Die Bantu-Philosophie von Tempels aus afrikanischer Perspektive

The study presents Placide Temples’ way towards the “Philosophie bantoue” and the repercussion of the latter in the African discourse. Three decisive aspects are investigated: first the prehistory, i.e., the socio-political, scientific and religious contexts, which prepared him and put him in an estate to discover that Africans do have a Philosophy, second his purposefulness and his singularity, and finally the history of its reception and the reactions by the African scholars and sages.

Assibi A. Amidu 2009. Matrix Nominal Phrases in Kiswahili Bantu. A Study of their Effects on Argument Syntax.

Assibi A. Amidu's contribution is undoubtedly a highly challenging one to the direct study of the Kiswahili Bantu language. Aiming at complementing the existing grammars and monographs of living languages the author intends to illuminate some paradoxes of the Kiswahili syntax and morphology. Having defined this aim he presents a clearly structured monograph to the interested reader, consisting of six chapters, relating to one another.

Woher kommen die Infixe im Isu (Kameruner Grasland)?

Die westliche Ring-Sprache Isu (Süd-Bantoid) des Kameruner Graslands setzt ein palatales Infix zum Ausdruck einer Reihe verwandter verbaler Funktionen – imperfektiver Aspekt, Pluraktional, Kausativ – ein. Damit hebt sie sich deutlich vom engeren Bantu- und weiteren Benue-Kongo-Habitus ab, der sich dadurch auszeichnet, Kategorien dieser Art entweder durch verbale Suffixe oder durch Periphrase mithilfe von Hilfsverben zu kodieren. Morphologische Distributionsanalyse, interne Rekonstruktion und externer Vergleich innerhalb der Ring-Gruppe ermöglichen es, die historischen Ursprünge dieses palatalen Infixes einzukreisen und es als Abbauprodukt einer Hochvokal-Reduplikation (ursprünglich in Progressivfunktion) zu identifizieren, wie sie (a) in anderen Niger-Kongo-Sprachen nicht unüblich ist, und (b) wie sie sogar als kognate Vorläuferkonstruktion in der Süd-Ring-Sprache Babungo nachgewiesen werden kann. Funktional-diachron gesehen, wurde im Isu ein vormaliger Progressiv in zunehmendem Maße als Imperfektiv grammatikalisiert und ist damit in die Domäne der älteren Imperfektiv-Strategie -ə (< *-a) eingedrungen. Auf diese Art fügen sich das Isu und seine nächsten Verwandten trotz dieser eigentümlichen Infix-Phänomene sauber in das Gesamtbild westafrikanischer Sprachen ein.

Comments on the review by Kathrin Tiewa

The review of the book Matrix nominal Phrases in Kiswahili Bantu (2009), Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, in Afrikanistik online is lucid and welcome. We appreciate it very much. There are, however, a few inexactitudes that need to be corrected.

Mandombe

Mandombe, one of the most recent modern African scripts, was originally designed to write the Bantu languages of the Congos, and eventually all languages on the continent. Its symbols are made of simple and composite geometrical forms which predate the script. It is apparently the only African script which has gained some social success without any political support.

The sociolinguistic situation of ǂHoan, a moribund 'Khoisan' language of Botswana

In 2010, we conducted a sociolinguistic survey on the moribund 'Khoisan' language ǂHoan (Ju-ǂHoan), spoken in Botswana at the fringe of the Kalahari Desert. The survey aimed at investigating language use, degrees of multilingualism and language attitude among the ǂHoan speakers. Data collection was done on the basis of a questionnaire. We found that the positive language attitude of individuals towards ǂHoan often conflicts with the community's attitude towards this language, resulting in a split of actual language use between the family and more formal situations. All ǂHoan speakers are at least bilingual speaking the local lingua franca Kgalagadi (Bantu) besides ǂHoan. Most of them are in fact even trilingual, speaking Gǀui (Khoe-Kwadi) in addition to ǂHoan and Kgalagadi. Most of our results stand in line with an earlier sociolinguistic survey on ǂHoan by Batibo (2005a) which was carried out in 2003. In comparing Batibo's results to ours, changes in the sociolinguistic situation of ǂHoan as well as differences between the different villages will be pointed out.