FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140  
141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   >>   >|  
en studied by members of the American Mission at Bailundu under the name of _Umbundu_. Some information on the languages of the south-western part of the Congo basin and those of south-eastern Angola may be found in the works of Capello and Ivens and of Henrique de Carvalho and Commander V. L. Cameron. The British, French and German missionaries have published many dictionaries and grammars of the different _Secuana_ dialects, notable amongst which is John Brown's _Dictionary of Secuana_ and Meinhof's _Study of the T[vs]i-venda_. The grammars and dictionaries of Zulu-Kaffir are almost too numerous to catalogue. Among the best are Maclaren's _Kafir Grammar_ and Roberts' _Zulu Dictionary_. The works of Boyce, Appleyard and Bishop Colenso should also be consulted. Miss A. Werner has written important studies on the Zulu click-words and other grammatical essays and vocabularies of the Bantu languages in the _Journal of the African Society_ between 1902 and 1906. The Tebele dialect of Zulu has been well illustrated by W. A. Elliott in his _Dictionary of the Tebele and Shuna languages_ (London, 1897). The _Ronga_ (_Tonga_, _Si-gwamba_, _Hlengwe_, &c.) are dealt with in the _Grammaire Ronga_ (Lausanne, 1896) of Henri Junod. Bishop Smyth and John Mathews have published a vocabulary and short grammar of the _Xilenge_ (Shilenge) language of Inhambane (_S.P.C.R._, 1902). The journal _Anthropos_ (Vienna) should also be consulted. (H. H. J.) [1] _Bantu_ (literally _Ba-ntu_) is the most archaic and most widely spread term for "men," "mankind," "people," in these languages. It also indicates aptly the leading feature of this group of tongues, which is the governing of the unchangeable root by prefixes. The syllable _-ntu_ is nowhere found now standing alone, but it originally meant "object," or possibly "person." It is also occasionally used as a relative pronoun--"that," "that which," "he who." Combined with different prefixes it has different meanings. Thus (in the purer forms of Bantu languages) _muntu_ means "a man," _bantu_ means "men," _kintu_ means "a thing," _bintu_ "things," _kantu_ means "a little thing," _tuntu_ "little things," and so on. This term _Bantu_ has been often criticized, but no one has supplied a better, simpler designation for this section of Negro languages, and the name has now been definitely consecrated by usage. [2] In Luganda and other languages of Uganda and the Victoria Nyanza, and also in Runyoro
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140  
141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
languages
 

Dictionary

 

Secuana

 

published

 

dictionaries

 
consulted
 
Tebele
 

Bishop

 
prefixes
 

grammars


things

 

unchangeable

 
tongues
 

governing

 
widely
 

language

 
Shilenge
 
archaic
 

Runyoro

 

journal


Inhambane

 

Anthropos

 

syllable

 

mankind

 

literally

 

people

 

Vienna

 

Nyanza

 

leading

 

spread


feature

 
Luganda
 

criticized

 

designation

 

section

 
simpler
 

supplied

 
consecrated
 

possibly

 
person

occasionally
 

object

 
standing
 
originally
 

meanings

 

Uganda

 
Combined
 

Xilenge

 
relative
 

pronoun