Date: 07-Oct-2011
From: Steve Nicolle <steve_nicollesil.org>
Subject: Introductory Sketch of the Bantu Languages
E-mail this message to a friend
Discuss this message
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/22/22-1989.html
AUTHOR: Alice WernerTITLE: Introductory Sketch of the Bantu LanguagesSERIES TITLE: LINCOM Orientalia 13PUBLISHER: Lincom GmbHYEAR: 2011
Steve Nicolle, Department of Translation Studies and Linguistics, AfricaInternational University, Kenya
SUMMARY
This book is a facsimile re-edition of a work originally published 1919, writtenby Alice Werner, who was Reader in Swahili at the School of Oriental Studies(now SOAS) in London. It was designed as an introduction to the Bantu languagesfor students with little or no prior exposure to Bantu languages, and aimed tocomplement the more detailed descriptions available at the time, notably Bleek(1862, 1869), Meinhof (1906, 1910) and Torrend (1891).
After an introduction, the following topics are dealt with: The AlliterativeConcord (that is, noun class agreement), Noun-Classes (two chapters), Locatives,Pronouns, Copulas and the Verb 'To Be', Adjectives, Numerals, Verbs (twochapters), Moods and Tenses, Adverbs and Particles, Word Building (basicallynominalization), and Phonetic Laws. The book concludes with a 75-page appendixconsisting of narrative texts in Zulu, Herero, Ila, Nyanja, Swahili (both Kiamu,the Lamu variety, and Kimvita, the Mombasa variety), Ganda and a letter in Zulu,and a bibliography of works dealing with the Bantu languages which had beenstudied at that time.
The languages which are discussed most often are (in approximate order offrequency from most to least frequently mentioned): Zulu (S42), Swahili (G42d),Nyanja (N31), Tswana (S31, which Werner calls “Chwana”), Ganda (EJ15), Herero(R31), Xhosa (S41), Yao (P21), Kongo (H10), Gisu (EJ31a), Venda (S21), Ila(M63), Duala (A24) and Kikuyu (E51). (The letter and number following each nameindicates Maho’s (2003) updated version of Guthrie’s classification of the Bantulanguages.)
EVALUATION
It is not right, when reviewing a re-edition of a book first published in 1919,to evaluate it by the standards of the 21st century. Equally, I am not qualifiedto say how well it would have achieved its stated aims when first published.What follows, therefore, are the personal reflections of a modern reader.
Some things change very little. In the preface (v), Werner mentions Meinhof’sworks in German (1906, 1910), and then comments: “experience has taught me thatthey are of very little use to at least three-quarters of the students, whom ithas been my lot to induct into one or other of the Bantu languages. For onething, there is as yet no English edition of either, and -- in spite of recentimprovements in this respect -- the number of English people who can study asubject by means of a French, German or Italian book (which is a different thingfrom gathering the drift of a novel or newspaper article) is still deplorablysmall.” Plus ça change.
In other ways, however, the intellectual climate has changed a great deal since1919. Werner found it necessary to mention and reject Bleek’s claim “that peoplewhose speech has no grammatical gender were not merely at present incapable ofpersonifying nature, but that they could never in the future advance beyond acertain limited range of ideas.” (9-10) However, she herself talks of “the Bantumind” and “the still more primitive mind” (161).
Whilst insisting that Bantu languages should be studied on their own terms,Werner nonetheless uses the classical languages as a reference point in manycases. For example, she introduces the chapter on the “Alliterative Concord”(that is, noun class agreement with different parts of speech within a clause)by showing how in Latin suffixes on the noun and adjective indicate declension,gender, case and number, whereas in Bantu languages prefixes on the noun andadjective indicate noun class (which subsumes number). For Werner, the principalcharacteristics of Bantu languages are “the absence of grammatical gender, thesystem of prefixes, and the Alliterative Concord”. The choice of the first twocharacteristics is motivated largely by the fact that the classical(Indo-European) languages have grammatical gender and a system of inflectionalsuffixes. This tendency to refer to classical languages results in Wernertreating possessives and locatives as “cases”; she feels obliged to treat thelocative suffix -ni as a case marker on the grounds that it is an “inflexion ofthe noun-stem” (71).
There is far more attention paid to matters of etymology than is usual nowadays,and more attention is paid to surface forms as opposed to underlying structuralfeatures. For example, Werner observes that the negative form ku-to-penda (‘notto love’ - INF-NEG-love) in Swahili is derived from ku-toa ku-penda (‘to takeaway loving’ - INF-remove INF-love). This suggests that the form ku-sa-mendza(‘not to love’ - INF-NEG-love) in Digo (E73) may similarly be derived fromku-usa ku-mendza (INF-remove INF-love), the forms in the two languages havingthe same semantic etymology. This kind of insight is not often found in modernlinguistic introductions. Even so, certain historical facts are overlooked, aswhen Werner comments that there are usually three demonstrative forms (97): nearthe speaker (often ending in -u), further away and sometimes previously referredto (often ending in -o), and at a distance (often ending in -le or -la).However, the table on p. 98 indicates that the near demonstratives in Ganda andGisu (and the plural form in Tswana) end in -no, and in fact two of the eightlanguages sampled -- Tswana and Nyanja -- have four demonstrative forms. Thisreflects the supposed original situation in which forms ending in -u (or a copyvowel) and -no indicated proximity and very close proximity to the speakerrespectively. In most of the languages with three demonstrative forms, one ofthese two proximal demonstratives has been lost, leaving just a single form toexpress proximity to the speaker.
Much of the discussion of verbs focuses on ways of forming the negative and onthe perfective suffix -ile. Werner reserves the term “tense” for the verbprefixes and uses “mood” to refer to a disparate set of forms such as theperfective, “continuative” (-ga) and relative, and also to the infinitive eventhough this is formed with the prefix ku-. The discussion of the verb wasprobably the least satisfying part of the book for this reader. Werner statesthat the simple (i.e. non-compound) tenses are “few and well marked” (170),which contradicts what is now known about the complexity of TAM marking in Bantulanguages (see especially Nurse 2008).
Very little attention is paid to what is now called tone, which Werner refers toas “intonation, or pitch” (16). The study of tonal phenomena in Bantu languagesis one of the areas in which most progress has been made in the 92 years since“Introductory Sketch of the Bantu Languages” was first published (see forexample Hyman & Kisseberth 1998; Volk 2011). On the other hand, there is anextensive discussion of ideophones (which Werner calls “Vocal Images”) which aresometimes neglected in more recent grammatical descriptions (Van Otterloo 2011being a notable exception).
On the whole, Werner's breadth and depth of familiarity with Bantu languages isimpressive. This is especially so when we consider that at that time, there werevery few speakers of African languages studying at European universities whocould act as language consultants, and travelling to Africa to conduct fieldresearch was not a matter of some hours on a plane but of some weeks on asteamer. The book also includes glossed texts with extensive notes and freetranslations (making up almost a quarter of the book). Many more recentgrammatical descriptions have failed to include text data, but thankfully thisis a practice that seems to be coming back into fashion (see Devos 2008; VanOtterloo 2011).
“Introductory Sketch of the Bantu Languages” has obviously been superseded inmany respects, but it is still interesting to read from both a historical and adescriptive perspective. Lincom are to be thanked for re-issuing this volume.
REFERENCES
Bleek, W. H. J. (1862) Comparative Grammar of the South African Languages. PartI: Phonology. London: Trübner and Co.
Bleek, W. H. J. (1869) Comparative Grammar of the South African Languages. PartII: The Concord. Section I: The noun. (No more published.) London: Trübner and Co.
Devos, M. (2008) A Grammar of Makwe. München/Newcastle: Lincom Europa.
Hyman, L. M. & C. W. Kisseberth (eds.) (1998). Theoretical Aspects of BantuTone. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Maho, J. (2003) ‘A classification of the Bantu languages: An update of Guthrie’sreferential system’. In D. Nurse & G. Philippson (eds.), The Bantu Languages,639-651. London/New York: Routledge.
Meinhof, C. (1906) Grundzüge einer vergleichenden Grammatik der Bantusprachen.Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
Meinhof, C. (1910) Grundriss einer Lautlehre der Bantusprachen (second edition).Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
Nurse, D. (2008) Tense and Aspect in Bantu. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Torrend, J. (1891) A Comparative Grammar of the South African Bantu Languages.London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co.
Van Otterloo, R. (2011) The Kifuliiru Language, Vol.2: A descriptive grammar.Dallas: SIL International.
Volk, E. (2011) Mijikenda Tonology. PhD thesis, Tel Aviv University.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Steve Nicolle has lived in Kenya since 1999, during which time he has published on grammaticalization, pragmatics, translation, Bantu languages, tense/aspect, and ethnobotany. He has worked as advisor to the Digo language project on the south coast of Kenya and as SIL's linguistics coordinator for Africa (www.sil.org), and now teaches linguistics and translation at Africa International University (Nairobi) and at universities in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic. He is currently investigating the development of demonstrative systems in Bantu languages.
Page Updated: 07-Oct-2011
|