LIN 380: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN LINGUISTICS (BY M.O.

NDIRIBE )

COURSE OUTLINE

(1) Definition of African Linguistics

(2) Importance of studying African Linguistics (A.L)
(3) Classification of African Linguistics (A.L)
(4) Features of African Languages
(5) Why languages look alike
(6) Methods of determining the degrees of language relationship
(7) Current issues in African Linguistics

Textbooks
Theodora Bynon : Historical Linguistics. (1977)
Andrew Spencer : Morphological Processses (1991)
Childs, G. Tucker : An Introduction to African languages (2003)

(1) DEFINITION OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS

For one to define African linguistics purely, reference has to be made to the definition
of linguistics in general. Generally, linguistics is accepted to be the scientific study of
language. A general definition of African linguistics is therefore the scientific study of
African languages or some African languages but if one is to go into specifics, the
study of African linguistics goes beyond merely studying African languages.
African linguistics is the process of studying African languages which has as
its preoccupation the formulation of models, the theories and laws governing African
languages grammatical structures in relation to the other languages of the world.
It is also worthy of note to emphasise that the main thrust of African
linguistics is not different from that of general linguistics and also the study of
African linguistics has become expedient (necessary) because of historical
background of African languages as a result of the many African countries were
colonised by the Europeans except Ethiopia that did not experience any colonial
experience.
In an attempt to build such models, references have to be made to the structure
of other languages of the world and a comparative and contrastive analysis are
required in order to have a valid, adequate, reliable, descriptive and explanatory
adequacy across and within languages. Thus, for any reasonable study of African
languages to be made, attempt has to be made towards unification and a consistent
analysis of African language structure. This is because the African languages are in
pitiable state because of the rate of civilization, colonization and imperialism that
continued to bedevil the Africans. This makes it imperative that African languages
need to be studied not` only for to develop and analyse the features or the aspects but
to relate them to what obtains else.

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 QUESTION
(i)Why is it imperative to study African languages?
(ii) From what perspective or analytical basis would you want African languages to
be studied?

(2) THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING AFRICAN LANGUAGES

In view of the foregoing discussion, we need to discuss why it is important to study

African languages.

(a) According to Ife six- year project as was put forward by Professor Fafunwa, a
former minister of Education. The project showed that children learnt faster and better
in their mother tongue than other languages. Therefore, the study of African
languages will enable linguists develop models that will help in teaching the African
child.
(b) Quite related to the above is a recorded evidence of high school dropouts in African
schools. An evidence showed that the above point is likely responsible for the drop-
outs. Teaching in African languages make the students feel at home and better
comported to learn.
(c) Following the Berlin Conference of Nov. 1884-Feb. 1885, the African continent was
partitioned and scrambled for by the colonists. Because of their selfish ambition to
acquire material and human resources, the colonists did not care any bit about the
integrity of the African nationality. The result of this over-sight was that African
languages were carelessly divided which accounted for a particular language to be
found in 2 or more countries. The main objective of this division was to make sure
that each country in Africa would have one or two languages. The study of African
languages therefore becomes necessary to clearly delineate the boundaries of the
African languages and lands. E.g. Hausa is spoken in Nigeria, Togo, Chad and Niger.
Yoruba is spoken in Nigeria, Cote d’ivour and other neighbouring countries. It is
therefore necessary that the Yoruba and Hausa nationalism be shown on the linguistic
map.
(d) Because of slow development of African languages, Africans feel inferior to other
countries of the world. This inferiority complex is especially seen with languages that
have not been reduced to writing. When the culture and literature of African
languages are widely published and read, recognition and intensified study will come
to bear on the language and culture of African. Such an increase interest in African
linguistics will help to boost the African image and engender studies by foreign
nationalists.
(e) When African languages are studied, a contrastive and comparative picture will
emerge and the relationships between and among African languages can be
determined. It will also be possible to classify them in different typologies and
families.
(f) Studying African languages can be an independent enterprise to carry out studies for a
subject matter for its own sake. This type of study is usually encouraged by the desire

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 either to make an inquiry or satisfy a yearning for some nagging academic problem.
In type of study, the interest of studying languages for their own sake is paramount.
(g) Identification: when African languages are studied, they will be properly identified
with the people that speak them. A linguistic map will be quite different from a
political map. When people and their languages are identified and given a sense of
cultural activities, they can work out policies towards their language restoration. Also
this kind of identification does help the authorities in planning the languages and
developing them. Thus the wrong impression and disassociation that usually
characterised by the improper identification and stigmatisation as that of the dwellers
in Cote d’viour can be overcome.
(h) The study of African languages will enable the African governments to reconcile a
number of African languages existing or criss-crossing African boundaries and
provide/ divide the type of language policy to adopt. The language policies could be
endo-glossic or exo-glossic.
When a government adopts the endoglossic language policy, it means that it chooses
one language that indigenous to the country as the official / national language but if it
adopts the exoglossic language, it adopts a foreign language as an official language. It
is such a reconciliation that will enable Nigerian and some Africans to tend towards
endoglossic, while Cameroun tends towards exoglossic because it uses English and
French.

Question
When African languages are studied a lot of scales that cover the eyes of Africans
towards self actualisation are removed. Do you agree with this?

(3) CLASSIFICATION OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES

(I) There are up to or over 3,000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several
language families:
 Afroasiatic is spread throughout the Middlr East North
Africa- the Horn of Africa and parts of the Sahel
 Nilo Saharan is centered on Sudan and Chad
 Niger-Congo (Bantu and non Bantu) covers West-
Central, Southeast and Southern Africa
 Khoe is concentrated in the desert of Namibia and
Botswana
 Austronesian is spoken i Madagascar
 Indo- European is spoken on the southern tip of the
continent.

Most languages spoken in Africa, according to Child (2003) belong to one of three large
language families: Afroasiatic, Nilo Saharan and Niger Congo. Another hundred belong
to small families such as Ubangian (sometimes grouped within Niger-Congo ) and the
various families called Khoisan or the Indo-European and Austronesian language families
which originated outside Africa.

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(a) Afroasiatic languages
Afroasiatic languages are spoken throughout North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the
Middle East and parts of the Sahel. There are approximately 375 Afroasiatic
languages spoken by over 350 million people. The main sub families of Afroasiatic
are the Berber languages, Semitic languages, Chadic languages and the Cushatic
languages. The semitic languages are the only branch of the Afroasiatic family of
languages that is spoken outside of Africa. These include Arabic, Amharic and
Hebrew among others.
Some of the most widely spoken Afroasiatic languages include Arabic (semitic),
Somali (Cushitic), Berber (Berber), Hausa (Chadic), Amharic (Semitic), and Oromo
(Cushitic).
(b) Nilo-Saharan languages
Nilo- Saharan is a controversial grouping uniting over a hundred extremely diverse
languages from southern Egypt to northern Tanzania and into Nigeria and DR Congo
with the Songhay languages along the middle reaches of the Niger River as a
geographic outlier. Genetic linkage between these languages has not been
conclusively demonstrated, and among linguists, support for the proposal is sparse.
Some of the better known Nilo-Saharan languages are Kanuri, Songhay, Nubian, and
the widespread Nilotic family which includes Luo, Dinka, and Maasai. The Nilo-
Saharan languages are tonal.
(c) Niger-Congo languages
The Niger-Congo language family is the largest group of Africa (and probably of the
world) in terms of the number of languages. One of its salient features is an elaborate
noun class system with grammatical concord. The vast majority of languages of this
family are tonal such as Yoruba, and Igbo, Ashanti and Ewe language. A major
branch of Niger-Congo is the Bantu family which covers a greater geographic area
than the rest of the family put together.
The Niger-Kordofanian language family, joining Niger-Congo with the Kordofanian
languages of south- central Sudan was proposed in 1950s by Joseph Greenberg.
Today, linguists often use “Niger-Congo” to refer to this entire family, including
Kordofanian as a sub family. (see Child 2003; Greenberg 1983, Elugbe 1998)

Small families

The three small Khoisan families of southern Africa have not been shown to be
related to the major families of Africa. In addition, there are various other families
which have not been demonstrated to belong to one of these families.

 Mande, some 70 languages, including the major

languages of Mali and Guinea, These are thought to be
divergent of Niger-Congo, but debate persists.

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  Ubangian, some 70 languages, including the languages
of the central African Republic. May also be Niger-
Congo.
 Khoe, about 10 languages, the primary family of
Khoisan languages of Namibia and Botswana
 Sundawe, an isolate of Tanzania, possibly related to
Khoe
 Kx’a, a language of southern Africa
 Tuu, or Taa-Ui, two surviving languages
 Hadza, an isolate of Tanzania
 Bangi-me, a likely isolate of Mali
 Jalaa, a likely isolate of Nigeria
 Laal, a possible isolate of Chad.

Khoisan is a term of convenience covering some 30 languages spoken by about 300,000—

400,000 people. They are five Khoisan families which have not been shown to be related to
each other, Khoe, Tuu, and Kx’a (these are found mainly in Namibia and Botswana) and
Sundawe and Hadza of Tanzania, which are isolates. A striking feature of Khoisan languages
and the reason they are counted together, is their use of click consonants.

Besides the former colonial languages of English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish,
the following languages are official at the national level in Africa:
Afroasiatic
 Arabic in Algeria, Comoros, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea,
 Amharic in Ethiopia
 Berber in Morocco
 Somali in Somalia
 Tingrinya in Eritrea

Austronesian

 Malagasy in Madagascar

Indo- European

 Afrikaans

Niger Congo

 Chichewa in Malawi
 Comorian in Comoros
 Kinyarwanda in Rwanda

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  Sesotho in Lesotho and South Africa
 Shona, Sindebele in Zimbabwe
 Setswana/ Tswana in Botswana and South Africa
 Sepedi in South Africa
 Ndebele in South Africa
 Swahili in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda
 Swati in Swaziland and South Africa
 Tsonga in South Africa
 Venda in South Africa
 Xhosa in South Africa
 Zulu in South Africa

Creoles

 Sango in Central Africa Republic

 Seychellois Creole in the Seychelles .

(II)

According to Grimmes (1996), African languages are about 2035. He divided African
languages into four phyla:

 Niger Congo- 1436 languages including the Bantu family which has 500 members.
 Afroasiatic-371 languages
 Nilo-Saharan Hamits -196 languages
 Khoisan family 35 languages

Niger Congo: Wolof spoken in Senegal, Fulfulde which has spread over most of west and
central Africa, Manding: this has varieties of which are spoken in several west African
countries under various names including Bambara, national language of Mali and Dyula of
Cote d’vorie, a wide spread language, Akan- the largest spoken and Igbo, major language in
Nigeria, Sango-the lingua franca of Central African Republic and number of Bantu
languages, of which some of the best known are Ganda, the Gikugu, Kongo, Lingala, Iaba,
Kasan, Mbunde, Northen Sotho, Nyanja, Rundi, Rwanda, Shona, Southern-Sotho, Sukuna,
Swahili, Tsonga, Tswana, Umbundu, Xhosa and Zulu.

Note: the major language families in Niger-Congo are as follows

 Mande
 Kwa
 Benue Congo
 West Atlantic
 Adamawa Eastern
 Kordofanian

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Languages are usually classified for two (2) main reasons

 To determine the degree of their relationship and

 To establish the proto language

The criteria for languages classification are based on the features of the languages which
could be:

 Phonological
 Morphological
 Syntactic

The above classifications of African languages are based on some predominant linguistic
factors:

(1) Among the languages that fall under Kwa they share the property of being tonal, verb
serialisation and consecutivization. More so, most of them are also agglutinating
(ability of language to string many morphs to form words) in the sense that they have
lots of affixes which some authors have called extensional measure because their
addition extends the meaning of the free morphemes or stir words to which they are
attached.( E.g. Igbo: je—go; jeghi—not go )
These languages also have the features of reduplication—this has to do with
doubling of some aspects of word or words themselves to generate either another
grammatical category or to extend the meaning of the original grammatical category.
They also have feature of compounding. Most Kwa languages are also known for
being syllabic in nature and have many more consonants than most European
languages.
(2) The Afroasiatic: this has simplified phonological structure. More so, most of the
languages in this class do not have the tonal features associated with Kwa group.
They are also related to some Asian languages in the sense that they have a lot of
influence from the Arabic languages.
(3) Bantu Languages: they are known for their noun class systems and a sophisticated
morphological structure in addition to their click sounds. Most South African
languages belong to this class.
(4) Benue Congo: language family runs through the Southern part of Nigeria to the
Eastern and Central African Republic. They do not have the tonal system and the
features of vowel harmony that some of the Kwa languages are known for.

Questions: African languages are broadly classified under three language

families; name them and discuss at least three languages under each.
(2) South Africa could be described as the Africa’s super hub of language
pluralism. What is your assessment of this comment?

(4) FEATURES OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES

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 Some widespread phonetic features include:
 Certain types of consonants, such as implosives (/a/),
ejectives (/k’a), the labiodentals flap and in southern
Africa, clicks (/a/). True implosives are rare outside
Africa and clicks and the flap are almost unheard of.
 Doubly articulated labial-velar stops like /kpa
and /gba/ are found in a wide belt south of sahara.
 Prenasalised consonants like /mpa/ and /ga/ are
widespread in Africa but not common outside it.
 Sequences of stops and fricatives at the beginning of
words, such as /fsa/, /pta/ and /dtskx’a/, are notable
throughout the continent.
 Nasal stop which only occur with nasal vowels such as
[ba] vs. [ma](but both [pa] and [pa], especially in
West Africa.
 Vowels contrasting an advanced or retracted tongue
commonly called tense and lax.
 Simple tone system which are used for grammatical
purposes.

Sounds that are relatively uncommon in African languages include uvular consonants,
diphthongs and fronted rounded vowels.

(b) Syntactic

Widespread syntactical structures include the common use of adjectival verbs and the
expression of comparison by means of verbs. The Niger-Congo languages are famous for
having very large numbers of gender (noun classes) which cause agreement in verb and other
words. Case, tense and other categories may be distinguished only by tone.

(d) Semantic

Quite often, only one term is used for both animal and meat: the word nama or nyama for
animal/meat is particularly widespread in otherwise widely divergent African languages.

African languages have some universal features:

 They have basic phonological or phonotactic patterns which align in a specific order
to produce morphological forms.
 They have basic principles of word building which basically comprise the marriage
between free and bound morphemes.
 Syntactically, they have word order in sentences and phrasal formation. In any case
however, the way they organise their linguistic forms sometimes differ radically from
the basic universal form.

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The specific features of African languages are as follows:

(1) Compounding
African languages compound grammatical categories to express different thoughts
and create new images. Compounding consists of joining of two or more independent
lexical items. Being independent on its own, each item has its full status. Based on the
assertion of various scholars, compounding is a morphological process of forming
new words by joining two or more free words to form a compound word. (see Spencer
1991).

Compounding in some African languages

IGBO

(i) Di (husband) ji (yam)== diji--- specialist in yam cultivation (yam cultivator).

(ii) Nwa (child) any[ (we)== nwaany[--- woman or female child

(iii) Nwa (child) óké (male)== nwoke (male or man)

(iv) Nne (mother) nna (father)== nnenna (mother of father or

grandmother or simply a name of a female child.

YORUBA

(i) Eran (meat) ọ́rọ́ (farm) ==erankọ--- bush meat ?

(ii) Iya (mother) ọkọ=== iyakọ--------
(iii) Omi (water) tutu (cold)==omitutu--- coldwater.

SWAHILI

Gbana (little) lolo (child)== gbanalolo--- littlechild

HAUSA

White + house

Big + house

Long +life

Black + dog

(2) Reduplication

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This is the act or instance of doubling or reiterating; an often grammatically functional
repetition of an element or a part of it at the beginning of and often accompanied by change
of the vowel to form a new word. In other words, reduplication is possible by doubling a
specified syllable or other portion of the primitive sometimes with fixed modification.
Reduplication is often described phonologically in one or two different ways either as:

(a) Reduplicated segments (sequences of consonants or vowels or as

(b) Reduplicated prosonic unit (syllables or moxas)
In addition to phonological distribution, reduplication often needs to be described
morphologically as a reduplication of linguistic constituents [word, stems roos].
In linguistics, reduplication is mostly associated with morphology, that is, a
morphological process by which the root / stem of a word or part of it is repeated.
There are two types of reduplication.
 Complete reduplication and
 Partial reduplication

Complete Reduplication

This is where a word is repeated either for emphasis or plurality.

HAUSA

Maza—(quick) maza maza – quickly

Ruwa (water) ruwaruwa -- watery

YORUBA

Eja (fish)

Pa (kill)

Pa+ Eja (contraction)+ (regressive assimilation) =paeja =peja (kill fish)

peja peja (fisherman) fish killer

Kia (fast) kia kia (fast fast)

IGBO

Qsq (run) qsqqsq--- quickly

Aja (sand) ajaaja --- sandy

Mmiri (water) mmiri mmiri ----watery

Partial Reduplication

This is where a part of a word is repeated. E.g.

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IGBO

O+lu+lo – Olulo== to swallow

Q+gị +ga— Qgịga == to pass

O +ji +je – Ojije == going

Discover how partial reduplication is realised in at least three other African languages to
include Yoruba, Hausa, Ibibio and Efik.

(3) Consecutivization / Serialization

This is the process where two or more verbs follow one another in a construction. In other
words, serialization and consecutivization have to do with the stringing of words (verbs) in a
sequence without interruption. Therefore verb serialization and consecutivization are
processes in language where a number of verbs are stringed together sharing the same subject
without intervening conjunction or preposition. This is a syntactic process common in many
African languages where no verb is subordinated to the other.

(i) Ewe Language (GHANA

Kofi da nu di ---- Kofi cook eat something.

(ii) Nupe (NIGERIA)

Musa be la ebi ---- Musa came took knife

(iii) Igbo (NIGERIA)

Nne gaara ahia zxta ji, bacha sachaa sie rie ya—Mother went to
market, bought yam, peeled, washed, cooked, ate it.

Verb serializations have functions in a sentence where they occur.

(4 ) Incoporating

This is a morphology and process whereby two or more grammatical categories re-
analyse its forms, meanings and as such change the original features. E.g. gba, a verb with
the meaning like run, shot, dance etc, and px- a verb meaning “out” gives gbapx which
is now a preposition meaning run out. Therefore, px has reanalysed itself
from a verb to being a form of preposition.

(5) Agglutination
A morphological process in which the word forms can be segmented into morphs
each of which represents a single grammatical category. E.g. Swahili, Igbo, Yoruba
IGBO
e-je-ghi
e—(participle)
je— root (go)

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 ghi – negative marker

(6) Inflection
This is when one word has more than one morpheme embedded in one word but these
morphemes cannot be distinctively segmented.
LATIN
Amo I love. You cannot break down the words and bring out the morphemes in it.
ENGLISH
Went—go + ed
IGBO
ỤMỤ – Children cannot be broken into nwa +nwa.

(7)Interfixation
This is a morphological process whereby an empty morph or an ordinary morph is
inserted between two morphemes or between two identical roots. In other words, an
interfix interrupts the sequence of two words. E.g.
Igbo (NIGERIA)
Ebe (l) ebe [ebelebe] ebelebe means that unimaginable has happened; whereas ebe
means a place. Here ‘l’ becomes the interfix.
person whereas anx means meat or animal. Here the ‘m’ becomes
the interfix.
Ekwu (r) ekwu [ekwurekwu] ‘talkativeness from talk. The ‘r’ interfixes.

Yoruba (NIGERIA)
Qmọ (k) ọmọ [bad child] So the ‘k’ interfix produces bad child from child.
Ile (k) ile [bad house] So the ‘k’ interfix produces bad house from house.
Owo (d) owo [hand to hand ]

Edo (NIGERIA)
Eghè (time), Eghè (ki) èghè (any time)
Aga (child), Aga (ki) aga (any child)

(8) Tonal Feature

Tone languages, according to Pike (1948) are languages that have lexically
significant, contrastive but relative pitch on each syllable. In his own definition,
Welmers (1959) suggests that a tone language is a language in which pitch phonemes
and segmental phonemes enter into the composition of at least some morphemes.
Nwachukwu, (1995) asserts that a tone language is the one that has a lexically,
significant contrastive but relative pitch on each syllable where each syllable is a tone
bearing unit (TBU)
(a) Contour Tone Language
Here there are pitch changes during the course of production of the syllable. The
distinguishing features of tone on contour system are their shifts in pitch such as
rising, falling, fall rising, dipping etc. for instance, the Kru language of Niger-
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 Congo use contour tone while their nouns are distinguished by contour tones. Also
Yoruba of Kwa group of Niger-Congo has phonetic contours but it is worthy of
note to point out these phenomena can easily be analysed as sequence of register
tones. This is also present in Igbo language of the Niger-Congo. E.g. Àdá + Ùgò

àdáùgò -- àdúgò

(b) Register Tone Language

This is found mostly in Niger-Congo group of language family. A register tone is
the tone during which production there is no perceptible change in pitch resulting
in a fall or rise. (cf. Nwachukwu 1995). In other words, in register tone languages,
there is no tone glide.
(c) Types of Tones
It seems that a great number of African languages have either two or three basic
tone levels in their phonology while some have three. For instance, Ewe and
Yoruba have three basic tone levels. In Yoruba, the three tones are distinctive and
lexical in function which helps to distinguish one word from another. E.g.
igbà-- calabash
igbà -- climbing rope
ìgbá -- garden egg
ìgbà -- time
igba -- zoo

In the Igbo language also, three distinctive tone levels are present; namely: high, low and
downstep. E.g.

ísí -- head

ìsì -- blindness

ísi-- ísī --to cook

(d) Some African Languages and the types of tones

LANGUAGES NO OF TONES TYPES OF TONES

HAUSA 3 High (unmarked)
Low ( ̀)
Fall ( ̄ )
BOKYI 4 High ( ́)
Low (unmarked)
Rise ( ̂ )
Fall ( ̌ )
IZON 2 High ( ́)
Low (unmarked )
IDOMA 3 High ( ́)
Low (unmarked)
Mid ( ̄ )
YORUBA 3 High ( ́)

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 Low ( ̀ )
Mid (unmarked)
IGBO 3 High ( ́)
Low ( ̀)
Downstep ( ̄ )
EFIK 5 High (unmarked)
Low ( ̀)
Downstep ( ̄ )
Fall ( ̌ ) Rise ( ̂ )

(e) Functions of Tones

Tones perform the following functions:
(j) Lexical Function:
The tone brings about meaning distinction between homographic words with the same
morphological structure. E.g.

Yoruba Igbo
ló -- twist óké-- male
lō -- go òkè -- share
lò -- grind òké -- rat

(ii) Grammatical Function:

This shows the difference between a declarative sentence and interrogative sentence. E.g.

Ọ́ gàrà akwụkwọ -- He went to school (declarative)

Ọ̀ gàrà akwụkwọ – Did he go to school (interrogative)

(iii) It shows the difference between possessive and associative. E.g.

égó ụ́zọ̀------ association
money road

égó ụ̀zọ̀ -------- possession

ụzọ’s money
(iv) Differentiates between and among phrases of the same syntactic
structure. E.g.
ósísí ụ́kwà ----- Breadfruit tree
òsísí ụ́kwà ----- Cooking of Breadfruit
òsìsì ụ́kwà Measuring of breadfruit

Question
(i) . What would you consider the basic features of African languages?
(ii) Discuss in some details the concept of tones using at least three African
languages of your choice.

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 (iii) Interfixation is grammatical in African languages. Discuss with at least
three languages of your choice..
(iv) Reduplication is a powerful tool in describing African languages. How
does it operate?

(5) WHY LANGUAGES LOOK ALIKE

Some grammatical features across languages look similar even though the languages
exhibiting (these) such features may not be related. Because of these, it becomes pertinent to
investigate and find out the reasons why languages resemble. It is always the case that when
languages look alike, they are related. The reason for resemblance is not genetic.

(a) Accident : languages can resemble out of accident likewise humans. Features of
languages may look alike purely as a result of accident. E.g. Tivs say ‘no’ for
negativity while English language also uses ‘no’ for negative response. Linguistic
factors have not reveal any relationship between Tiv and English as it concerns
negative response is not genetic rather it is as a result of accident/ chance.
(b) Geneology. Two or more languages may be related or their features may look alike,
sound alike because they share the same genetic features. In other words, they have
the same proto-form and as such belong to the same language family.
(c) Limitation of possibility: language phonotactics have constraints in the way they
order the arrangement or rearrangement of phonemes across languages. This
arrangement/ rearrangement of phonemes consist in the alternate use of consonants
and vowels in forming lexical item. It also consists, with regard to syntax, the limited
grammatical slots that lexical items may occupy. When the phonemes/ lexical items
are arranged in a grammatical configuration, they may look similar across languages.
E.g. Igbo has a predominating use of CV structure but in English language, consonant
cluster can be found. Other languages like Yoruba also have the CV syllable structure
in combining words. Therefore, in combining consonants and vowels to form words,
two or more languages may look alike or resemble.
(d) Onomatopoeia: Onomatopoeic words are often written across languages to link with
phonological pattern of the sound. In doing this, two or more languages may write
their speech sound the same way. E.g
y /ᶮ/ Spanish
ny /ᶮ/ Igbo
(e) Borrowing : when languages come in contact they may tend to borrow words which
express experiences absent in languages prior to the contact. For instance:
bucket – English
bọketị ---Igbo
bukutit ----Hausa
bọketi ---- Yoruba

In such borrowing, the popular linguistic option is to render the borrowed word in the
borrowed language according to its phonological pattern. When the borrowed word has been
reduced to writing in the target language, it often looks similar to the original word of the

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source language. Though the source and the target languages may not look alike due to
borrowings

(6) METHODS OF DETERMINING THE DEGREE OF LANGUAGE

RELATIONSHIP

The study of different methods of determining the degree of language relationship falls
within the branch of linguistics known as Historical and Comparative linguistics. (Bynon
1977)

(1) Historical Linguistics

This is also called diachronic linguistics and it is the study of language change. It has five
major concerns:

(a) To describe and account for observed changes in a particular language.

(b) To reconstruct pre-history of languages and determine their relatedness, grouping and
then put them into language families.
(c) To develop general theories about how and why languages change.
(d) To describe the history of speech communities and
(e) to study the history of words (ethymology).

(2) Comparative Linguistics ( Comparative Philology)

This is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to

establish their historical relatedness. In historical and comparative linguistics, there appears
to be the need to determine how two or more languages are related. This is necessary so as to
classify them and determine their proto-form. In historical and comparative linguistics,
certain methods have been deviced in determining the degree of language relatedness. The
methods are as follows:

(a) Glottochronology – this is the first and primordial method of determining the degree
language relatedness. This is the method in linguistic used to estimate the rate at
which languages change, based on the assumption that the basic vocabulary of a
language change a roughly constant rate. This assumption originally put forward by
Morris Swadesh is based on an analogy with the use of carbon dating (try to trace the
time, period, age, origin of the artifacts)
For measuring the age of organic material, in which a lexical half life is estimated-
which is assumed to be average time that any one word is in existence in a particular
language. The method therefore estimates the length of time since two or more
languages diverged from a common earlier proto- language, by seeing how many
words have changed. These then yields an estimated date of origin of these languages.
In other words, glottochronology attempts to determine the point in time when two
languages separated as a common language. In doing that it makes use of certain
assumption:

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 (i) When the percentage of cognate relationship is 70% or above, the varieties are
dialects of the same language rather than different languages.
(ii) The percentage of retention is 85% across languages.
(iii) Basic vocabularies are used in determining the point in time when two
languages are separated.

Note: Basic vocabularies are lexical items that are utilitarian in nature. By this we mean that
they do not change so much but when they do, they change across languages. They include:

(a) Satellite bodies

(b) Parts of the body
(c) Domestic utensil

The reason why Basic Vocabulary are used are as follows

 They do not change over time, when they change; they do so in the same direction.
 They form the everyday experience of the human society.
(a1) Methodology of Glottochronology

As we have said earlier, the original method presumed that the core / basic vocabulary of a
language is replaced at a constant rate across all languages and cultures, and can therefore be
used to measure the passage of time. The process makes list of lexical terms compiled by
Morris Swadesh assumed to be a resistant against borrowing (originally designed as a list of
200 items; however the reduced 100 word list is much more common among the modern day
linguists). The core vocabulary was designed to encompass concept common to every human
language as we said earlier. The basic vocabularies include the personal pronouns, body
parts, heavenly bodies, verbs of basic actions, minerals etc, eliminating concepts that vary by
culture and time. Words that vary and do not stand the test of time are also avoided.

Besides, glottochronology uses the percentage of cognate (words that have common
origin) in basic cognate. The larger the percentage of cognate, the more recently the two
languages being compared are presumed to have separated. The basic formula for
glottochronology:

Percentage of cognate relationship x 100

2 Log % of retention 1

As we said earlier, it is held that the % of retention is 85% universally.

(a2) on the use of glottochronology

(1) Since its original incarnation, glottochronology has been rejected by many linguists
who view it as having been falsified by man’s counter examples. Many claim that
there is enough evidence to support the idea that languages change at varied rate. For
instance, a language and literature may have a stabilizing effect on literate culture
languages.

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 (2) Another argument is that language change arises from socio-historical events which
are unforeseeable and uncomputable and since this change takes time, they might
appear at varying rate.
(3) It can be pointed out that there are no basic or qualitative differences between features
of different rank in the word list. It is highly likely that chances of being replaced are
in fact different from every word of feature.

(b) lexical statistics

This is a technique which attempts to provide dates for the earlier stages of languages. Much
as Carbon 14 dating provides dates for archaeological findings, this contrasts with previous
linguistic method, which although able to reconstruct to some extent, the history of the
languages, has been unable to provide date apart from written historical records. Lexical
statistics is a statistical method that employs lexical items in calculating the degree of
relationships across languages. When lexical items are used to calculate the percentage of the
relationship, the similar ones either tonally, phonetically phonologically, syntactically,
semantically are used to be cognates. Cognate relationship is determined as follows:

Number of cognates x 100

Total number of tokens of words used 1

Examples:

English Igbo Yoruba

Eye anya eju

Hand aka owo

Leg ụkwụ ere

Goat ewu ewure

If the cognate relationship is 70%, then the varieties are dialects. In other words, if the % of
cognate relationship is 69% or less, then the varieties are distantly related and are regarded as
tokens of different languages.

(b1) Techniques of Lexical Ststistics

 Collecting of comparable word list from the relatively stable core vocabulary
 Determining the probable cognates
 Computing the depths
 Computing the range of error and
 Optimally computing the data to determine the final result.

(d) GEOGRAPHY OF LANGUAGE AND POPULATION DISPERSAL

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 This method presumes the fact that societies are homogenous but are dispersed in different
places which were once the abode of people of a common geographical area. It also assumes
that some events both natural and man-made caused the dispersal of the society that was once
formally homogenous in time and space. The proponent of this theory is Lenneberg and he
says that the natural factor can be famine, erosion, drought etc. The man- made factors
include wars, terrorism, riot etc and such events displace population of different areas. The
displaced population gets influenced by their new environment so that over time the formally
homogenous community will be heterogeneous to the extent that it will be hard to believe
that they were once homogenous.

Thus, linguistics plots the causes in relation the geography or dispersal in order to determine
the original homeland of the displaced population.

(C) TOPONYMY(Scientific study of places names)

Topos- (the origin, the meaning, use and typology) Toponymy is a word that was derived
from Greek words Topos meaning place and onoma meaning name. Toponymy is itself a
branch of Onomastics- the study of names of all kinds. Toponymy is often confused with
etymology which is the study of the origin of words and it is worthy of note to state that the
person who studies toponymy is Toponymist. So toponymy is the linguistics method which
uses places names to determine the original inhabitants of an area. This method is related to
the geography of language and population dispersal. It is different from it in the sense that
toponymy involves instinct and efface; e.g names such as Bariga, Badagry, and many other
names in Lagos are Brazilian names which were introduced when some Brazilians occupied
the area during the slave trade era. After their departure, the names remained behind. Other
names in Britain that end in the suffixes-ester, -bough, -borough are not English names. We
have names like Manchester, Malborough, Middlesborough, Edinburgh, Pitsbourgh, are not
English names. They are Celtic names as a pointer to the fact that the Celtic originally
inhabited such places.

Toponymy tries to determine the relationship between the original owners of the land, the
cause(s) of movement, their present location and the relationship between the languages(the
old and the new). Toponymy like basic vocabulary hardly changes, if they do so at all, they
do in the same direction. That is why they are reliable source of linguistic comparative
method according to some linguists.

Questions

1. How should the knowledge of geography enhance our concept of language

relatedness and etymology?
2. Glottochronology and Lexical statistic are both tools in determining language
relatedness. How do they relate and differ?

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 3. Using glottochronology and lexical statistic formulae calculate the relationship of two
African languages. Are they really a cognate of one proto language or are they
dialects of different languages?
4. Both natural and man-made disaster can lead to language dispersal; what are they
and how?
5. A lot of things can lead to language resemblance. Name them and explain why it is so.
6. An accident, as far as linguistics is a good omen. Discuss.

(7) CURRENT ISSUES IN STUDY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS

Presently, the study of African languages is trying to fix in the disciplines and other related disciplines
and readopt linguistics knowledge to such related disciplines. That is the reason why most linguistics
analysis presently tends to be interdisciplinary in approach. We have computational linguistics,
Neuro-linguistics, Mathematical-linguistics, forensic application (using someone’s voice, picture,
finger print in analysis of crime) are being studied in relation to the core areas of linguistics. Of all
these related disciplines, computational linguistics, mathematical linguistics and logical semantics
appear to be most popular. Linguistics is relevant in these areas in the sense that the computer
technological scientists or statistician would need the dictionary of the language grammar and its
phonotactics to develop programs and softwares to command constructions. Also logical semantics is
popular because all disciplines tend to theorise their postulation and hypothesis. In this regard,
semantic symbols which are logical in nature are indispensable and the statistician must be involved
in providing the statistical notations. Similarly, interlanguage translations are also constants such that
a linguist easily adopts himself to all manner of translation in language he studies
SCIENTIFICALLY.

QUESTIONS

Tthe assumption that linguistics as a field of study has no practical applicability is true; how truthful
is that assumption?

2. How do you see the knowledge of linguistics in global advancements?

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