The structure of this article is as follows: the initial discussion concerns genetic classification, both the disputed boundary between Bantoid and Bantu and the place of Bantoid languages within the larger framework of Benue-Congo. Figure 1 shows Greenberg’s classification. He says, ‘the Bantu languages are simply a subgroup of an already established genetic subfamily of Western Sudanic’ (i.e., Niger-Congo, broadly speaking) (Greenberg 1963:32). London: School of Oriental and African Studies.Find this resource: Hedinger, Robert. Materials from Nigeria created by SIL survey staff are available on personal application. Journal of West African Languages, 37(1): 23–32.Find this resource: Connell, Bruce, and David Zeitlyn. The Bantu languages. As for the higher levels of linguistic description, little can yet be said, as the grammars on which this could be based have yet to be written. While the chapter is welcome, there is no explanation for why this short summary of a very complex zone is included and the other branches of Bantoid excluded, notably Jarawan, which is the best candidate for simply being a Bantu language and not Bantoid. The Bagam, a subgroup of the Mengaka, a Bamileke language, appear to have developed their own script, probably sometime in the nineteenth century. This is certainly difficult with Bantu, because languages are close to one another, borrow regularly between languages, and restructure the borrowings. The Bantu languages are spoken in a very large area, including most of Africa from southern Cameroon eastward to Kenya and southward to the southernmost tip of the continent. Noun classes of the Beboid languages. Kom language grammar sketch, Part 1. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn.Find this resource: Voll, Rebecca. MA. PhD diss. Compared with Bantu, the systems of nominal classes and verbal extensions are often highly reduced or even lost, but there is a correlated increase in the complexity of phonological and tonal systems. This is in part a reflection of accessibility. Figure 1. The + or – ATR vowels most commonly form regular parallel sets, and these can usually be interpreted as erosion or reduction of an original 10-vowel set. Older accounts broadly show simpler tone systems; as researchers became more attuned to these systems, greater elaboration has emerged. Areal diffusion versus genetic inheritance: an African perspective. Ambele and Menchum are treated as coordinate with Grassfields, but the evidence remains sketchy. The characteristic word order of Bantoid is S (AUX) V O, as virtually all the sources in Table 8 attest. Engwo lexicon. their proper names). 2005. The script itself was devised at the end of the nineteenth century by Sultan Njoya and his scribes. See also Semi-Bantu Adj. Endangerment can arise from the gradual spread of minority languages, where communities gradually switch from one to another. (3) The Bantoid languages are a body of some 150 to 200 languages positioned geographically between Nigeria and Cameroun. Yaoundé: SIL Cameroun.Find this resource: Harro, Gretchen, and Nancy R. Haynes. 2012), Robson (2010). The noun class system of Amo. Histoire de Loango, Kakongo, et autres royaumes d’Afrique; Rédigée d’aprés les Mémoires des Préfets Apostoliques de la Mission françoise [Bellegarde et Descourvieres]; enrichie d’une Carte … Par M. l’abbé Proyart. For a period in the 1980s and 1990s, it was considered that all the languages in former ‘Eastern Kwa’ (i.e., Yoruboid, Igboid, Nupoid, etc.) But since the 1960s, data has gradually accumulated on the vast and complex array of languages in the ‘Bantu borderland’, that is, the region between Southern Cameroun (where Guthrie’s Bantu begins) and Eastern Nigeria. Proposal for the divergence of Bantoid languages. In: A linguistic geography of Africa. J. Bendor-Samuel, ed. The Bantoid languages are a body of some 150-200 languages positioned geographically between Nigeria and Cameroun. Yaoundé: CABTAL.Find this resource: Mbuagbaw, Tanyi Eyong. The Cicipu noun class system. In its most recent incarnation it has some 80 characters. Afrika und Übersee, 57(4): 241–267.Find this resource: Hamm, Cameron et al. There is a clear connection with the Bamun script, and some characters are the same. PhD diss. The reader should thus be aware that the classification and membership of Bantoid is far from settled, and this text represents my own views. Mémoires de l’Institut Français d’Afrique Noire, Centre du Cameroun. Bantoid is a putative major division of the Benue–Congo branch of the Niger–Congo language family. 2010. Los Angeles: University of Southern California.Find this resource: Anderson, Stephen C. 2013. The script passed through several stages of evolution, from a largely ideographic script to broadly phonetic. Yaoundé: SIL Cameroun.Find this resource: Krause, Gottlieb A. Respect terms in Bafut can be broadly divided into three categories: objects and places, body parts, and verbs. Yaoundé: SIL Cameroun.Find this resource: Stanley, Carol. Description morphosyntaxique de la langue Tikar. In: The Bantu languages. Historical perspectives on Chamba Daka. 2005. Mous 2003). Comparative evidence from the Kainji languages suggests strongly that early Bantoid had a rich system of noun classes and verbal extensions but relatively simple tones and phonology. Other articles where Bantoid languages is discussed: Benue-Congo languages: Bantoid: The 11th group within Benue-Congo, Bantoid, is far and away the largest not only in Benue-Congo but in Niger-Congo as a whole. A grammar of Wawa: an endangered language of Cameroon. One aspect of this figure requires consideration: the division of Bantoid into North and South. Although small in geographical extent, these chiefdoms are characterized by elaborate political hierarchies, a highly distinctive material culture, and a great diversity of languages (Knöpfli 2008). In: Noun classes in the Grassfields Bantu borderland, SCOPIL 8. Table 3. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. From the fragmentary data it is unclear if the vowels are phonetic or phonemic. Proto-Bantu is generally assumed to have had a complex system of noun classes, marked by alternating prefixes and alliterative concord with adjectives and other parts of speech. Surface contour tones are common, but only further work will determine if they are an underlying feature of Bantoid. State University of New York, Buffalo.Find this resource: Lux, David. Finally, Jarawan, treated in previous texts as Bantoid, appears to be an A60 language. Benue-Congo is of considerable importance for understanding Bantoid, because some of its languages exhibit features that resurface in Bantu but that are only attested in fragmentary form or not at all in Bantoid. This language name is spelled in various ways (Noni, Nooni) in bibliographic references and even in the Noone community. The Macro-Sudan Belt: towards identifying a linguistic area in northern and sub-Saharan Africa. The most well-known branches are Dakoid, Mambiloid, Tivoid, Beboid, Grassfields, and Ekoid. Table 7. V. Carstens and F. Parkinson, eds., 233–249. 2009. Krause (1895) first introduced the term ‘Bantoid’, but this seems to have been subsequently forgotten. Although there are languages where these have been transcribed, they are rare. (b) The morphological similarity between languages makes it difficult to detect such borrowings. Momo has been split up into Momo proper and Southwest Grassfields. It consists of the Mambiloid languages (including two outlying languages sometimes not included in Mambiloid, Ndoro and Fam), the Dakoid languages and the Tikar language, all in Nigeria and Cameroon, and the Southern Bantoid languages, a major division which also includes the Bantu languages spoken across most of Sub-Saharan Africa. Master’s thesis. Notes on the phonology of Kemezung. Although Mambiloid and Dakoid show no trace of these today, based on our present understanding they must have disappeared. In: Noun classes in the Grassfields Bantu borderland. London: Crown Agents.Find this resource: Abangma, Samson Negbo. As Connell (2000:234) points out, comments about families such as Eastern Grassfields suggest strongly they may be present elsewhere. 1998. Mfonyam (1989) claims three tone levels. 1975. Table 9 shows a summary of the extinct or moribund Mambiloid languages. Originating with Westermann’s (1927) Benue-Cross-Fluss, it took shape in Greenberg (1963), Williamson (1971), and De Wolf (1971). Stanford: CSLI Publications.Find this resource: Blench, Roger M. 2001. In: L’expansion Bantou I, Luc Bouqiaux, ed., 143–163. Moribund languages of the Nigeria-Cameroon borderland. 1999. (b) it is persistently underlain by Guthrie’s strange conviction that Bantu must have originated somewhere in Central Africa. The language is Bɨ̀fɨ́ɨ̀, and the town, people, and culture is Bafut. Notes on Esimbi phonology and orthography. Table 3 shows the occurrence of labial-velar stops in both Bantoid and Bantu for sample languages. 1895. A poorly understood but striking feature of vowel systems is the existence of fricative vowels in several branches of Bantoid. Statement of Mbe phonology, with remarks concerning orthography. There is a clear relationship between the year of a description and the complexity of a tone system. The Bantoid languages are a body of some 150 to 200 languages positioned geographically between Nigeria and Cameroun. Lam Nso’, a Ring language, has a complex restructured language used when speaking to the Faay, or Nobility, which also uses morphological replacement. Lanham: University Press of America.Find this resource: Hedinger, Robert. Yaounde: SIL Cameroun.Find this resource: Fransen, M. A. E. 1995. Identification lexicostatistiques des groupes Bantoides stables.