Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

Chapter 2
Totela
2.1 Language background
2.1.1 Genetic classification
Totela is a Bantu language spoken in parts of western Zambia and the Caprivi Strip in
northern Namibia. It is listed as K.41 in the Guthrie (1967-1971) classification system,
widely acknowledged to be useful referentially, but not a “linguistic-genetic” system Maho
(2009:4).
Totela belongs to a group of languages known as Bantu Botatwe (BB). BB includes
Soli (K.36), Shanjo (K.36), Fwe (K.402), Totela (K.41 (Zambian) and K.411(Namibian)),
Mbalangwe (K.42/401), Subiya (K.42), Lenje (M.61), Ila (M.63), Sala (M.631), Lundwe
(M.632), Tonga (M.64), Toka (M.64), and Leya (M.64) (de Luna 2008). These languages
have been given numerous and varied classifications (see Seidel 2005)), but are now widely
acknowledged to belong to a cohesive group, despite the differing and therefore potentially
misleading Guthrie classification codes. Fortune, for example, notes that “Totela and Subiya
. . . belong with Shanjo to Zone M” (Fortune 1970:32). For an excellent introduction to Bantu
Botatwe languages and their cultural and linguistic history, see de Luna (2008).
Example (17) shows a list of innovations from Proto-Bantu common to all known Bantu
Botatwe languages, taken from Bostoen (2009). These changes are not exclusive to Bantu
Botatwe, but describe characteristics that are also found in other language groups of the area,
as well as further away. However, the “precise outcome” of Bantu spirantization separates
the Bantu Botatwe languages from its nearest neighbors in the M.40 and M.50 languages
(Bostoen 2009:125). 1 All of these innovations apply to Totela, as demonstrated in 2.2.
1 Specifically, after PB *i, spirants have merged to a single place of articulation, alveolar or palatal. After
*u, reduction is partial in the western BB languages and Tonga, and nearly complete in other eastern BB
languages (Bostoen 2008:117-118).
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