Lexical borrowing in Africa with special attention to outcomes of languages in contacts in Tanzania (original) (raw)
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This article provides the impact of contact of Bantu and non-Bantu languages of Tanzania. Much attention is paid to the dispersal of Swahili words into Hadzabe, Iraqw and Maasai; and exemplary cases of Bantu-to-Bantu contacts have been included. Findings indicate that a layer of Swahili and English words exist in many languages of South-Western Tanzania such as Nyakyusa, Nyamwanga, Ndali, among others. Along the coast of Tanzania, influence of Swahili lexis is massive in such languages as Maraba. The Bantu to non-bantu contacts yielded numerous loans across Greebergian language phylums in Tanzania as evidenced in, for example, Swahili loans in Burunge and Hadzabe. Findings demonstrate distinct mechanisms of incorporation of loans. In Cushitic and Nilotic languages such as Hadzabe, Iraqw and Maasai, gender marking is the primary mechanism of adaptation of Bantu loans whilst Bantu languages assign noun classifications to the loanwords from English and non-Bantu languages.
Journal of Education, Humanities and Sciences, 2015
This paper contributes to the on-going discussion about integration of foreign cultures into African communities, one of the areas documented by Sam Maghimbi. It articulates the results of human contacts through examination of loanwords for similar semantic notions across Bantu languages of Tanzania. The rationale for this study emanates from a lacuna in previous works that focused on phonological and morphological changes, and undervalued the power of internal semantic modifications that accommodate new concepts. The paper analyses loanwords of individual words that surround three contact areas: western (formal) education, Christian religion, and (modern) healthcare. The paper shows that contact situations may lead to adoption of new words in some cases, or adjustments of the semantics of existing lexicons to accommodate new concepts, in other instances. In addition, it argues that Bantu languages differ significantly as regards the sources and flow of integration of new concepts.
Borrowing in Tanzanian Ngoni Lexicon: Some Semantic Trends in a Language Contact Situation
Language matters (Pretoria), 2015
The Tanzanian language Ngoni has interacted for long with Swahili, which is the more prestigious and dominant lingua franca in Tanzania. This language contact situation affects Ngoni, which frequently borrows terms from Swahili, both for concepts which are new to the Ngoni speakers, but also terms which replace existing Ngoni vocabulary. This paper investigates how borrowed words are integrated, based on a framework including semantic generalisation, specialisation and shift. The study is based on fieldwork conducted in the Songea District in the Ruvuma Region of Tanzania, in the three villages of Peramiho, Kilagano and Mhepai. It was found that borrowing was most frequent in the semantic fields 'modern world', 'food and drink' and 'clothing and grooming'. Additive borrowing was found to be more frequent than substitutive. Only semantic widening of borrowed terms was attested. However, combined with a tendency of replacement of old Ngoni terms with both Swahili and Ngoni hypernyms, it indicates that speakers' competence of the language is waning. This loss of competence may additionally be linked to a more general attrition of Ngoni culture and traditions, which may affect language maintenance.
The Consequences of the Contacts between Bantu and Non-Bantu languages in Tanzania
DESCRIPTION I report the results of investigation of lexical changes in indigenous languages that aimed at examining how ethnic communities and their languages, namely Cushitic Iraqw, Nilotic Datooga, Nyilamba Bantu, Isanzu Bantu, Sukuma Bantu, and (Isolate) Hadzabe, have influenced one another due to contact in Yaeda Chini, Mang’ola, and Endamaghang wards
Swahilization" of Ethnic Languages in Tanzania: The Case of Matengo
African Study Monographs, 2010
The "Swahilization" of ethnic languages, rather than a clear "language shift," is taking place in Tanzania. This paper reports on the effects Swahilization has had on the Matengo language through examples of Swahili loanwords. The infl uence of Swahili can be seen in areas such as grammar and phonology in Matengo, one of the middle-sized ethnic languages of Tanzania. The most remarkable infl uence is in the lexicon. There are many Swahili words in today's Matengo, especially that spoken by the young people. Some Swahili words are used as a result of unconscious code-mixing, but so far used as new vocabulary loaned from Swahili. This trend points to a language shift that will certainly grow stronger, given the overall impact of Swahili, the national language of Tanzania.
In rural Tanzania, recent major influences happen between Kiswahili and English to ethnic languages rather than ethnic languages, which had been in contact for so long, influencing each other. In this work, I report the results of investigation of lexical changes in indigenous languages that aimed at examining how ethnic communities and their languages, namely Cushitic Iraqw, Nilotic Datooga, Nyilamba Bantu, Isanzu Bantu, Sukuma Bantu, and (Isolate) Hadzabe, have influenced one another due to contact in Yaeda Chini, Mang'ola, and Endamaghang wards (i.e., Lake Eyasi area). Though they have been in contact for many decades, this study found that ethnic languages in the area have been affected mainly by Kiswahili. It was revealed that loanwords of this official language tend to outnumber loanwords in each language which come from other ethnic languages. It is supported that, in terms of cultural superiority to date, Iraqw and Datooga are far ahead because Iraqw and Datooga languages tend to influence Nyisanzu, Nyilamba, and Hadzabe languages in Lake Eyasi area.
Is the Tanzanian Ngoni language threatened? A survey of lexical borrowing from Swahili
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2014
Is the Tanzanian Ngoni Language threatened? A Survey of Lexical Borrowing from Swahili 1 The prominence of Swahili however naturally dates further back to the German colonial rule long before the British took over the Protectorate in 1919 (Buchert, 1994). 2 We would like to thank Dr. Christina Thornell for sharing her ideas regarding using photos for elicitation and the Costech, Sida and Wotro-financed TASENE project for making this study possible.
Swahili Loanwords and their Semantic Nativisations into African Languages
Huria: Journal of the Open University of Tanzania, 2014
Traditionally, contributions of loanwords to the morphology of most African languages are recognizable in terms of phoneme inventories, consonant clusters, and syllable structures. The present paper, however, articulates the semantic and pragmatic issues emanating from the Swahili loanwords into the morphology of most African languages in Tanzania. The focus is mainly on the influence of Swahili into the different semantic fields in ten Bantu languages in the country. Data of 500 lexical words is drawn from a sample of Bantu languages in the country. Formal interviews had also been conducted to decipher semantic and pragmatic inferences springing out of the usages of those loanwords in the respective speech communities. It is concluded that most semantic fields of loanwords include education, utensils and domestic tools, as well as health and medical care services. In addition, pragmatically, some loanwords divide communities according to their usages, e.g. in Ruhaya and Runyambo, t...
Contact induced change in Bena (G63) – A study of ‘swahilization’ in a Tanzanian vernacular language
2012
The aim of this study is to describe how Swahili is influencing the vocabulary of Bena (G63), one of the vernacular languages of Tanzania. The paper is written within the field of contact linguistics and relies on theories on how the linguistic outcome of the dis-empowered language is affected in an intense and unequal language contact situation. The investigation is primarily based on data collected from a field trip to the Bena speaking community in March 2012, supported by the Nordic Africa Institute. Several different methods of linguistic fieldwork where used in gathering the data.