NUGL Online - Glocalnet

The 2nd New Updated Guthrie List
The present document comprises an update and expansion of Malcolm Guthrie’s
1971-classification of the Bantu languages. This is the second such update, the
first being Maho (2003). This online document constitutes a simplified version of
a forthcoming update currently being prepared for proper publication.
The NUGL (or New Updated Guthrie List) is not offered as a prescriptive list of
language names. The names used here are those that appear to be the most
commonly used names in the literature, other Bantu classifications, and/or the
ones explicitly preferred by authoritative sources.
Obsolete, derogatory, or otherwise inapproariate names have been avoided,
though some commonly used ones are retained in quotes.
G43c..................... Makunduchi, Ka(l)e, “Hadimu”
In general, the language names that appear in Guthrie’s 1971-classification have
been retained, though some of the original spellings have been modernised,
where necessary. Thus Guthrie’s ‘Kxhalaxadi’ appears here as ‘Kgalagadi’.
Also, his many phonetic symbols have been replaced with more standard
(ASCII) characters. Many of his diacritics have been omitted entirely.
The language names are generally given without prefixes. The use of a prefix is
grammatically obligatory in any specific Bantu language, but this text-cum-list is
written in English, and I see no reason to adopt foreign inflectional paradigms
when writing English prose (cfr Bailey 1995:34-35). Still, prefixes are occasionally
added when, for instance, a prefixed name has become the standard English
form (e.g. Kiswahili, Setswana), or when prefixed names can help to disambiguate
two (orthographically) identical language names.
B503..................... Vili, Ibhili
H12....................... Vili, Civili
Many entries below contain more than one name. Usually these are variant
names, as in the examples immediately above. However, the literature is not