Language contact between Khoisan and Bantu languages: The case of Setswana

Gunnink, Hilde

doi:10.2989/16073614.2020.1737158

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Lexical borrowing is more widely attested, e.g. in Xhosa (Louw 1977a), Zulu (Argyle 1986), but also in Bantu languages that did not adopt clicks, such as Herero (Meinhof 1910) and Tswana (Gunnink 2020a). The uneven and limited documentation of Khoisan languages is one factor that complicates the identification of Khoisan influence in Bantu.…”

Section: Bantu-khoisan Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cases of Khoisan influence on Bantu that could somewhat reliably be identified show that Bantu-Khoisan contact situations varied widely in space, time, and social circumstances. For instance, Tswana, a Bantu language spoken in most parts of Botswana and therefore in active contact with multiple Khoisan languages, has seen relatively little Khoisan impact: only 23 Khoisan loanwords were identified (Gunnink 2020a), and no clear cases of Khoisan influence in other domains, such as clicks, is reported for Tswana. This is in keeping with the modern contact situation in which Tswana is involved, where small, socially marginalized communities of Khoisan speakers shift to Tswana, a language with a much higher prestige and a large number of native speakers.…”

Section: Bantu-khoisan Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Contact influence in the Tjhauba variety of Kgalagadi

Gunnink

2023

Afrika und Übersee

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Tjhauba, spoken in northwestern Botswana, is a regional variety of the Bantu language Kgalagadi. Tjhauba exhibits a number of striking linguistic differences with respect to other, previously described Kgalagadi varieties, some the result of language-internal changes, but mostly due to contact with different surrounding Khoisan and Bantu languages. Making use of newly collected field data, this paper shows that Tjhauba has an extensive inventory of click phonemes, contrasting different click accompaniments and, in the speech of elderly speakers, also different click types. Tracing the sources of Tjhauba click words shows that these originate in different Khoisan languages, but also in the Bantu click language Yeyi. Semantically, click words, but also loanwords that do not contain clicks, cluster in the domain of flora and fauna, particularly species found in or close to water. These linguistic findings also shed light on the history of Tjhauba speakers. The adoption of a large number of click phonemes suggests intensive language contact, as still evidenced by ongoing Tjhauba/Khwe bilingualism. A number of the likely source languages for Tjhauba click words are no longer spoken in the area, suggesting contact situations that are no longer ongoing. Furthermore, clicks occur in loanwords, but unlike in neighbouring Bantu click languages, there is no evidence that clicks were also extended to inherited Tjhauba words. This suggests that the sound symbolic or identity marking functions of clicks as posited for other Bantu click languages do not play a role in Tjhauba.

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Section: Bantu-khoisan Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Bantu-khoisan Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%