Mark Van de Velde (editor) - The Bantu Languages

Written by an international team of experts, this comprehensive volume presents grammatical analyses of individual Bantu languages, comparative studies of their main phonetic, phonological and grammatical characteristics and overview chapters on their history and classification.

It is estimated that some 300 to 350 million people, or one in three Africans, are Bantu speakers. Van de Velde and Bostoen bring together their linguistic expertise to produce a volume that builds on Nurse and Philippsons first edition.

The Bantu Languages, 2nd edition is divided into two parts; provides grammar sketches of 12 individual Bantu languages, some of which were previously undescribed. The grammar sketches follow a general template that allows for easy comparison.

Thoroughly revised and updated to include more language descriptions and the latest comparative insights.

New to this edition:

• new chapters on syntax, tone, reconstruction and language contact
• 12 new sketch grammars
• thoroughly updated chapters on phonetics, aspect-tense-mood and classification
• exhaustive catalogue of known languages with essential references

This unique resource remains the ideal reference for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Bantu linguistics and languages. It will be of interest to researchers and anyone with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistic typology and grammatical analysis.

Mark Van de Velde is a researcher at LLACAN (CNRS-INaLCO) in Paris, of which he has been the director since 2015. He works on the grammatical analysis and documentation of the north-western Bantu languages and the languages of the Benue valley in Nigeria, especially those currently classified as Adamawa. He is also interested in linguistic typology and in the comparative study and reconstruction of Bantu grammar, particularly in the domain of the noun phrase.

Koen Bostoen is Professor of African Linguistics and Swahili at Ghent University and member of the UGent Centre for Bantu Studies. His research focuses on Bantu languages and interdisciplinary approaches to the African past. He obtained an ERC Starting Grant for the KongoKing project (20122016) and an ERC Consolidators Grant for the BantuFirst project (20182022). Apart from several research articles, he is the author of Des mots et des pots en bantou: une approche linguistique de lhistoire de la cramique en Afrique (2005) and co-editor of Studies in African Comparative Linguistics, with Special Focus on Bantu and Mande (2005), The Kongo Kingdom: The Origins, Dynamics and Cosmopolitan Culture of an African Polity (2018) and Une archologie des provinces septentrionales du royaume Kongo (2018).

Derek Nurse edited the first edition of The Bantu Languages and has worked on historical linguistics, language contact, phonological change, Bantu and (East) African languages, Swahili, ethnolinguistics, the interface of linguistics, archaeology, and history and tense/aspect systems in Bantu.

Grard Philippson edited the first edition of The Bantu Languages and is emeritus Professor of Bantu Languages at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Paris) and member of the Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage (Lyon). He has worked mostly on East African Bantu Languages, Bantu comparative tonology and diachronic phonology, as well as culture history.

Each volume in this series contains an in-depth account of the members of some of the worlds most important language families. Written by experts in each language, these accessible accounts provide detailed linguistic analysis and description. The contents are carefully structured to cover the natural system of classification: phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis, semantics, dialectology, and sociolinguistics.

Every volume contains extensive bibliographies for each language, a detailed index and tables, and maps and examples from the languages to demonstrate the linguistic features being described. The consistent format allows comparative study, not only between the languages in each volume, but also across all the volumes in the series.

The Romance Languages

Edited by Martin Harris & Nigel Vincent

The Slavonic Languages

Edited by Bernard Comrie & Greville G. Corbett

The Germanic Languages

Edited by Ekkehard Konig & Johan van der Auwera

The Uralic Languages

Edited by Daniel Abondolo

The Turkic Languages

Edited by va Csat & Lars Johanson

The Indo-Aryan Languages

Edited by George Cardona & Dhanesh K. Jain

The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar

Edited by Nikolaus Himmelmann & Sander Adelaar

The Tai-Kadai Languages

Edited by Anthony Diller

The Iranian Languages

Edited by Gernot Windfuhr

The Khoesan Languages

Edited by Rainer Vossen

The Munda Languages

Edited by Gregory D.S. Anderson

The Celtic Languages, 2nd Edition

Edited by Martin J. Ball & Nicole Mller

The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2nd Edition

Edited by Graham Thurgood & Randy J. Lapolla

The Indo-European Languages, 2nd Edition

Edited by Mate Kapovi

The Mayan Languages

Edited by Judith L. Aissen, Nora C. England, and Roberto Zavala Maldonado

The Languages of Japan and Korea

Edited by Nicolas Tranter

The Mongolic Languages

Edited by Juha Janhunan

The Oceanic Languages

Edited by John Lynch, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley

Language Isolates

Edited by Lyle Campbell

The Bantu Languages, 2nd Edition

Edited by Mark Van de Velde, Koen Bostoen, Derek Nurse, and Grard Philippson

The Semitic Languages, 2nd Edition

Edited by John Huehnergard and Naama Pat-El

Other titles in the series can be found at www.routledge.com/languages/series/SE0091

Second edition

Edited by

Mark Van de Velde, Koen Bostoen,

Derek Nurse, and Grard Philippson

Second edition published 2019

by Routledge

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2019 selection and editorial matter, Mark Van de Velde, Koen Bostoen, Derek Nurse and Grard Philippson; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of the Mark Van de Velde, Koen Bostoen, Derek Nurse and Grard Philippson to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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First edition published by Routledge 2004

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