using genetic classification, trace the origin of bantu language.

 

STELLA MARIS MTWARA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

                                                        (STEMMUCO)

              (A Constitute College of Saint Augustine University of Tanzania)

 

 

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

UNIT:                                        LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

COURSE TITLE                        LINGUISTICS COMPERATIVE AND HISTORICAL

 COURSE CODE                       LL303                                                                             

COURSE INSRUCTOR ;          SR. ZACHARIA S.B

ASSIGMENT:                            GROUP  5

S/N	NAMES	REG:  NO	SIGNATURE
1.	DIANA DEOGRAS SAID	STE/BAED/165185
2.	EUNICE NSONGOMA CHARLES	STE/BAED/164312
3.	GEORGE  W NGOMA	STE/BAED/164163
4.	ISACK    A DANIEL	STE/BAED/165196
5.	KRISTOMS K MATEMBO	STE/BAED/164291
6.	MARTIN MBUNGU	STE/BAED/164220
7.	ONESMO YUSTIN MALANDO	STE/BAED/164236
8.	REBECA P. PANKALAS	STE/BAED/165195
9.	SAID    RAMADHAN NGELANGELA	STE/BAED/164854

 

Tsk: using genetic classification, trace the origin of bantu language.

 Introduction

Genetic classification of language is the approach to language classification based in basic assumption that transfer of people made sameness in language especial proto language to sister language this termed as generic transmission approach (Alves I ,et al. 2011). By generational transmission of linguistic tradition mean the acquisition by children of essentially the same linguistics system that their parents   acquired as children

Bantu means people in many bantu languages dr. Wilhelm bleek first used the term Bantu in current sense in 1862 in his book called A comparative grammar of South African Languages   in which he hypothesized that a number of languages located across central, southern, eastern and western Africa with many features related in each other speech community. Joseph Greenberg in 1963 analyzed and compared several hundred African languages and found that a group of languages spoken in Southeastern Nigeria were the most closely related to languages from the Bantu group. He theorized that Proto-Bantu (the hypothetical ancestor of the Bantu languages) was originally one of these languages that spread south and east over hundreds of years.

This was quickly challenged by Malcolm Guthrie who analyzed each Bantu language and found that the most stereotypical were those spoken in Zambia and in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This provided the alternate theory that Bantu speakers had spread from this location in all directions

Origin of Bantu language

Bantu languages belongs to a group called Bantoid sub;group in benue congo branch of Niger-congo language group.Bantu represents the largest African language family in terms of number of languages which some scholar approximate to be  500 occupied territory with total of 9 million km2 and number of speakers approximated to 240 million. Bantu languages are generally thought to have originated approximately 5000 years ago in the Cameroonian Grass fields area neighboring Nigeria, and started to spread, possibly together with agricultural technologies through Sub-Saharan Africa as far as Kenya in the east and the Cape in the south (Destro-Bisol G2004).  One hypothesis state that Bantu languages are derived as two primary branches. A contrasting hypothesis argues that there was a major migration to the south of the rainforest, with a later split of the Eastern Bantu languages from the Western es split at an early stage north of the rainforest, from which the Western and Eastern Bantu

Spread of language

Until recently, most studies on the genetics of Bantu-speaking peoples were based on the study of mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (MTDNA) and the nonrecombining region of the Y chromosome (NRY) this similarity is due to the recent diversification of all Bantu languages from a common ancestor The borderland between south-eastern Nigeria and western Cameroon was suggested by Greenberg (1972) to be the original location of the ancestral Bantu language and this idea is now widely accepted. The reasoning behind this assumption is that it is there that Bantu languages are more diverse and meet with their closest relatives of the Niger–Congo family – the so-called Bantoid or Wide Bantu languages

Bantu speaker spread because of the following reason

·         Development of agriculture made them to shift from their land to various parts of Africa searching for more land and settlement (Filippo C,et el 2012)

§  The migration of bantu speaker associated with more effectively utilization of natural resources (Bostoen et al., 2015)

§  iron working to these subsistence strategies must have had an important impact on the spread of the Bantu by affording them a substantial technological advantage over local foragers (Bahuchet S 2012)

 

EVIDENCE OF MIGRATION OF BANTU GROUP

The chromosome of 5018 bantu speaking people were tested and 2445 were similar, those who were differently seems to adopt language from their neighbors and called pygmy population

Ninetytwo (92) basic words were similar which results from comparison of 412 languages by using Byesian tree the word differ as the distance increase

13 different languages were taken including bontaid, boan lebony bonegu etc and they calculate early spilt and late spilt ( Alves I ,et al. 2011)

Conclusion

Generic classification of the language faces challenge when nonbantu speaker abandon their language and use bantu language this is case in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, etc. it is assumed that these non- Bantu communities spoke their own language before bantu join them. In Congo, Cameroon and Gabon they worship a god called Nzambe. This believed that nzambe have been the orginal god that the ancestor f bantu worship

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Alves I, Coelho M, Damasceno A, et al. (2011) Genetic homogeneity across Bantu-speaking groups from Mozambique and Angola challenges early split scenarios between East andWest Bantu populations.

Bahuchet S (2012) Changing language, remaining Pygmy. Human Biology 84 (1): 11–43.

Barbieri C, Vicente M, Oliveira S, et al. (2014b) Migration and interaction in a contact zone: mtDNA variation among Bantu-speakers in southern AfricaBatini

Berniell-Lee G, Calafell F, Bosch E, et al. (2009) Genetic and demographic implications of the Bantu expansion: insights from human paternal lineages.

Destro-Bisol G, Donati F, Cia V, Boschi I, et al. (2004) Variation of female and male lineages in sub-Saharan populations: the importance of sociocultural factors.

Filippo C, Bostoen K, Stoneking M and Pakendorf B (2012) Bringing together linguistic and genetic evidence to test the Bantu expansion. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 279: 1741.