Author: Derek Nurse Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520097750 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 813
Book Description
The Sabaki languages form a major Bantu subgroup and are spoken by 35 million East Africans in Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and the Comoro Islands. The authors provide a historical/comparative treatment of Swahili (and other Sabaki languages), an account of the relationship of Swahili to Sabaki and to other Bantu languages, and some data on contemporary Sabaki languages. Data sets, appendices, maps, and figures present essential information on phonology, lexical makeup, and tense/aspect morphology. The final chapter is a synthesis describing the linguistic and historical relationship of the Sabaki dialects to each other and to hypothetical proto-stages.
Author: Derek Nurse Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 1512821667 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 145
Book Description
"As an introduction to how the history of an African society can be reconstructed from largely nonliterate sources, and to the Swahili in particular, . . . a model work."—International Journal of African Historical Studies
Author: Stephanie Wynne-Jones Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317430166 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 672
Book Description
The Swahili World presents the fascinating story of a major world civilization, exploring the archaeology, history, linguistics, and anthropology of the Indian Ocean coast of Africa. It covers a 1,500-year sweep of history, from the first settlement of the coast to the complex urban tradition found there today. Swahili towns contain monumental palaces, tombs, and mosques, set among more humble houses; they were home to fishers, farmers, traders, and specialists of many kinds. The towns have been Muslim since perhaps the eighth century CE, participating in international networks connecting people around the Indian Ocean rim and beyond. Successive colonial regimes have helped shape modern Swahili society, which has incorporated such influences into the region’s long-standing cosmopolitan tradition. This is the first volume to explore the Swahili in chronological perspective. Each chapter offers a unique wealth of detail on an aspect of the region’s past, written by the leading scholars on the subject. The result is a book that allows both specialist and non-specialist readers to explore the diversity of the Swahili tradition, how Swahili society has changed over time, as well as how our understandings of the region have shifted since Swahili studies first began. Scholars of the African continent will find the most nuanced and detailed consideration of Swahili culture, language and history ever produced. For readers unfamiliar with the region or the people involved, the chapters here provide an ideal introduction to a new and wonderful geography, at the interface of Africa and the Indian Ocean world, and among a people whose culture remains one of Africa’s most distinctive achievements.
Author: Fergus Sharman Publisher: Universal-Publishers ISBN: 1612332900 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 240
Book Description
This book provides a unique perspective on the linguistic relationships between the Ancient Egyptian and Bantu languages of East/Central/Southern Africa. It will be of interest to readers of Egyptology, linguists, students, and the wider public who wish to find out more about the structure of the Ancient Egyptian language and how it connects with other languages, particularly with Bantu languages. The subject matter is different from other books as it examines the etymology of words, together with their sound/meaning relationships and shows by using verifiable hieroglyphic forms how Ancient Egyptian words may be pronounced by inserting Bantu vowels which fit the meanings derived from the skeletal templates of consonants in the Ancient Egyptian language.
Author: Henri Médard Publisher: Ohio University Press ISBN: 082144574X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 423
Book Description
Slavery in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa is a collection of ten studies by the most prominent historians of the region. Slavery was more important in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa than often has been assumed, and Africans from the interior played a more complex role than was previously recognized. The essays in this collection reveal the connections between the peoples of the region as well as their encounters with the conquering Europeans. The contributors challenge the assertion that domestic slavery increased in Africa as a result of the international trade. Slavery in this region was not a uniform phenomenon and the line between enslaved and non-slave labor was fine. Kinship ties could mark the difference between free and unfree labor. Social categories were not always clear-cut and the status of a slave could change within a lifetime. Contents: - Introduction by Henri Médard - Language Evidence of Slavery to the Eighteenth Century by David Schoenbrun - The Rise of Slavery & Social Change in Unyamwezi 1860–1900 by Jan-Georg Deutsch - Slavery & Forced Labour in the Eastern Congo 1850–1910 by David Northrup - Legacies of Slavery in North West Uganda ‘The One-Elevens’ by Mark Leopold - Human Booty in Buganda: The Seizure of People in War, c.1700–c.1900 by Richard Reid - Stolen People & Autonomous Chiefs in Nineteenth-Century Buganda by Holly Hanson - Women’s Experiences of Slavery in Late Nineteenth- & Early Twentieth-Century Uganda by Michael W. Tuck - Slavery & Social Oppression in Ankole 1890–1940 by Edward I. Steinhart - The Slave Trade in Burundi & Rwanda at the Beginning of German Colonisation 1890–1906 by Jean-Pierre Chretien - Bunyoro & the Demography of Slavery Debate by Shane Doyle
Author: Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004363394 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 432
Book Description
Creolization and pidginization are conceptualized and investigated as specific social processes in the course of which new common languages, socio-cultural practices and identifications are developed in contexts of postcolonial diversity shaped by distinct social, historical and local conditions.
Author: Derek Nurse Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191553603 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 423
Book Description
Derek Nurse looks at variations in the form and function of tense and aspect in Bantu, a branch of Niger-Congo, the world's largest language phylum. Bantu languages are spoken in central, eastern, and southern sub-Saharan Africa south of a line between Nigeria and Somalia. By current estimates there are between 250 and 600 of them, as yet neither adequately classified nor fully described. Professor Nurse's account is based on data from more than 200 Bantu languages and varieties, a representative sample of which is freely available on the publisher's website. He devotes substantial chapters to the analysis and comparison of the different tense and aspect systems found in Bantu. He also examines the verbal categories with which they interact, including negation and focus. Synchronic and diachronic perspectives are interwoven throughout the book. Following a brief history of Bantu over the last five thousand years, the final two chapters look systematically at the history of tense and aspect in Bantu. The first deals with the reconstruction of the earlier forms from which contemporary structures, morphemes, and categories are derived, and the second with the processes of change, including grammaticalization, by means of which older analytical structures and independent lexical items moved as they became incorporated as grammatical inflections and categories.
Author: Mohamed Pakia Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster ISBN: 9783825890568 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
This book is an unusually exploration of the ethnobotanical study, through interdisciplinary approach, that combines linguistics, botany and anthropological aspects. It gives an in-depth account of the practical life of the Digo in their day-to-day knowledge and conception of the plant world. The Digo were involved in the study as a representative of the African ethnic groups, which provides for a scholastic challenge to prove other wise. The subject matter is drawn from the general botanical topics, viz plant description, naming, identification, and classification. The coverage, however, is incomplete without considering the fields of plant knowledge application such as agriculture and healing. The book provides for evidence to recognise that, although unwritten, the African Traditional Plant knowledge is not muddled, as first impressions might suggest.
Author: Martin Haspelmath Publisher: Walter de Gruyter ISBN: 3110218445 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 1104
Book Description
This book is the first work to address the question of what kinds of words get borrowed in a systematic and comparative perspective. It studies lexical borrowing behavior on the basis of a world-wide sample of 40 languages, both major languages and minor languages, and both languages with heavy borrowing and languages with little lexical influence from other languages. The book is the result of a five-year project bringing together a unique group of specialists of many different languages and areas. The introductory chapters provide a general up-to-date introduction to language contact at the word level, as well as a presentation of the project's methodology. All the chapters are based on samples of 1000-2000 words, elicited by a uniform meaning list of 1460 meanings. The combined database, comprising over 70,000 words, is published online at the same time as the book is published. For each word, information about loanword status is given in the database, and the 40 case studies in the book describe the social and historical contact situations in detail. The final chapter draws general conclusions about what kinds of words tend to get borrowed, what kinds of word meanings are particularly resistant to borrowing, and what kinds of social contact situations lead to what kinds of borrowing situations.
Author: G. Tucker Childs Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing ISBN: 9027295883 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 287
Book Description
This book introduces beginning students and non-specialists to the diversity and richness of African languages. In addition to providing a solid background to the study of African languages, the book presents linguistic phenomena not found in European languages. A goal of this book is to stimulate interest in African languages and address the question: What makes African languages so fascinating? The orientation adopted throughout the book is a descriptive one, which seeks to characterize African languages in a relatively succinct and neutral manner, and to make the facts accessible to a wide variety of readers. The author’s lengthy acquaintance with the continent and field experiences in western, eastern, and southern Africa allow for both a broad perspective and considerable depth in selected areas. The original examples are often the author’s own but also come from other sources and languages not often referenced in the literature. This text also includes a set of sound files illustrating the phenomena under discussion, be they the clicks of Khoisan, talking drums, or the ideophones (words like English lickety-split) found almost everywhere, which will make this book a valuable resource for teacher and student alike.
Author: Derek Nurse
Author: Derek Nurse
Author: Stephanie Wynne-Jones
Author: Fergus Sharman
Author: Henri Médard
Author: 
Author: Derek Nurse
Author: Mohamed Pakia
Author: Martin Haspelmath
Author: G. Tucker Childs