Clicks in south-western Bantu languages: contact-induced vs. language-internal lexical change
- Author
- Koen Bostoen (UGent) and Bonny Sands
- Organization
- Project
-
- KONGOKING (Political centralization, economic integration and language evolution in Central Africa: An interdisciplinary approach to the early history of the Kongo kingdom)
- Abstract
- This paper aims at acquiring a better understanding of how click phonemes diffused through the lexicon of four south western Bantu (SWB) languages: Fwe (K402), Mbukushu (K333), Manyo (K332) and Kwangali (K33). A fifth click Bantu language from the same region, i.e. Yeyi (R41), will be referred to as a comparative touchstone, but the origin of its clicks will not be considered in any detail. Since click phonemes cannot be reconstructed to Proto Bantu, it is generally agreed upon that their acquisition in these and other Bantu languages results from contact induced change, namely through interference with southern African non Bantu click languages, better known as ‘Khoisan’ languages. In this paper, we do not contest that the integration of click phonemes in these Bantu languages was indeed set off through contact with non Bantu click languages. We do argue, however, that the occurrence of these foreign phonemes is not restricted to words of non Bantu origin. They also spread to native vocabulary through language-internal change. This is a relatively new insight. The presence of click phonemes in proper Bantu vocabulary is widely believed to be a phenomenon only found in certain south eastern Bantu click languages. In this paper, we will mainly focus on the linguistic evidence for the lexical diffusion of click phonemes in the SWB languages, reserving the social and demographic conditions underlying this phenomenon for future research.
- Keywords
- Zambia, clicks, Namibia, Botswana, language contact, Angola, Bantu, Khoisan
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-2086856
- MLA
- Bostoen, Koen, and Bonny Sands. “Clicks in South-Western Bantu Languages: Contact-Induced vs. Language-Internal Lexical Change.” Proceedings of the 6th World Congress of African Linguistics, edited by Matthias Brenzinger and Anne-Maria Fehn, vol. 5, Köppe Verlag, 2012, pp. 129–40.
- APA
- Bostoen, K., & Sands, B. (2012). Clicks in south-western Bantu languages: contact-induced vs. language-internal lexical change. In M. Brenzinger & A.-M. Fehn (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th world congress of African linguistics (Vol. 5, pp. 129–140). Cologne, Germany: Köppe Verlag.
- Chicago author-date
- Bostoen, Koen, and Bonny Sands. 2012. “Clicks in South-Western Bantu Languages: Contact-Induced vs. Language-Internal Lexical Change.” In Proceedings of the 6th World Congress of African Linguistics, edited by Matthias Brenzinger and Anne-Maria Fehn, 5:129–40. Cologne, Germany: Köppe Verlag.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Bostoen, Koen, and Bonny Sands. 2012. “Clicks in South-Western Bantu Languages: Contact-Induced vs. Language-Internal Lexical Change.” In Proceedings of the 6th World Congress of African Linguistics, ed by. Matthias Brenzinger and Anne-Maria Fehn, 5:129–140. Cologne, Germany: Köppe Verlag.
- Vancouver
- 1.Bostoen K, Sands B. Clicks in south-western Bantu languages: contact-induced vs. language-internal lexical change. In: Brenzinger M, Fehn A-M, editors. Proceedings of the 6th world congress of African linguistics. Cologne, Germany: Köppe Verlag; 2012. p. 129–40.
- IEEE
- [1]K. Bostoen and B. Sands, “Clicks in south-western Bantu languages: contact-induced vs. language-internal lexical change,” in Proceedings of the 6th world congress of African linguistics, vol. 5, M. Brenzinger and A.-M. Fehn, Eds. Cologne, Germany: Köppe Verlag, 2012, pp. 129–140.
@incollection{2086856,
abstract = {{This paper aims at acquiring a better understanding of how click phonemes diffused through the lexicon of four south western Bantu (SWB) languages: Fwe (K402), Mbukushu (K333), Manyo (K332) and Kwangali (K33). A fifth click Bantu language from the same region, i.e. Yeyi (R41), will be referred to as a comparative touchstone, but the origin of its clicks will not be considered in any detail. Since click phonemes cannot be reconstructed to Proto Bantu, it is generally agreed upon that their acquisition in these and other Bantu languages results from contact induced change, namely through interference with southern African non Bantu click languages, better known as ‘Khoisan’ languages. In this paper, we do not contest that the integration of click phonemes in these Bantu languages was indeed set off through contact with non Bantu click languages. We do argue, however, that the occurrence of these foreign phonemes is not restricted to words of non Bantu origin. They also spread to native vocabulary through language-internal change. This is a relatively new insight. The presence of click phonemes in proper Bantu vocabulary is widely believed to be a phenomenon only found in certain south eastern Bantu click languages. In this paper, we will mainly focus on the linguistic evidence for the lexical diffusion of click phonemes in the SWB languages, reserving the social and demographic conditions underlying this phenomenon for future research.}},
author = {{Bostoen, Koen and Sands, Bonny}},
booktitle = {{Proceedings of the 6th world congress of African linguistics}},
editor = {{Brenzinger, Matthias and Fehn, Anne-Maria}},
isbn = {{9783896451996}},
keywords = {{Zambia,clicks,Namibia,Botswana,language contact,Angola,Bantu,Khoisan}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{129--140}},
publisher = {{Köppe Verlag}},
series = {{World Congress of African Linguistics}},
title = {{Clicks in south-western Bantu languages: contact-induced vs. language-internal lexical change}},
volume = {{5}},
year = {{2012}},
}