Lutz Marten

Hannah Gibson

Rozenn Guérois

Gastor Mapunda

The approximately 500 Bantu languages spoken across vast areas of Central, Eastern and Southern Africa are united by the presence of a number of broad typological similarities, including, for example, complex noun class system and agglutinative verbal morphology. However, the languages also exhibit a high degree of micro-variation. Recent work has demonstrated fine-grained morphosyntactic variation across many Bantu languages focusing on grammatical topics such as double object constructions, inversion constructions, or object marking, adopting formal, comparative and typological perspectives. Continuing in this vein, this volume builds on the momentum of the dynamic field of morphosyntactic variation in Bantu and contributes to the growing body of work which examines morphosyntactic variation, with a regional focus on the Bantu languages of East Africa. The East African region is characterized by high linguistic complexity in terms of the number of languages spoken, in terms of the four different linguistic phyla present, and in terms of the inherent sociolinguistic dynamics. The current volume explores this complexity further by bringing together studies which investigate features of morphosyntax of an individual language as well as those which develop an in-depth examination of a single morphosyntactic phenomena in a small sample of languages. The book seeks also to add to the descriptive status of the languages under examination, as well as raising questions relating to language, language contact, language change, and micro-variation in related languages spoken in close geographic proximity.

Morphosyntactic variation in East African Bantu languages

Ellen Hurst-Harosh

Nancy C. Kula

Jochen Zeller

This volume brings together leading scholars from Africa, Europe, the Americas and beyond to provide a detailed account of the languages of the Bantu family, which cover an area from Cameroon and Kenya in the north to South Africa in the south. The Bantu family is part of the Niger-Congo phylum and one of the world's biggest language groups, comprising around 500 languages. The family includes major languages with large numbers of speakers, such as Zulu, Kinyarwanda, and Swahili, the most widely spoken and taught African language, as well as many community languages and several endangered languages. Bantu languages feature prominently in the complex and multilingual language ecologies that are characteristic of the linguistic situation in much of Africa and they provide rich evidence for the study of theoretical and comparative linguistics, language contact, and language change. They play an important role in education, commerce, culture, and artistic expression, in the media and public discourse, in governance and social justice, and are central to the future of the continent and the well-being of its communities. The first part of The Oxford Guide to the Bantu Languages provides background and context, with chapters exploring the history of research in the field; language and prehistory in Bantu-speaking Africa; and typology and variation. Chapters in the second part offer broad comparative overviews of Bantu phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics, socio- and applied linguistics, before Parts III - VII cover more specific topics in Bantu linguistics across a variety of subfields, ranging from structural issues such as the augment and melodic tone to historical and sociolinguistic topics such as Bantu languages in the diaspora and language policy and standardization. The chapters in the final part offer individual structural overviews of a range of languages from across the Bantu-speaking area. The book will be an essential resource for students and researchers specializing in the Bantu languages and for typologists and comparative linguists more broadly.

The Oxford Guide to the Bantu Languages

Argues that knowledge in language consists of being able to use it in speaking and understanding. This work analyses a variety of languages, from English to Japanese and Swahili. It is intended for those in the disciplines of language, linguistics, anthropology, education, psychology, cognitive science, law, media studies, and medicine.

The Dynamics of Language

Millennium Research Fellow Soas Lutz Marten

Donovan Lee Mcgrath

COLLOQUIAL SWAHILI is easy to use and completely up to date! Specially written by experienced teachers for self-study or class use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Swahili. No prior knowledge of the language is required. What makes this new edition of COLLOQUIAL SWAHILI your best choice in personal language learning? Interactive – lots of exercises for regular practice Clear – concise grammar notes Practical – useful vocabulary and pronunciation guide Complete – including answer key and reference section Whether you’re a business traveller, or about to take up a daring challenge in adventure tourism; you may be studying to teach or even looking forward to a holiday – if you’d like to get up and running with Swahili, this rewarding course will take you from complete beginner to confidently putting your language skills to use in a wide range of everyday situations. Accompanying audio material is available to purchase separately on two CDs or in MP3 format, or comes included in the great value COLLOQUIAL SWAHILI paperback and CDs complete course. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material complements the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills. For the eBook and MP3 pack, please find instructions on how to access the supplementary content for this title in the Prelims section.

Lutz Marten

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