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Some Developments in the Prehistory of the Bantu Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Malcolm Guthrie
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Extract

In a field like Africa it is reasonable to hope for some assistance from linguistic data for the general study of prehistory. In fact there is a real temptation to use material of this kind in such a way that the results cannot be verified, or, to put it more baldly, to make guesses that are no better than other guesses. Clearly the serious investigation of the prehistory of Africa demands something more than speculative hypotheses, and for this reason it is essential that any conclusions drawn from linguistic information shall be based on a firm basis of codified data.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , July 1962 , pp. 273 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1962

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References

1 ‘A two-stage method of comparative Bantu studies’, African Language Studies, III (London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1962).Google Scholar

2 Roots are regularly spelt with upper case characters preceded by an asterisk. In more precise representations distinctions of tone are shown by accents, but these are omitted here for the sake of typographical simplicity.Google Scholar

3 The principal vestige of this almost forgotten idea is in the practice of some writers of referring to the languages of this area as ‘old’ Bantu.Google Scholar

4 There seems no way of reconciling the Greenberg hypothesis with the distribution of the percentages of the reflexes, which is in exactly the opposite order to what would have been expected.Google Scholar

5 Having made the land journey by two different routes between Duala and the bush country beyond the equatorial forest to the south and south-east, I find it inconceivable that the progenitors of the speakers of the Bantu languages should have traversed such impenetrable forest.Google Scholar

6 The presence of a quite unrelated root meaning ‘to forge’ in the south-eastern coastal belt could be due to the introduction of iron-working from another source.Google Scholar