasize the consistency of slowness of the pace. The meaning of the former in translation is, "He who goes slowly doesn't trip," and that of the latter is, "A slow but steady pace wins the race." Haraka haraka would mean hurrying just for the sake of hurrying, reckless hurry, as in "Njoo! Haraka haraka" [come here! Hurry, hurry].

In contrast, there are some words in some of the languages in which reduplication has the opposite meaning. It usually denotes short durations, and or lower intensity of the action and also means a few repetitions or a little bit more.

• Example 1: In Xitsonga and (Chi)Shona, famba means "walk" while famba-famba means "walk around".
• Example 2: in isiZulu and SiSwati hamba means "go", hambahamba means "go a little bit, but not much".
• Example 3: in both of the above languages shaya means "strike", shayashaya means "strike a few more times lightly, but not heavy strikes and not too many times".
• Example 4: In Shona kwenya means "scratch", Kwenyakwenya means "scratch excessively or a lot".

Noun class

The following is a list of nominal classes in Bantu languages:[39]

Singular classes		Plural classes		Typical meaning(s)
Number	Prefix	Number	Prefix
1	*mʊ-	2	*ba-	Humans, animate
3	*mu-	4	*mi-	Plants, inanimate
5	*dɪ-	6	*ma-	Various; class 6 for liquids (mass nouns)
7	*ki-	8	*bɪ-	Various, diminutives, manner/way/language
9	*n-	10	*n-	Animals, inanimate
11	*du-			Abstract nouns
12	*ka-	13	*tu-	Diminutives
14	*bu-			Abstract nouns
15	*ku-			Infinitives
16	*pa-			Locatives (proximal, exact)
17	*ku-			Locatives (distal, approximate)
18	*mu-			Locatives (interior)
19	*pɪ-			Diminutives

Syntax

Virtually all Bantu languages have a Subject–verb–object word order with some exceptions such as the Nen language which has a Subject-Object-Verb word order.[40]

By country

Following is an incomplete list of the principal Bantu languages of each country.[41] Included are those languages that constitute at least 1% of the population and have at least 10% the number of speakers of the largest Bantu language in the country.

Most languages are referred to in English without the class prefix (Swahili, Tswana, Ndebele), but are sometimes seen with the (language-specific) prefix (Kiswahili, Setswana, Sindebele). In a few cases prefixes are used to distinguish languages with the same root in their name, such as Tshiluba and Kiluba (both Luba), Umbundu and Kimbundu (both Mbundu). The prefixless form typically does not occur in the language itself, but is the basis for other words based on the ethnicity. So, in the country of Botswana the people are the Batswana, one person is a Motswana, and the language is Setswana; and in Uganda, centred on the kingdom of Buganda, the dominant ethnicity are the Baganda (singular Muganda), whose language is Luganda.

Geographic areas

Map 1 shows Bantu languages in Africa and map 2 a magnification of the Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon area, as of July 2017.^{[citation needed]}

Bantu words popularised in western cultures

A case has been made out for borrowings of many place-names and even misremembered rhymes – chiefly from one of the Luba varieties – in the USA.[43]

Some words from various Bantu languages have been borrowed into western languages. These include:

This section does not cite any sources. (September 2015)

Writing systems

Along with the Latin script and Arabic script orthographies, there are also some modern indigenous writing systems used for Bantu languages:

• The Mwangwego alphabet is an abugida created in 1979 that is sometimes used to write the Chewa language and other languages of Malawi.
• The Mandombe script is an abugida that is used to write the Bantu languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, mainly by the Kimbanguist movement.
• The Isibheqe Sohlamvu or Ditema tsa Dinoko script is a featural syllabary used to write the siNtu or Southern Bantu languages.

See also

• Meeussen's rule
• Nguni languages
• Proto-Bantu Swadesh list

References

Bibliography

• Biddulph, Joseph, Bantu Byways Pontypridd 2001. ISBN 978-1-897999-30-1.
• Finck, Franz Nikolaus (1908). Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der Bantusprachen. Vandenhoek und Ruprecht. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• Guthrie, Malcolm. 1948. The classification of the Bantu languages. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.
• Guthrie, Malcolm. 1971. Comparative Bantu, Vol 2. Farnborough: Gregg International.
• Heine, Bernd. 1973. Zur genetische Gliederung der Bantu-Sprachen. Afrika und Übersee, 56: 164–185.
• Maho, Jouni F. 2001. The Bantu area: (towards clearing up) a mess. Africa & Asia, 1:40–49.
• Maho, Jouni F. 2002. Bantu lineup: comparative overview of three Bantu classifications. Göteborg University: Department of Oriental and African Languages.
• Nurse, Derek, & Gérard Philippson. 2006. The Bantu Languages. Routledge.
• Piron, Pascale. 1995. Identification lexicostatistique des groupes Bantoïdes stables. Journal of West African Languages, 25(2): 3–39.
• Stanford (2013). "Kiswahili". Retrieved 2013-06-20.(subscription required)^{[full citation needed]}

External links

• Arte da lingua de Angola: oeferecida [sic] a virgem Senhora N. do Rosario, mãy, Senhora dos mesmos pretos The art of the language of Angola, by Father Pedro Dias, 1697, Lisbon, artedalinguadean
• Comparative Bantu Online Dictionary linguistics.berkeley.edu, includes comprehensive bibliography.
• Maho, Jouni Filip NUGL Online. The online version of the New Updated Guthrie List, a referential classification of the Bantu languages goto.glocalnet.net, 4 June 2009, 120pp. Guthrie 1948 in detail, with subsequent corrections and corresponding ISO codes.
• Bantu online resources bantu-languages.com, Jacky Maniacky, 7 July 2007, including
  • List of Bantu noun classes with reconstructed Proto-Bantu prefixes bantu-languages.com (in French)
• Ehret's compilation of classifications by Klieman, Bastin, himself, and others pp 204–09, ucla.edu, 24 June 2012
• Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili. 1994, Virginia.edu
• List of Bantu language names with synonyms ordered by Guthrie number.linguistics.berkeley.edu 529 names
• Introduction to the languages of South Africa salanguages.com
• Narrow Bantu Journal of West African Languages
• Uganda Bantu Languages ugandatravelguide.com

На других языках

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[de] Bantusprachen

Die Bantusprachen bilden eine Untergruppe des Volta-Kongo-Zweigs der afrikanischen Niger-Kongo-Sprachen. Es gibt etwa 500 Bantusprachen, die von ca. 200 Mio. Menschen gesprochen werden. Sie sind im gesamten mittleren und südlichen Afrika verbreitet und dort in allen Staaten die meistgesprochenen Sprachen, wenn auch als Amtssprache in der Regel Englisch, Französisch oder Portugiesisch verwendet wird.

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- [en] Bantu languages

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[es] Lenguas bantúes

Las lenguas bantúes son un conjunto de lenguas habladas en África que constituyen una subfamilia de lenguas Níger-Congo. Las lenguas bantúes son habladas en el sur de Camerún, Gabón, República del Congo, República Democrática del Congo, Uganda, Kenia, Tanzania, Angola, Zambia, Malaui, Mozambique, Zimbabue, Namibia, Botsuana y Sudáfrica.

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[fr] Langues bantoues

La famille des langues bantoues est un ensemble de langues africaines qui regroupe plus de 400 langues parlées dans une vingtaine de pays de la moitié sud de l'Afrique. Elles forment un sous-ensemble de la grande famille des langues nigéro-congolaises. Le nombre total de locuteurs de ces langues est évalué à 310 millions[1].

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[ru] Банту (языки)

Языки ба́нту — группа бантоидных языков бенуэ-конголезской семьи. Распространены в странах Африки южнее Сахары от Нигерии и Камеруна на западе до Кении на востоке и к югу континента, включая ЮАР. Точных данных о числе говорящих нет.

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