Questions tagged [african-languages]
The large variety of languages spoken in Africa.
18
questions
1
vote
1answer
509 views
What's the origin of the word “br” in Yemeni Arabic?
Hello everyone
What's the etymology of "ber بر", that means "moonlight" in Yemeni?
The nearest words I can find in an Egyptian dictionary and in Amharic refer to light, but in ...
3
votes
1answer
99 views
African languages spoken continuously in the US (language islands)
I have seen the list of languages of the United States on Wikipedia.
The Bantu languages (including Swahili) are the only African languages on it, with 0.22 million speakers, but they aren’t even ...
4
votes
2answers
2k views
Subject prefixes in Bantu languages
Background
I'll be up front: this question arises from trying to crack a Lingala song. There is this polyphonic Lingala religious hymn, Salelaka Mokonzi, which is very well-known among members of ...
3
votes
2answers
624 views
Is Swahili a Mora-counting language like Japanese?
I have this simple question on Kiswahili, a Bantu language.
As you know in english, we can not always define morae. it's completely different from Japanese morae system.
But when I learn Swahili, ...
2
votes
0answers
118 views
Pre-Hilalian Hilalian dialects comparaison
What are the main differences between Pre-Hilalian Tunisian dialects ( or any other Maghrebi dialects ) and the Hilalian ones ( Pronunciation , vocabulary ... ) .
Let’s take the dialect I speak as an ...
3
votes
1answer
130 views
What is Songhay's Family?
What's the current thinking on genetic affiliations of Songhay?
My old texts confidentially place it as Nilo-Saharan. This places a likely proto-Songhay homeland back closer to the Nile, with its ...
0
votes
4answers
1k views
Are ~simba (Bantu) and ~simha (Indic) related?
Does Swahili (and hence cognates of other Bantu languages) simba have any relation to सिंह (~singh or ~simha in Hindi and Sanskrit respectively according to Wiktionary, please correct me if I am wrong)...
4
votes
1answer
543 views
About Bamileke language Kwa [closed]
Years ago, I met this guy from Cameroon. I asked him what language he spoke, and, besides Italian and French (and maybe some English), he said he spoke Kwa, a Bamileke language from his home country. ...
4
votes
1answer
161 views
List of languages with numbers of L1 speakers in Africa
I'm looking for a source that lists languages and gives the number of L1 speakers in Africa, but I've had no luck so far. Any recommendations?
Note, for languages such as Arabic which have many L1 ...
1
vote
0answers
53 views
Is there a language that uses some kind of second layer traits (signs of a two-dimensional character)?
I've just read about the Saussure's second primordial principle that states that language is linear. This is sometimes interpreted as the notion of one-dimensioness of language. The second dimension ...
3
votes
2answers
160 views
Help identifying words in unknown language from the Caribbean
These words come from a language known as Guene or Lenga di Luandu (Language of Luando) spoken by blacks on the Caribbean island of Curaçao. They were recorded in the early 20th century and are not ...
1
vote
1answer
202 views
Diacritics and Ashanti/Twi alphabet?
Ashanti Proverbs (The Primitive Ethics Of A Savage People), by Robert Sutherland Rattray, 1916, uses the following notation :
I read that Ashanti people speak Twi, yet the Twi alphabet does not seem ...
0
votes
1answer
87 views
Nzwamba OTRAG rocket. What's that and in what language? [closed]
The german OTRAG rocket company has had conducted its launches in DR Congo (Zaire at that time) in the late seventies. Several sources refer to those rockets under the name of "Nzwamba".
What ...
6
votes
2answers
593 views
Which mutually intelligible language groups are spoken by more than 1 million people in Cameroon?
Which mutually intelligible language groups are spoken by more than 1 million people in Cameroon?
Wikipedia is not very helpful. the map below is the most useful thing I found thus far, which teaches ...
0
votes
2answers
604 views
What is this language? Is it an ancient language?
I have recently procured an artefact, which was excavated in Yemen. At the bottom of the artefact there is engraving as shown in the picture. Some of the letters (on two sides) look like Egyptian ...
5
votes
1answer
191 views
Are click sounds accompanied by specific formant transitions?
Is it possible to identify click sounds like [‖ ʘ !] by formant transitions in the surrounding vowels? I know stops and fricatives have that feature.
I'm just wondering how the five (main) click ...
3
votes
2answers
4k views
Language used in Escrava Isaura opening theme
The theme can be heard here at youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T6tWC-SnC2U
The music and "lere-lere" in the beginning come from Retirantes song, but the words ...
15
votes
2answers
3k views
What is the current understanding of Greenberg's classification of African languages?
In a reply to the criticism of his classification of the languages of the Americas, Greenberg (1989: 107) characterized his work on African languages as follows:
[...] my classification is clearly ...
