Classification of one of the African Language Phyla - Essay Example

Major Developments in the Classification of one of the African Language Phyla A Language signifies one’s identity. It gives a sense of unity and bonding to the speakers of one language. Not only is language a tool for communicating one’s thoughts and ideas, it also enables the other to understand the same. Often, the national language of a region is the best portal of communication and unifying the masses. The importance of language is as good as undefined since nothing is possible without it. Hence the relentless research and developments being done on language and linguistics is appreciable and justified. Each language is different from another; therefore the study of languages is vast and virtually limitless. Language is based on signs and sounds, and it develops when people in a region associate certain sounds and signs to mean something unanimously understood. For personal ease, people may then create certain other symbolic activity relative to the earlier widely understood sign to mean something similar. This way, the parent language is altered and the variations in languages evolve. Even though the variations are adopted from parent language, these may differ to such an extent that they may not be recognizably related to the origin. Regarding language as only a way of communication will in fact disregard the numerous benefits and purposes achieved by this. Even though communication remains the core purpose of a language, it also enables one to feel belonged and related to a group or nation. It gives one a sense of unity and purpose. It has been established that language is an integral part of one’s culture and traditions – language gives an insight on one’s heritage and customs and also reflects one’s religious inclinations. Language also enables one to get in touch with one’s origin, and explain one’s purpose of existence (Omniglot). Language is at the core of every transaction since birth. Africa is the second largest continent of Earth spreading over an area of 30,330,000 square kilometers (Africa Guide). It comprises of about 40 countries (CAS). Africa is blessed with numerous natural resources and environmental benefits. However, vast land area and inappropriate administration has greatly hampered its potential. The healthcare facilities available in the region are inadequate, accounting for obnoxiously high percentages of HIV/AIDS prevalence and deaths due to these fatal medical conditions. Africa is a multicultural and multilingual crux of rich heritages. Africa represents 40 nations and their independent cultures and hence accounts for immense literature libraries and extensive research being continued in this region. Africa’s latitudinal and longitudinal locations on the surface of the earth explain the variety of temperatures and climates existing in different areas of the region. Countries known for extreme high temperatures like Somalia and Sudan fall into the realms of Africa just like moderate climate countries like Egypt and Libya. Africa is also famous for the Saharan desert. Africa is said to be the home for approximately 3000 languages with over 8000 dialects (African Languages). According to another source, the numbers of languages currently thriving and surviving in the region are 2,035, which is not a final figure as additions and subtractions continue to occur in this fact as new languages are identified and the old, depleted ones are eliminated. If this figure is considered as authentic, it will not be wrong to say that Africa is home for one-third of all the world’s languages (Heine and Nurse). For convenience purposes, all of the languages of Africa can be divided into five major language families or phyla: Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Kordofanian, Khoi-San and Austronesian (African Languages). All of the around 3000 African languages are believed to have stemmed from these five major languages. As the name suggests, based on similarities and differences, these languages are greatly influenced by geographic locations where these languages are believed to be surviving in numerous variations. Niger-Kordofanian, also known as Niger-Congo, is the largest phyla prevailing in Africa (Samuel). It is widely popular in Central and Western Africa with a followership of 120 million people (Nosotro). Niger-Congo is believed to be comprised of 1500 languages (Gordon). It largely consists of the Bantu language, which is the reason for this phylum’s vastness. Bantu, derived from “ntu” meaning “people” and “ba” implying plurality, this term refers to the large numbers of migrants that shifted within African realms and spread throughout the region. Not only this, Bantu is believed to have impacted several indigenous and non-indigenous languages of the region, such that it is believed a major portion of the total 3000 languages being spoken in the region are influenced and adapted from Bantu language. “Niger-Congo language family or phyla is estimated to be 7000 (Blench) to 15,000 (Heine and Nurse) years old” (Johannes). The migration and the exceptional age of the Bantu language justify its popularity amongst the people in the region. The Arabic records as old as the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries depict identifiable adoptions from the Niger-Congo language (Samuel). Decipherable words and phrases have been noted in numerous other publications since then. The Niger-Congo language was sparse and unstructured till 1659 when the first document reflecting its grammar was prepared and published. The language and grammar development progressed slowly till the 19th century when major works in this field were noted, including the innumerable works of the missionaries who concocted and established grammatical rules along with their message (Samuel). The 19th century witnessed the preservation of some exceptionally written pieces and certain with poor grammatical constructions. Bantu language is primarily comprised of two languages; Zulu and Xhosa. Xhosa is borrowed from Khoisan language family, the smallest linguistic phylum of Africa. In this particular language, different clicks represent communication. For its simplicity and immaturity, it is believed to be the first language of the early people (Nosotro). Even though the current complex language systems are too complicated to have stemmed from clicks and grunts, this theory requires research and investigation to form basis for authenticity. On the other hand, Zulu is a more verbal type of language integrated with unique suffix and prefix orientation and tonality. In Bantu language (Zulu), there are significantly more noun classes than usual as well as prefixes and suffixes. The noun classes of Zulu contains male, female, neuter, people, relative, animal, plant, object and abstract concepts. Also, in terms of tonality, the meanings of the words change with a change in pitch of the delivery (Nosotro). In addition to Zulu and Xhosa, numerous other languages also comprise the Bantu language. It includes Aghem, Bambara, Dogon, Fula and many more. All these have distinctive features regarding the sentence structuring and tonality when focusing on the more relevant and core aspects of language. “The languages of present-day Niger-Congo are divided into nine major branches: Mande, Kordofanian, Atlantic, Ijoid, Kru, Gur, Adamawa Ubangi, Kwa and Buene-Congo” (Nosotro). All these nine languages can significantly relate to one another, and evidently stem from the same parent language. Hypothetically, it is suggested that Mande and Kordofanian were the first divisions of the Niger-Congo phylum. The rest were subsequently developed whereby some fractions were re-grouped to constitute one branch due to striking similarity (Samuel). The Niger-Congo language family is uniquely characterized on the following traits: Noun classes, Tonality, Vowel Harmony, Nasality and Verbal Serialization (Samuel). These grammar and pronunciation traits differentiate the Niger-Congo language phylum from all the rest of the phyla. These traits also significantly deviate from English grammar rules. As already mentioned, Niger-Congo phylum contains multiple noun classes and is not only gender oriented. The noun classes in this language is not restricted to male, female and neuter; on the contrary, the noun classes extensively include other elements like dedicating a separate noun class for relatives, plants, objects and abstract concepts etc. The number of noun classes differs in each of the nine variations of Niger-Congo languages. For instance, the Atlantic language of Niger-Congo phylum contains about 40 noun classes (Samuel). In Bantu language, 12 to 15 noun classes are often observed though it is believed that the original number of noun classes in Bantu language is 23. All these noun classes are identified by the exercise of different affixes which denote which category of the noun class is being referred. It is hypothesized that all items falling in a specific category were denoted by the same affix; however, with the passage of time, the languages evolved and retained only parts of the original Niger-Congo phylum language (Samuel). This also accounts for the variety of language variations presently prevalent in the region. Another writer maintains that the number of noun classes in Niger-Congo language is 20, with slight alterations to accommodate singularity and plurality of addressee. Also, “other elements in the sentence like noun modifiers and the verbs show concordial affixes in the full system” (Heine and Nurse). Even though it is not absolutely clear regarding the number of noun classes existing in the Niger-Congo language, it is unanimously accepted that the noun class system was not gender based and therefore had significantly large numbers of noun classes than Standard English. Another important aspect of the Niger-Congo language phylum is its emphasis and delicacy in case of tonality. The sounds of most of the words then used were similar. The only distinguishing factor which identified which word is intended to be delivered was the tone which was used. Often a slight change in the pitch would change the meaning of the sentence entirely (Nosotro). The tone of one’s speech was an essential factor in understanding one’s intentions. In this regard, it can be said that the Niger-Congo languages were in fact very sensitive languages. It is identified that the Niger-Congo language had three to five different contrasting levels of pitch, varying according to the nine branches identified earlier. The pitch played an important role in communication as it identified an aspect of the sentence construction. “The function of tone varies from language to language; sometimes it marks grammatical features, sometimes lexical contexts” (Samuel). All basic works and researches in African languages in general and Niger-Congo phylum in particular invariably focuses on the importance of noun classes and tonality in the different variations. Furthermore, Vowel harmony has also been an important part of the Niger-Congo languages. In Niger-Congo language family, the presence of ten vowels in two distinct sets has been established. Interestingly, in any one word or sentence, vowels from only one vowel set could occur. Overlapping of the two sets was regarded grammatically incorrect. The reason for this is the sounds of each of the vowels which make it impossible for the two sets to inter-mingle. In several of the language phylum variations, the number of vowels retained has been reduced to eight or nine. Grammatically and vocally, severe restrictions are placed regarding the use of vowels in the Niger-Congo languages (Samuel). Moreover, Nasality has also been identified in the Niger-Congo phylum. Nasalized vowels and pre-nasalized stops are common in the languages. However, the numbers of nasalized vowels are smaller than oral vowels in most languages (Samuel). Nasality and Tonality constitute the speech element of the languages, and are essential in getting one’s intentions through without fail. “Many languages have both syllabic nasals and pre-nasalized stops” (Samuel). Lastly, verb serialization has also been identified as an important part of the African languages – Niger-Congo phylum in particular. Variations in this aspect of speech are evident in the Niger-Congo languages. In continuous phrases, those verbal constructions which share the same subject and tense are often joined without conjunctions. The need for utilizing conjunctions to show their inter-connectedness is not important. In some languages, when the first verb is marked, the need for marking subsequent verbs is unfelt. Hence only one verb is marked in an entire sentence or context. Yet in some other languages falling in the same phylum, the first verb occurring in context is marked with the tense, aspect or polarity. All verbs being subsequently used in the conversation are marked only to show their relevance to the first verb. In this way, the verb is serialized, implying that verbs used farther in sentences are brought in order with the first verb used in context. Either marked or unmarked, the subsequent verbs are used in such a way as to show their connection with the first verb used (Samuel). In another study, “Serial verbs can be defined loosely as ‘constructions in which two or more verbal lexemes combine without any overt indication of a dependency between them: none of the verbs is morphologically marked as dependant… no conjunction between them’ (Creissels et al.) or more narrowly ‘constructions that involves two or more verbs but that, taken as a whole, have the behavior of a single predicate, and not that of a construction involving distinct predicates in some dependency relation’ (Creissels et al.)” (Nurse, Rose and Hewson). Serial verbs are not alien in other standard languages; however, their specific prevalence in the African languages and their construction is important in the study of Niger-Congo language family. Another aspect of language identified as typical for Niger-Congo language is Word-Order (Nurse, Rose and Hewson). This implies the more detailed construction of the sentence itself involving the placements of the words and grammar supports. In this regard, Greenberg’s classic word order typology (1963) is used in order to identify the different patterns of subject, object and verb placements in a sentence. Greenberg had identified three main orders for sentence constituents. However, later in 1976, Heine introduced a fourth constituent, formulating the current framework for language and linguistic research these days. In the different classifications of the Niger-Congo language, different sentence constituents’ placements have been observed. However, the more prevalent sentence form has been identified as [Subject, Verb, Object, Adverb] which is 71% popular (Heine) in all Niger-Congo languages. Even though most basic researches do not identify this word-order factor as a distinguishing element for Niger-Congo languages, it nevertheless remains a fact demanding further research. Lastly, another characteristic of the Niger-Congo language identified by Nurse, Rose and Hewson is the structures of verbs. During speech, the root verbs are generally modified to be incorporated appropriately in a sentence. The general structure for verb structures in Niger-Congo languages is [Root – Extension – Final vowel]. However, as with previous observations regarding language identities, variations are observed in all language variations of this phylum. In some languages, the “Extension” in the verb formation has been eliminated altogether. Others depict varying lengths of “Extensions”. On the other hand, some still preserve the extensions in the original form. As the verb formations in most languages are similar, it is believed to have been inherited from parent languages. Even so, immense innovations have occurred and noted. Some regard the verb formations to occur by the use of suffixes (Nurse, Rose and Hewson). Where as the verb structures are concerned, though most of Niger-Congo languages have retained the original verb structures, variations have also been observed regarding what precedes the verbs. This variation has divided the Niger-Congo languages broadly into two categories – “analytic” languages and “synthetic” languages. As the name suggests, “analytic” language is closer to the parent language and obeys the grammatical rules laid by it. The “synthetic” languages were developed later on and possess a different verb structure formation in comparison with the parent language. Most Niger-Congo languages depict “analytic” language principles and hence it can be generalized to all the languages falling in this phylum. Other African language phyla – Afro-asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Khoi-San and Austronesian – are comparatively smaller in followership and prevalence. As a matter of fact, Khoi-San is the smallest language phylum existing in Africa, concentrated mainly in southern Africa (Kohler and Traill). Austronesian phylum succeeds Niger-Congo languages in followership and popularity, with a mass followership in Indonesian Archipelago (Blust). According to another source, the number of languages in Niger Congo phylum is 1,436 whereas Austronesian is its nearest rival with the number of languages stretching at 1,236 (Heine and Nurse). Development and research continues to occur in all African language phyla. Attempts are also being made to determine the course of spread of these languages. Niger-Congo language owes its expansion to mass migrations which occurred during the early years. However, due to the vast linguistic diversity prevalent in Africa, the study of African Languages is immense with a lot already discovered and an equal lot waiting to be discovered. It is also worthy of mention that certain African Language phyla do not possess a written form – Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan being included in them (Nosotro). As efforts are made to justify and explain the immense linguistic diversity of Africa, research continues to unfold other astounding facts about Africa as well. After all, there are practically and virtually no limits to research. Works Cited “Why should I learn a Language?”. omniglot.com. Omniglot: The online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. “Facts and Figures”. africaguide.com. Africa Guide, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. CAS. “Tour Exhibit: African Facts”. calacademy.org. California Academy of Sciences, n.d. 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Rose, Sarah. and Hewson, John. “Verbal Categories in Niger-Congo Languages”. mun.ca. Department of Linguistics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. Heine, Bernd. A typology of African Languages based on the order of meaningful elements. Berlin. Dietrich Reimer; 1976. Print. Kohler, Oswin. and Traill, Anthony. “Khoisan Languages”. britannica.com. Britannica Online Encyclopedia, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. Blust, Robert. “Austronesian Languages”. britannica.com. Britannica Online Encyclopedia, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. Read More