The Bantu migrations

References -J Greenberg, “Linguistic evidence regarding Bantu origins”, Journal of African History, 13, 1972   -J. Greenberg, Studies in African Linguistic Classification, New Haven: Yale, 1955 -M. Guthrie, “Some developments in the prehistory of the Bantu languages”, JAH, 3, 1962. -A. Henrici, “Numerical classification of Bantu languages”, African Language Studies, 14, 1973 -T. N. Huffman, “The early iron age and the spread of the Bantu”, South African Archaeological Bulletin, 25, 1970. -R. Oliver, “The problem of the Bantu expansion”, Journal of African History, 7, 1966 -D. W. Phillipson, “The chronology of the Iron Age in Bantu Africa”, JAH, 16, 1975 -Phillipson, “Archaeology and Bantu linguistics”, World Archaeology, 8, 1, 1976 -J. Vansina, “New linguistic evidence and the Bantu expansion”, JAH, 36, 2, 1995 -C. Flight, “Malcom Guthrie and the reconstruction of Bantu prehistory”, History in Africa, 7, 1980

Bantu 500 BC – AD 1000 different groups of people from West Africa shared a common culture migrant farmers slash and burn method Ironworkers animistic belief

Bantu Migrations/Expansion An estimated 240 million in Africa speak one of the Bantu languages as their first language. Bantu is a common term to refer to over 400 different ethnic groups in Africa Use of prefix “Ba” and suffix “ntu”. For the definition of Bantu see Meinhof and Guthrie. Guthrie established an alphanumeric zoning of Bantu languages.

The Move Where: All over Africa! When: 1000 B.C. What: Bantu Migration How: Probably walking or camel Why: No one knows! Population to big Disagreements between people Climate change Find a better place “It’s too hot! Let’s move somewhere else!”

Migrations

Time and Homeland Around 1000 B.C the Bantu Migration began. Over a period of 1000 years, groups moved away from their homeland which is now Cameroon.

Bantu Migration There are more than 60 million people who speak Bantu as their native language. They live primarily in the regions that straddle the equator and continue southward into southern Africa where it is believed they migrated to. This migration continued until around the 3rd or 4th century AD.

Bantu contribution After hundreds of years the Bantu settled in southern Africa introduced agriculture to areas they settled and passed through passed knowledge of iron-working on to others

Bantu Debates & Theories Linguistic (Greenberg, Guthrie, Vansina) Archaeological (Phillipson etc Bantu as a Myth or Alibi

Debates in the 1960s over competing theories advanced by Joseph Greenberg and Malcolm Guthrie Based on wide comparisons including non-Bantu languages, Greenberg argued that Proto-Bantu, the hypothetical ancestor of the Bantu languages, had strong ancestral affinities with a group of languages spoken in Southeastern Nigeria. He proposed that Bantu languages had spread east and south from there, to secondary centers of further dispersion, over hundreds of years.

Joseph Greenberg Greenberg is widely known for his development of a new classification system for African languages, which he published in 1963. The classification was for a time considered very bold and speculative, especially in his proposal of a Nilo-Saharan language family, but is now generally accepted among African historical specialists. In the course of this work, Greenberg coined the term "Afroasiatic" to replace the earlier term "Hamito-Semitic" after showing that Hamitic is not a valid language family. Greenberg's classification was largely based on earlier classifications, making new macrogroups by joining already established families - based on his method of mass comparison. The classification has been used as a basis for further work and some historical linguists have proposed even broader proposals of African language families. Hal Fleming introduced the Omotic family, and Gregersen proposed the joining of Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan into a larger Kongo-Saharan family, which were in turn accepted by Greenberg, though in the case of Kongo-Saharan only implicitly. Greenberg's work on African languages has been criticised by historical linguists Lyle Campbell and Donald Ringe, who do not feel that his classification is justified by his data and request a reexamination of his macro-phyla by "reliable methods" (Ringe 1993:104). Even Fleming and Lionel Bender, who are sympathetic to Greenberg's classification, acknowledge that at least some of his macrofamilies (particularly Nilo-Saharan and Khoisan) are not fully accepted by the linguistic community and may need to be split up (Campbell 1997).

Malcom Guthrie Malcolm Guthrie (10 February 1903 – 22 November 1972), professor of Bantu languages, is known primarily for his classification of Bantu languages (Guthrie 1971). The classification, although certainly not undisputed, and probably somewhat outdated, is still the most widely used. Malcolm Guthrie was born in Hove, Sussex, England, the son of a Scottish father and Dutch mother. The magnum opus of Guthrie is Comparative Bantu which appeared in 4 volumes published in 1967 (volume 1), 1970 (volumes 3 and 4), and 1971 (volume 2). The 4 volumes provide not only a genetic classification but also a reconstruction of Proto-Bantu as the Proto-language of the Bantu language family. For his reconstruction, Guthrie drew data from 28 so-called 'test languages' that were picked more or less randomly. It has been argued, for example by Möhlig, that this renders his reconstruction unreliable, since the reconstructed forms, and hence the genetic tree, would be different if one changes the selection of languages. Guthrie also published extensively on a wide range of Bantu languages, including Lingala, Bemba, Mfinu, and Teke.