Routledge dictionary of language and linguistics - Developers

A-Z 119
Balto-Finnish Finno-Ugric
Bambara Mande
Bantoid Benue-Congo
Bantu
Largest language group of Benue-Congo languages with over 500 closely related
languages forming a dialect continuum; the most significant languages are Congo, Zulu
(approx. 6 million speakers), Rwanda, Xhosa, Luba, Shona (approx. 5 million speakers),
and Swahili, which is widely used in East Africa as a trade language. Internal divisions:
Rain Forest Bantu in the west, Savannah Bantu in the east and south. The high degree of
similarity between these languages points to a relatively recent immigration of the Bantuspeaking
peoples from the Benue area (Nigeria).
The unity of the Bantu languages was recognized relatively early (e.g. Bleek, 1856); in
1899, Meinhof succeeded in reconstructing the sound system of Proto-Bantu ( protolanguage,
reconstruction). Guthrie (1967–71) collected comprehensive data for the
reconstruction of ‘Common Bantu,’ creating the commonly used (if somewhat arbitrary)
reference system of fifteen zones for Bantu languages and dialects.
Characteristics: usually tonal (two tones), tendency towards bisyllabic roots and
reduced vowel system (seven or five vowels). Welldeveloped noun class system: each
noun belongs to a separate class (one of usually about ten to twenty) with a specific
prefix, where a certain plural class often corresponds to a singular class (cf. Swahili ki-ti
‘chair,’ vi-ti ‘chairs’); the division into classes is often semantically motivated (animate,
object, fluid, and other classes). Complex verb morphology (agreement prefixes,
tense/mood/polarity prefixes, voice-marking suffixes). Word order SVO.
References
Bleek, W.H.I. 1856. The languages of Mozambique: vocabularies of the dialects of Lourenço
Marques. London.
Byarushengo, E.A. et al. 1977. Haya grammatical structure. Los Angeles. CA.
Clements, G.N. and J.A.Goldsmith. 1984. Autosegmental studies in Bantu tone. Dordrecht.
Cole, D.T. 1955. An introduction to Tswana grammar. Cape Town.