Bantoid languages
The bantoid languages (or Bantoid for short ) form a subunit of the East Benue Congo , a branch of the Benue Congo languages , which in turn belong to the Niger-Congo language family .
The approximately 650 bantoid languages are spoken by around 220 million people in northeast Nigeria , western Cameroon and all of Central and South Africa.
overview
The bantoid languages together with the cross-river languages form the bantoid cross-languages . Within the Niger-Congo language family, this results in the following lineage:
- Niger-Congo> Volta-Congo > Benue-Congo> East-Benue-Congo> Bantoid-Cross> Bantoid
In total, the Bantoid comprises around 650 languages with a total of 217 million speakers, of which around 500 are actual Bantu languages , which make up the vast majority with 210 million speakers. The group of 160 Bantoid languages that do not belong to Bantu is relatively small and very diversified in terms of their number of speakers (6.5 million): their average number of speakers is only around 40,000.
The most important Bantu languages include Swahili , Shona , Zulu , Chichewa , Lingála , Kinyarwanda , Xhosa , Luba-Kasai and Kikuyu (all over 5 million speakers). Of the non-Bantu languages of the bantoid language group, only Tiv, which is spoken in Nigeria in Benue State , exceeds the million mark with 2.2 million speakers. Another ten languages have at least 100,000 speakers (see classification).
Delimitation Bantoid - Bantu
The term "Bantoid" was coined by Gottlob Krause in 1895 for languages that have lexical similarities with the Bantu languages. Malcolm Guthrie (1948) used Bantoid to designate the Western Sudan languages with a Bantu-like nominal class system , but which do not have regular phonetic equivalents with the Bantu languages .
The group of bantoid languages includes both the actual Bantu languages and those languages that are genetically particularly close to the Bantu languages within the Niger-Congo , but do not have all the characteristics of the Bantu languages. Such languages were also called semi-Bantu languages . The boundary between the actual Bantu languages ( narrow bantu ) and the Bantu languages in a broader sense (Bantoid, but not Bantu) is difficult to draw and depends on the definition of what exactly constitutes “actual Bantu” (the researchers are by no means entirely sure of this Some). All bantoid languages that do not belong to the actual Bantu are spoken in east-southeast Nigeria and in Cameroon , so their distribution is very limited - in contrast to that of the Bantu languages. It is precisely this area (south-east Nigeria and north-west Cameroon) that appears to be the original home of the actual Bantu languages, from which they spread to the east and south of the continent.
Internal classification
The establishment of the bantoid languages as a genetic unit and the main features of their current internal classification go back to Greenberg (1950, 1963). However, the internal structure of the bantoid languages has been revised several times since then. It was important to recognize a north-south border within the group. The northern bantoid - whether it forms a genetic unit is disputed - individual smaller groups such as dakoid , mambiloid and tikaroid belong . The southern Bantoid forms its own genetic group, which, in addition to the Jarawoid and Tivoid, includes the linguistic grassland group (around 70 languages with 2.5 million speakers, spoken in western Cameroon) and, as an equal branch, the actual Bantu (500 languages, 210 million . Speaker) contains.
The following diagram shows the current classification of bantoid languages according to Williamson-Blench (in Heine-Nurse 2000). Only the more important individual languages are listed. The web link below provides a complete classification of all bantoid languages.
Classification of the bantoid languages
-
Bantoid (642 languages, 216 million speakers)
- Northern Bantoid ( genetic unit not established )
-
Southern bantoid
- Jarawoid : Jarawa (150 thousand), Bile (30 thousand), Duguri (20 thousand), Kantana (20 thousand), Kulung (15 thousand), Mbula-Bwazza (40 thousand)
- Tivoid : Tiv (2.2 million), Bitare (50 thousand), Batu (25 thousand), Esimbi (20 thousand)
- Beboid : Noni (35 thousand), Bebe , Naki
- Mbe : Mbe (15 thousand)
- Ekoid : Ejagham (Ekoi) (120 thousand), Ekajuk (30 thousand), Nkem-Nkum (35 thousand), Nde-Nsele-Nta (35 thousand)
- Nyang (Mamfe): Kenyang (Nyang) (65k), Denya ( 12k )
- Mbam : Tuki (25 thousand), Tunen (35 thousand), Nugunu (35 thousand); Leti ( ritual language )
- Grasslands : Bamun (215 thousand), Bafut (105 thousand)
- Bantu (487 languages with 210 million speakers)
The classification of Bantu and the division of the Bantu languages into Guthrie zones is comprehensively presented in the article Bantu languages . The following table provides an overview of the individual branches of the Bantoid (number of languages, number of speakers, distribution).
Bantoid and its subgroups
| Sub-branch | Number of languages |
Number of speakers |
Main distribution area |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bantoid | 642 | 216 million | Nigeria, Cameroon; East and South Africa |
| Northern Bantoid | 19th | 750,000 | East Nigeria, Northwest Cameroon |
| Dakoid | 3 | 120,000 | East Nigeria |
| Mambiloid | 12 | 240,000 | East Nigeria, West Cameroon |
| Ticaroid | 3 | 35,000 | Cameroon (Central and Adamawa Province) |
| Fam | 1 | 1,000 | Southeast Nigeria |
| Southern bantoid | 623 | 215 million | Nigeria, Cameroon; East and South Africa |
| Jarawoid | 15th | 300,000 | East Nigeria, North Cameroon |
| Tivoid | 18th | 2.4 million | East Nigeria, West Cameroon |
| Beboid | 11 | 50,000 | West Cameroon |
| Mbe | 1 | 15,000 | Nigeria (Cross River) |
| Ekoid | 8th | 250,000 | Southeast Nigeria, Northwest Cameroon |
| Nyang (Mamfe) | 3 | 80,000 | West Cameroon |
| Mbam | 13 | 120,000 | West Cameroon |
| Grasslands | 67 | 2.5 million | West Cameroon |
| Bantu | 487 | 210 million | Central, East and South Africa |
Whether the Northern Bantoid languages form a genetic unit has not yet been finally clarified.
Linguistic characteristics
The linguistic properties are very similar to those of the Bantu languages (see the corresponding section of the article Bantu languages ). The nominal class system is fully developed in Bantu - it is its essential characteristic - in the non-Bantu languages in a differently reduced form. Verbal derivations are documented in all bantoid languages. Pronouns are formed to the usual extent (independent personal pronoun ; dependent subject, object and possessive markers), in the 3rd person there is concordance with the nominal classes. The sentence order is SVO, prepositions are used throughout . In the noun phrase , the particular noun comes first, followed by the modifier ( genitive attribute , adjective attribute , possessive , numerals , demonstrative ); In the Bantu languages, there is full class concordance within the noun phrase and between subject and predicate , in the other Bantuid languages the concordance is limited or partially not (any longer) available.
See also
literature
- Bernd Heine and others (ed.): The languages of Africa. Buske, Hamburg 1981.
- Kay Williamson, Roger Blench: Niger-Congo. In: Bernd Heine, Derek Nurse (Ed.): African Languages. An Introduction. Cambridge University Press 2000.
- Joseph Greenberg: The Languages of Africa. Mouton / Indiana University Center, The Hague / Bloomington 1963.
- John R. Watters: Bantoid Overview. In: John Bendor-Samuel (Ed.): The Niger-Congo Languages: A Classification and Description of Africa's Largest Language Family. University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London 1989.
- Patrick Bennett and Jan Sterk: South Central Niger-Congo: A Reclassification. In: Studies in African Linguistics. 1977.
Web links
- Ernst Kausen: The classification of the Benue-Congo languages within the Niger-Congo. (DOC; 232 kB)