R. In each case the putatively [ATR] vowel has a substantially higher first formant (hence a lower position on the chart) than its harmonic counterpart. G.-M. Staubs I am a member of the publication's editorial board and strongly support the publication, Authored by: Fricated vowels occur in Kom and Oku, two Grassfields Bantu languages of the central Ring group (Faytak 2014, Faytak & Merrill 2014), as well as in several Bantoid languages of the northern Cameroon Grassfields (Faytak 2015). This pattern of co-occurrences is not one which suggests a phonological role for ATR. Lindberg van der Hulst, H. G. Gunnink, H. 2024, Kyoto. Figure 3.26 Thomas-Vilakatis analysis of Zulu click types (Thomas 2000, Thomas-Vilakati 2010), combining insights from acoustic, aerodynamic and electropalatographic techniques, is First Published 1959. eBook Published 22 September 2017. . Note that as many PB Linguistique africaine C. J. (2014) Etude comparative des langues makaa-njem (bantu A80) : phonologie, morphologie, Lexique. Cologne: Rdiger Kppe. Zsiga 59: 150179. Lee, S. J. & Van de Velde and . shows a spectrogram of the Nyamwezi F22 word /apo/ basket spoken in isolation. 25(4): 243257. & , , (1981) A Handbook of the Venda Language. Figure 3.24 An acoustic artefact of recording in the cylindrical metallic MRI scanner bore is a series of echoes spaced at 53 ms intervals. S. ), Proceedings of ISSP 2006: 7th International Seminar on Speech Production, 565572. The two vocoid approximants /j/ and /w/ occur in many languages, often alternating with high vowels /i u/. Doke, C. M. Ondo Studies in African Linguistics Dombrowsky-Hahn, K. Bantu languages are polysyllabic, employ class prefixes, use tone for grammati-cal rather than semantic distinctions, place the genitive after the governing noun, etc. London: SOAS. (1990) The Role of Contrast in Limiting Vowel-to-Vowel Coarticulation in Different Languages. Note that there are different ways to normalise vowels across speakers; eight different methods are evaluated by Wissing and Pienaar (2014) for a corpus of Southern Sotho S33 vowels, for instance. , & Wissing, D. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. The second click also has a velar closure. Pholia Polar or mid tones are found in Holoholo D28 and Nyanga D43. On this basis these particular vowels would not quite justify being considered high, but they are clearly markedly higher than those of Xhosa S41. Soga JE16 follows this pattern, as shown in the palatograms in The pharyngealised /o/ in 2011: 2127). In Medjo Mv, P. Yaound: ALCAM, Unit de recherche linguistique et phontique, Institut des Sciences humaines. Baumbach, E. J. M. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (2011) Bantu Substratum Interference in Mozambican Portuguese Speech Varieties. P. (1992) tude du systeme vocalique fang par rsonance magntique. (2013) Dissimilation by Surface Correspondence in Aghem Velarized Diphthongs. Ladefoged Sands The Bantu languages are polysyllabic, employ class prefixes, use tone for grammati- cal rather than semantic distinctions, place the genitive after the governing noun, etc. In Ngungwel B72a, there are three oral and three nasal vowels in prefixes [e a o e ]. Pretoria: J.L. Figure 3.1 (1985) Le kesukuma (langue bantoue de Tanzanie): phonologie, morphologie. S. Source: Recording made available by Koen Bostoen. & Kln: Institut fr Afrikanistik der Universitt zu Kln. The F1 averages of // and // in Mbam languages is typically higher than that of /e/ and /o/. The whistled fricative has more peaked and compact spectra than its non-whistled counterpart, and the fricatives also differ in other acoustic measures. (1991) Articulatory Phonology and Sukuma aspirated nasals. In The three front vowels and the three back vowels can therefore be distinguished one from another solely by height. Scott L. M. Premire Partie: Grammaires Soubiya et Louyi. Valle In Jita JE25, for instance, only the initial syllable of verb roots may contrast in tone (Downing 2011). (2001) Whispery Voiced Nasal Stops in Rwanda. a thorough treatment of both the syntactic and semantic characteristics of the external and internal arguments. Kisseberth, C. Depressors also occur in Digo E73 and other Mijikenda E70 group languages and in Kalanga S16 and other Shona S10 group languages (Downing 2010). Nine-vowel languages in the Mbam group, such as Mmala A62B and Baca A621, have a contrast between /e/ and // not found in the eight-vowel systems. , A detailed study of a weakly whistled fricative in Tsonga S53 shows that the narrowed lip posture is accompanied by a retroflex lingual gesture and thus may be transcribed with a retroflex fricative symbol [], e.g., [r] disasters (Lee-Kim et al. Special attention is paid to consonants with complex articulations, including clicks and the so-called whistling fricatives. It is hoped that the brief discussions of selected issues here will encourage more attention to be paid to phonetic aspects of these languages. (2002) Phonetic Characteristics of an Unexploded Palatal Implosive in Hendo. We may now revisit the Kalanga S16 and Vove B305 high vowels in /, / Table 3.1 Tokyo: ILCAA. Kishindo, P. J. (2014) The whistled Fricative in Xitsonga: Its Articulation and Acoustics. (1999a) Downdrift and Pitch Range in Chichewa Intonation. Hardcastle, W. J. (1926) The Phonetics of the Zulu Language. Source: Data from Ngessimo Mutaka; measurements by the first author. In (1967) Comparative Bantu: An Introduction to the Comparative Linguistics and Prehistory of the Bantu languages. , The dorsal constriction of clicks in Fwe is typically velar. 3: 19811984. (2010) Tongue Body and Tongue Root Shape Differences in Nuu Clicks Correlate with Phonotactic Patterns. Hinnebusch Cape Town: Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society. Meeussen, A. E. Pretoria: University of Pretoria, PhD dissertation. Figure 3.31 5: 105111. , (1931b) Report on the Unification of the Shona Dialects. Sands Kolossa M. (eds. Spectrogram of Rwanda JD61 imwa [im Elderkin Mkanganwi, K. G. (2017) Prehistoric Bantu-Khoisan Language Contact: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach. Note that languages of Malawi and Tanzania are not shown on the map in T. C. Y. Expansion of the closed cavity causes the pressure in the air inside the space to be reduced well below that of the air outside the mouth. Schadeberg, T. C. Miller, A. A closure in the vocal tract is formed by the back of the tongue contacting the roof of the mouth in the velar or uvular area and a second closure is formed in front of the location of this closure by the tip or blade of the tongue or the lips, as shown at timestep 1. (2016) Sentence Intonation in Tswana (Sotho-Tswana group). There is evidence for post-nasal fortition rather than devoicing in the Ngwato S31c variety (Gouskova et al. Hubbard, K. The Bantu Languages of Africa. T. (2009) The Linguistic Relationship Between Southern and Northern Ndebele. R. Comparison of selected vowel and consonants lengths in Ganda JE15 and Sukuma F21 (see text for explanation). (2007) Question Prosody: An African Perspective. P. Cleveland: Central Mission Press. & Language Documentation and Conservation & Lindblom One of the most striking things about clicks in Bantu is the lack of respect for place distinctions when few categorical contrasts exist. In languages of both the South-East and the South-West clusters, clicks can be found in Bantu roots as well as in loanwords. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Figure 3.7 , In H. Byrd Pascoe Klner Afrikawissenschaftlichen Nachwuchstagung (KANT I), 119. L. J. Figure 3.29 & Only Guthrie's Zone S is (sometimes) considered to be a genealogical group. Elordieta P. . , M. (2014) Chain Shifts, Strident Vowels, and Expanded Vowel Spaces. *CVCV items have become monosyllabic in Fang, the V2 in these cases is often not the *V2 of the reconstructed form. (2014). , Tervuren: Royal Museum for Central Africa. In Bemba M42, polar questions are marked by a final boundary L% on the final syllable, but pitch range expansion is also used (Kula & Hamann 2016). H. & Yehia, H. C. 25, Minneapolis. G. Clicks are marginal in Tswana S31 and Kgalagari S311, with the possible exception of the Shetjhauba variety of Kgalagari (Tlale 2005, Lukusa and Monaka 2008). In (2015) The Bantoid Languages. In Oxford Handbooks Online. Proceedings of the Seventh Conference on International Language Resources and Evaluation, 885889. 33(4): 427446. G. Swahili has a complex and controversial status in Eastern Africa today. ), Intonation in African Tone Languages, 195222. Schadeberg, T. C. Nayak That Zulu dental clicks are produced with a controlled fricated release is also clear from the way the front release initially involves formation of a narrow channel, clearly visible in frame 150. . Thomas-Vilakatis work provides the first direct measures of how powerful the energy generated by this gesture is. The Bitam variety of Fang A75 has eight vowels and seven peripheral vowels, plus mid central // (Medjo Mv 1997). Merrill Brenzinger, M. (2016a) Intonation in African Tone Languages. Journal of the International Phonetic Association Duke, D. A. J. Since these segments make for easy tracking of F0 through the consonant, the centring of the depression on the consonant can be most easily visualised with them. Biesele Equally, voiced segments such as nasals and approximants may contrast in depression (Traill & Jackson 1988, Wright & Shryock 1993, Mathangwane 1998). This differs from Kwasio A81 pharyngealisation which likely results from the reduction of a consonant. Phonetic studies of labial consonants include the study of plain and prenasalised bilabial trills / m/ in Medumba, a Narrow Grassfields language, by Olson and Meynadier (2015). A monumental four-volume classification of Bantu languages, Comparative Bantu (196771), which was written by Malcolm Guthrie, has become the standard reference book used by most scholarsincluding those who disagree with Guthries proposed classification, which sets up a basic western and eastern division in Bantu languages with a further 13 subdivisions. ), Le kinyarwanda (langue bantu du Rwanda): tudes linguistiques, 5573. Doke, C. M. Bailey P. As Louwrens , Guthrie, M. In A.-M. & O. High tones tend to fall on the antepenult in Nguni S40 languages such as Xhosa S41, though the penult is stressed/lengthened (Downing 2010). M. Vol. The verb also carries the subject and object prefixes. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Miller, A. Except in post-nasal environments and sometimes before his reconstructed super-high vowels, the reconstructed voiced plosives most commonly correspond to voiced continuants of one type or another or to implosives in the modern languages. (eds. 2002, Bostoen 2008). San Diego: Academic Press. ), Nasals, Nasalization and the Velum, 251301. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics . 2: 6697. Cole, J. S. Fulop, S. A. (eds. Hualde Pongweni, A. J. C. Roux 19(2): 113135. Each point represents the average of at least 28 tokens of the vowel in penultimate position in a word list spoken by a female speaker. T. N. Spectrogram of Rwanda JD61 akabwa [akab Articulatory positions of six of the vowels of Fang A75 (variety of Bitam). (2002) Flogging a dead cow?: The Revival of Malawian Chingoni. For instance, /u/ and /o/ are produced as the lower and more centralised vowels [] and [], respectively (Duke & Martin 2012: 220). Bantu by fifty "Conimon Bantu time-spans,'' and proto-Bantu by ten. Bostoen Figure 3.20 Olson, K. In the five-vowel system of Xhosa S41, for example, /e o/ are genuinely mid in character. (2014) Clicks, Concurrency and Khoisan. ), Namibian Languages. (1982) Nasalization in Umbundu. Persson, J. & She reports that the labial closure is formed first. ), Prosodic Categories: Production, Perception and Comprehension, 243265. Pretoria: J.L. C. Delvaux Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Bantu language family into 15 zones which he numbered alphabetically from A in the north-west to S in the south-east, omitting the letters I, J, O and Q in his . Phonologists often use [ATR] as a diacritic feature, even to distinguish pairs of vowels such as i/ in English beat/bit where tongue root position is not the phonetic mechanism involved. M. Holtzhausen Doke, C. M. Figure 3.21 2016). J. Vossen As is generally the case cross-linguistically, there are fewer nasal vowels than oral ones, at least in lexical stems. In this language, the vowels are to a large degree placed where they might be expected, given a respect for dispersion principles. (1989) Relatrio do I Seminrio sobre a Padronizao da Ortografia de Lnguas Moambicanas. Nande JD42 vowel formant means. & Downstep due to a floating Low tone is attested in Basaa A43a (Makasso et al. Lovestrand, J. Recordings made by the first author of two other female speakers of Kalanga S16, one from Francistown in Botswana and one from Zimbabwe, did not replicate the pattern suggested by Mathangwane. J. Miller, A. (1995) Issues in the Phonology and Orthography of Chopi (ciCopi S 61). Sock, R. Figure 3.13 Jouannet, F. Mean formant values of the 10 surface vowels for one speaker are plotted in & ed. , 42: 175187. Source: Image made available by Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (cf. The sounds of the Bantu languages Ian Maddieson Department of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley 1. & 2011, Boyer & Zsiga 2013). Although most Bantu languages use only one coronal (typically alveolar) and one dorsal (velar) place of articulation, contrasts between dental and alveolar places are found in several languages, and contrasts between velars and uvulars are found in Kgalagari S311 (Dickens 1987, Monaka 2001, 2005). Figure 3.17 & Voiced stops tend to be made with a downward movement of the larynx, presumably to help sustain voicing (Monaka 2001). Leiden: Leiden University, PhD dissertation. Ladefoged, P. 7: 4143. Co-occurrence restrictions of a harmonic nature between vowels, very typical of sub-Saharan African languages, are quite commonly found in Bantu languages, though often limited in extent, e.g., only applying in certain morphological contexts, such as between verb roots and extensions. The contact of the front of the tongue is asymmetrical, as the side of the tongue opposite to where the release will be made is braced contra-laterally against the palate. . Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. There are currently approximately 50 million speakers of Swahili (Hinnebusch, 1979), of which 2 million are native speakers (the remainder (eds. Bantu peoples, the approximately 85 million speakers of the more than 500 distinct languages of the Bantu subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family, occupying almost the entire southern projection of the African continent. A. Next, the closure at the front and/or side of the mouth is released (timestep 4) and the abrupt equalisation of air pressures inside and outside the mouth results in a sharp acoustic transient. 26(2): 235254. Downing, L. J. Contacted electrodes are shown as black squares and uncontacted ones as grey dots. Austin: University of Texas, PhD dissertation. Omissions? Moore-Cantwell (Nabirye et al. The phonetic realisation of dental and alveolar consonants is dependent on the airstream mechanism. The chapter is organised into sections on vowels, consonants and prosody. & Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (eds. (2015) The Phonetic Basis of a Phonological Pattern: Depressor Effects of Prenasalized Consonants. Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. (19961997) The Formation of Labial-Velars in Sawabantu: Evidence for Feature Geometry. These seven prosodic types do not account for all of the details of the individual languages. Bloomington: Indiana University, PhD. Studies in African Linguistics Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. 8s. 30: 591627. Makuya Vove B305 vowel formant means according to measurements by the first author on a recording made by Jean-Marie Hombert, made available by Lolke Van der Veen. | Free trial Amsterdam: Institute for Functional Research into Language and Language Use. Segebarth (2016) Illustrations of the IPA: Lusoga (Lutenga). In describing clicks, it is customary to talk of the click type and the click accompaniment. Mongo-Nkundu C61 has reduction of final lowering, while Zulu S42 and Southern Sotho S33 cancel penultimate lengthening in question prosody. There is a raising process in Xhosa S41, which results in higher variants of /e o/ when /i u/ occur in the next syllable. ), Proceedings of the 8th International Seminar on Speech Production, 137140. (CASAS Book Series, No. , . 71(1): 5081. The high vowels /i/ and/u/ are lower and more centralised than those in Xhosa S41 and Kalanga S16 and could be transcribed [] and [], respectively. Particularly striking in this connection is the velar ejective lateral affricate [k] of Zulu S42 (cf. The click in the word [ruoma] papyrus in Bonny Sands, Print publication date: February 2019 (1999) Shekgalagari Laryngeal Contrasts: The Plosives. Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. A. Diachronica The Classification of the Bantu Languages. Zulu, for example, has nine pairs of singular and plural prefixes. Harnsberger The one spectrogram of a word containing /pk/ published in this study actually shows that the duration of the element is considerably longer than a simple stop, suggesting it contains a sequence of articulations, although no burst is visible for the /p/. Then, explain how language has been a unifying or divisive force for each group. Malcolm Guthrie in his classification of Bantu languages (1967-71) places this language in zone N in the unit N31. & (1997) Languages of the Eastern Caprivi. Sands is a very weak click, as indicated by the extended IPA (extIPA) diacritic for a weak articulation, e.g., [], which is similar to the diacritic for an unreleased stop e.g., (c), but placed under the consonant rather than after it. 7: 270414. M. and (1954) The Southern Bantu Languages. (eds. Gowlett, D. F. 24(1): 530. & (eds. This third pronunciation was characterised by one of the speakers as being more typical of speakers of 50 or more years of age. For instance, the number of High tones which may surface in a word or a stem may be limited to one and prominent peaks tend to occur in a predictable position, often the penult (Downing 2010). Aberdeen: G. & W. Fraser, Belmont Works. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of African Linguistics 47, University of California, Berkeley. The mechanism of producing clicks is now fairly well understood and is illustrated by the sequence of midsagittal real-time MRI in New York: Springer. A role for vowel nasalisation in the transmission of nasal consonant harmony across intervening vowels seems likely in the history of Bantu (Greenberg 1951, Hyman 1995). Older accounts of Southern Sotho S33 describe both post-alveolar or sub-laminal retroflex articulations (Doke 1923: 713, 1926: 301). , International Journal of American Linguistics Rather, what is critical is that the larynx is lowering during their production, so that the size of the supralaryngeal cavity is being enlarged while the oral closure is maintained. , as indicated by the positioning of the horizontal white lines superimposed on each photograph. It is accompanied by a separate map in which the Bantu languages are numbered in accordance with the system described in the fourth section. 2831, University of California, Berkeley. The most extensive body of work on the phonetics of tone in a single Bantu language concerns Chewa N31b (Carleton 1996, Myers 1996, Myers & Carleton 1996, Myers 1999a, b). Figure 3.30 R. W. P. Air pressure in the oral cavity is measured in relation to the ambient atmospheric pressure in hectoPascals (hPa, equivalent to the pressure required to support 1 cm of water). In Changana S53, whistling fricatives occur with a rounded lip posture (Shosted 2011) rather than the narrowed lip posture seen in Shona S10, Kalanga S16 and Tsonga S53. 20(2): 3336. Lingua ), EUROSPEECH 2001 Scandinavia, 7th European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology, 2nd INTERSPEECH Event, September 37, 2001, Aalborg Congress and Culture Centre, Aalborg-Denmark: Proceedings, 651654. Spectrogram of Kalanga S16 [hapka] ampit, spoken by a female speaker from Zimbabwe. & Narrowing the pharynx raises the first formant, other things being equal. L. 2017); from Nguni (primarily Zulu S42), they subsequently spread into other SEB languages (Letele 1945, Bailey 1995). A. Y. Sanders (eds. Corpus studies of Bantu languages are currently few in number (Prinsloo & de Schryver 2001, Niesler et al. Renaud, P. P. Edition 1st Edition. 7(1): 146. Each point represents the mean of between nine and 23 tokens of unreduced final or penultimate vowels in a word list spoken by a male speaker. The peak negative pressures reached in clicks are typically -100 hPa or more and may reach over -200, as shown in Figure 3.28. Faytak, M. The current variation between clicks and velars in Imusho Fwe may eventually lead to the loss of clicks in the variety altogether, as clicks are replaced by velars. Areas north of Swati S43 and east of Ndebele S44 with grey patterns show the S10, S50 and S61 zones where clicks have been sporadically attested. For instance, a contrast between HL and LH contours is restricted to long vowels in Rwanda JD61 (Myers 2003). F. (2006) Low Vowels andTtransparency in Kinande Vowel Harmony. New York: Harcourt Brace. Journal of Phonetics Corrections? ), Mixed Languages: 15 Case Studies in Language Intertwining, 215224. , A. (2014) The Grammatical Structure of Sowetan Tsotsitaal. O. (eds. Vowel and Nasal Harmony in Bantu Languages. (2011) Notes on Nyokon Phonology (Bantu A.45, Cameroon). (2009a) Differences in Airstream and Posterior Place of Articulation Among Nuu Clicks. Means of Fwe vowel formants are shown in in Thornell Two examples from Giryama E72a are illustrated in The tongue surface appears as a curved white line. . C. Spreafico, L. & The palatal click type may be found as a variant of // used in child-directed speech in Zulu and Xhosa (Bradfield 2014: 27). Ishihara The top and middle rows show a waveform and spectrogram, respectively. Pretoria: University of South Africa. (1988) Speaker Variation and Phonation Type in Tsonga. Cologne: Rdiger Kppe. In both cases aspects of timing are particularly relevant. Fridjhon Davey, A. (2013), Proctor et al. De Wit, G. (eds. 9: 7184. Jackson Mumin 1989, Pongweni 1990). Reports and Papers, 235264. Naidoo 2007), which is auditorily reminiscent of a lateral click. L. Lexical stems have a system of seven oral vowels but only five nasal vowels. ), Intonation in African Tone Languages, 321364. Myers, S. Chewa N31b and Tumbuka N21, for instance, do not have focus prosody (Downing 2016). Mutaka, N. M. Final High or rising intonations are found in Ganda JE15, Chewa N31b and Saghala E74b, while final High-Low or High-falling intonations are found in Jita JE25. The Xhosa S41 voiced clicks are breathy or slack voiced (Jessen & Roux 2002) and may even be devoiced (Maphalala et al. Liljencrants, J. Paper presented at the 32nd Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Roux, J. C. 31: 179198. , 32(1): 97111. & (1996) Boundary Tones and the Phonetic Implementation of Tone in Chichewa. The total number of Bantu languages is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages . For Sukuma F21, Batibo (1985) also provides acoustic evidence for a relatively wide separation of the seven vowels, with /e o/ all being clearly mid vowels. ), Proceedings of the 6th World Congress of African Linguistics, Cologne, 1721 August 2009, 533543. Top row, front vowels /i/, /e/, //; bottom row, back vowels /u/, /o/, //. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. (2009b) Rarefaction Gestures and Coarticulation in Mangetti Dune !Xung clicks. Figure 3.21 Vowel length contrasts occur in some Bantu languages, which may or may not be accompanied by changes in vowel quality and/or various processes of vowel lengthening (cf. In Fwe K402, they were borrowed from Khoe and Ju languages (Bostoen & Sands 2012, Gunnink et al. Miller et al. 123). In her study, F1, B1 (F1 bandwidth), center of gravity and A1-A2 (relative amplitudes of F1 and F2) help distinguish vowel pairs that differ in [ATR] value to varying degrees depending on the vowel pair and speaker. & Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Vowel harmony in Africa often involves the independent use of pharyngeal cavity size, that is, adjustments of pharynx volume which cannot be accounted for as a function of the height and frontness of the tongue body (see Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996 for discussion). Arlington: University of Texas, PhD dissertation. (2005) Vowel Duration and Neutralization of Vowel Length Contrasts in Kinyarwanda. , Letele, G. L. (1990) Studies in Shona Phonetics: An Analytical Review. South African Journal of African Languages The other back vowel pair /o o/ shows a smaller than expected F2 difference given the size of the difference between their first formants; a substantial pharynx width difference coupled with a degree of opening of the oral constriction may be inferred. 8: 525562. (1997) Essai sur la phonologie panchronique des parlers fang du Gabon et ses implications historiques. & (2011) Bantu Tone. Areas in black on the map represent the geographical distribution of languages with large click inventories, and areas in grey represent smaller click inventories. /) as well as glottalised and ejected clicks (e.g., / (1999) Phnomnes de contact entre les langues minyanka et bambara (Sud du Mali). Positional restrictions are another aspect of prosody in Bantu languages. The term argument is defined by Trask (1993:20) as "a noun phrase . DOI link for The Bantu Languages of Africa. P. J. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. The articulatory contacts can then be examined using stylised displays such as those in (1976) Question Formation in Some Bantu Languages. Because the insert does not cover the soft palate, this closure cannot be observed on the EPG record at this time. (1997) A Dialectometrical Analysis of the Main Kavango Languages: Kwangali, Gciriku and Mbukushu. 2(1): 5172. This study shows that the F0 associated with depressors is lower than a low tone, and the lowest pitch is centred on the depressor consonants themselves. (ed. Peter D. Ian Maddieson Dogil, G. Each point represents the average of measurements of at least 30 tokens of the vowel from one male speaker reading a text. There are different types of downstep attested in some Bantu languages. Meinhof, C. Figure 3.30 ), The Bantu Languages, 475500. Language Dynamics and Change & Stanford: CSLI Publications. Phonological theories, phonetic theories, and hypotheses about patterns of sound change can be tested in this real-world laboratory, ensuring the popularity of Bantu languages as subjects of research for years to come. Carleton, T. 2009b, Miller 2010, 2016). The next lower vowels are markedly lower. The Western Bantu Tradition Most of Central Africa was colonized by farmers stemming from a single area in Nigeria near the border of Cameroon. The book discusses the phonetic and morphological characteristics of these 2 zones and a classification of the groups, clusters and dialects is provided. Exter E. D. 16: 385400. Finch Schwartz, J.-L. Phonology Access English Franais Africa Shah Language locations are estimated following Maho (2009) and Gieseke and Seifert (2007). (ed. Aspects of the original sequencing of nasal + oral and voiced + voiceless portions found in prenasalised stops are sometimes retained and small variations in the timing and magnitude of the different component gestures create quite large variability in the acoustic pattern of these segments as critical alignments are made or missed. ), African Mosaic: Festschrift for J. (2013) Paralinguistic Mechanisms of Production in Human beatboxing: A Real-Time Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study. The increasing availability of ultrasound and MRI technologies should lead to future studies examining the effect of prosodic environment on articulation. Malcolm Guthrie in his classification of Bantu languages (1967-71) places this language in zone N in the unit N31. Palatogram of [ana] spoken by a Soga JE16 speaker. Maputo: Instituto Nacional do Desenvolvimento de Educao. u o a/, but a straight line cannot be fit to the set /u o o/ as is possible for Fang A75 /u o /. , African Studies 23(1): 1623. Figure 3.33 Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies & P. J. Definition "Bantu" means "people" in many Bantu languages. 11: 127149. Batibo, H. M. & 2002, Malambe 2015), but Dogil and Roux (1996) argue that ejectives and clicks in Xhosa S41 are more resistant to coarticulation than other consonants.