Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

(17) Innovations common to Bantu Botatwe (Bostoen 2009:125)
a. *d > l/r
b. 7-to-5 vowel merger
c. *k palatalization
d. Meinhof’s law (NCVNC > NVNC)
e. *HH/*HL merger
f. Bantu spirantization
Map 2.1, provided by Kathryn de Luna, shows approximate current geographical locations
of Bantu Botatwe languages with relation to one another.
Map 2.1: Map of Bantu Botatwe languages in de Luna (2010)
Based on extensive vocabulary collection in Zambia and the Caprivi in Namibia, de Luna
(2008, 2010) offers an internal classification of Bantu Botatwe. Based on cognation rates,
Totela is classified along with other languages of the eastern Caprivi. These are given in figure
2.1, where the intersections of rows and columns show cognation rates between language
pairs. For example, de Luna’s Totela data (taken mostly from the Namibian Caprivi) have an
85% cognation rate with lexical data from Subiya. When shared innovations are considered
in addition to lexicostatistics, de Luna’s internal classification is different from what is shown
in figure 2.1, but does not differ with respect to Totela’s classification together with Subiya
and Mbalangwe, forming the Machili subgroup of the Western Botatwe branch. 2
2 The other subgroup of Western Botatwe is comprised of Shanjo and Fwe, which are posited to have
descended from a Proto Zambezi Hook language.
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