Achille Emile Meeussen, also spelled Achiel Emiel Meeussen,Swiggers (2009).Universiteit Leiden website
or simply A.E. Meeussen (as he generally signed his articles) (19121978) was a distinguished Belgian specialist in

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...

, particularly those of the

Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colo ...

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

and

Burundi Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...

. Together with the British scholar

Malcolm Guthrie Malcolm Guthrie (10 February 1903 – 22 November 1972) was an English linguist who specialized in Bantu languages. Guthrie was a foremost professor of Bantu languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. He is know ...

(19031972) he is regarded as one of the two leading experts in Bantu languages in the second half of the 20th century.Bostoen & Bastin (2016). Meeussen was born at Sint-Pieters-Jette, Belgium on April 6, 1912, and died at

Louvain Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic c ...

on February 8, 1978, at the age of 65.

Education and career

A. E. Meeussen studied classical philology at the Catholic University of Louvain (

Leuven Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ...

) in Belgium, where he submitted his PhD thesis on

Indo-European ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German ''Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...

in 1938. After studying at the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...

in London, in 1950 he was appointed to the staff of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium; he was director of the linguistics department of the museum from 195877. He was also professor of African linguistics at the University of Louvain from 1952–62 and later professor at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

in the Netherlands from 196477.

Research

Languages studied

Among the Bantu languages which Meeussen described or studied were Luba-Kasayi (1951),

Ombo Ombo is an island in the municipality of Stavanger in Rogaland county, Norway. The island is the largest island in the Ryfylke region and the second largest island in Rogaland county. There are several villages on the island including Jørstad ...

(1952),

Kirundi Kirundi, also known as Rundi, is a Bantu language spoken by some 9 million people in Burundi and adjacent parts of Rwanda, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, as well as in Kenya. It is the official language of Burundi. Kiru ...

(1952), Laadi (1953),

Bangubangu The Bangubangu are a Bantu people from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, primarily in the Kabambare Territory. They speak the Bangubangu language. They also live in Tanzania, where they migrated during the 19th century and are usually known ...

(1954),

Bemba Bemba may refer to: * Bemba language (Chibemba), a Bantu language spoken in Zambia * Bemba people (AbaBemba), an ethnic group of central Africa * Jean-Pierre Bemba, the former vice-President of the Democratic Republic of Congo * A Caribbean drum, ...

(1954),

Luganda The Ganda language or Luganda (, , ) is a Bantu language spoken in the African Great Lakes region. It is one of the major languages in Uganda and is spoken by more than 10 million Baganda and other people principally in central Uganda including ...

(1955), Shambala (1955),

Sotho Sotho may refer to: *Sotho people (or ''Basotho''), an African ethnic group principally resident in South Africa, Lesotho and southern Botswana * Sotho language (''Sesotho'' or ''Southern Sotho''), a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa, an off ...

(1958), Lega (1962),

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...

(1963), and Yao (1971). His descriptions of the grammar of Ombo, Bangubangu, and Rundi were written as a result of fieldwork notes which he made on a visit to Rwanda-Urundi and Maniema district of the Belgian Congo in 1950-51; the information on Lega was obtained from visitors to the Museum.Coupez (1980). He also wrote articles on other languages, including the American Indian languages

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...

and

Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...

(1962).

Tonal theory

Meeussen was especially interested in the tones of the Bantu languages, and is famous for his discovery of

Meeussen's rule Meeussen's rule is a special case of tone reduction in Bantu languages. The tonal alternation it describes is the lowering, in some contexts, of the last tone of a pattern of two adjacent High tones (HH), resulting in the pattern HL. The phenomenon ...

, which describes how in some circumstances a sequence of two High tones (HH) in a word changes to High + Low (HL). He is said to have had an exceptional ability to hear and reproduce the sounds of the languages he studied.

Historical linguistics

In addition to studying individual languages, Meeussen also made major contributions to the comparative study of Bantu and to the reconstruction of the phonemes, grammar, and vocabulary of

Proto-Bantu Proto-Bantu is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Bantu languages, a subgroup of the Southern Bantoid languages. It is thought to have originally been spoken in West/Central Africa in the area of what is now Cameroon.Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. (2 ...

. His 40-page article "Bantu Grammatical Reconstructions" of 1967 succinctly outlines the main facts of Proto-Bantu grammar as they were known at that time. In 1969 he was responsible for founding the database "Bantu Lexical Reconstructions" still maintained today by the Tervuren museum.See External links.

Works

*Meeussen, Achille E. (1943). "Syntaxis van het Tshiluba". ''Kongo-Overzee'' 9 (1-3): 81-263. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1948). "Guthrie, M. The classification of the Bantu languages (review)". ''Kongo-Overzee'' 14 (5): 314-318. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1950). "De tonen van de imperatief in het Ciluba (Kasayi)". ''Kongo-Overzee'' 16 (2-3): 110-111. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1951). "Tooncontractie in het Ciluba (Kasayi)". ''Kongo-Overzee'' 17 (4-5): 289-291. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1952). "Notes de grammaire rundi". Unpublished. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1952). ''Esquisse de la langue ombo.'' MRAC, Annales du Musée royal du Congo belge 4, Tervuren. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1952). "La voyelle des radicaux CV en bantou commun". ''Africa'' 22, 367-713 *Meeussen, Achille E. (1953). "Rundi-teksten van André Barumwete". ''Kongo-Overzee'' 19: 420-427. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1953). "Notes sur la tonalité du nom en laadi". ''Etudes bantoues II'' 79-86. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1953). "De talen van Maniema (Belgisch-Kongo)". ''Kongo-Overzee'' 19 (5): 385-390. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1954). "Werkwoordafleiding in Mongo en Oerbantoe". ''Aequatoria'' 27 (3): 81-86. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1954). "Klinkerlengte in het Oerbantoe". ''Kongo-Overzee'' 20:423–31. Translated a
"Vowel Length in Proto-Bantu"
''Journal of African Languages and Linguistics'' 1(1): 1-8 · January 1979. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1954). "Linguïstische schets van het Bangubangu". Tervuren, 1954, 53 p. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1954). "The tones of prefixes in common Bantu." ''Africa'' 24 (1): 48-53. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1954). "Le ton des extensions verbales en bantu." ''Orbis'' 10 (2): 424-427. *Meeussen, Achille E. & Biebuyck, Daniel (1954). "Bembe-tekst". ''Kongo-Overzee'' 20 (1): 74-77. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1955). "Tonunterschiede als Reflexe von Quantitätsunderschieden im Shambala". In Lukas J. (ed.) ''Afrikanistische Studien Diedriech Westermann zum 80. Geburtstag gewindet'', 154-156. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1955). "Les phonèmes du ganda et du bantu commun". ''Africa'' 25 (2): 170-180. *Sharman, J.C. & Meeussen, A.E. (1955). "The representation of structural tones, with special reference to the tonal behaviour of the verb, in Bemba, Northern Rhodesia". ''Africa'', 25, 393-404. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1958). "Morphotonologie de la conjugaison en sotho". Unpublished. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1958). "Morfotonologie van de vervoeging in het Suthu". ''Zaïre'' 12 (4): 383-392. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1959). "Essai de grammaire rundi". Tervuren. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1962). "Lega-teksten". ''Africana Linguistica'' 1: 75-97. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1962). "De tonen van subjunktief en imperatief in het Bantoe." ''Africana Linguistica'' 1: 57-74. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1962). "The independent order in Cheyenne". ''Orbis'', 11: 260-288. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1962). "The independent indicative in Mistassinl Crée". ''Studies in Linguistics'', 1: 73-76. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1963). "Meinhof's rule in Bantu." ''African Language Studies'' 3:25-29. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1963). "Morphotonology of the Tonga verb". ''Journal of African Languages'', 2.72–92. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1964). "Notes suku". Unpublished, Tervuren. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1965). "A preliminary tonal analysis of Ganda verb forms". ''Journal of African Languages'' 4 (2): 107-113. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1966). "Syntactic tones of nouns in Ganda : a preliminary synthesis". In Lebrun Yvan (ed.) ''Recherches linguistiques en Belgique'', 77-86. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1967). "Notes on Swahili prosody". - ''Swahili'', 37: 166-170. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1967)
"Bantu grammatical reconstructions."
''Africana Linguistica'' 3: 79-121. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1969). "Bemerkungen über die Zahlwörter von sechs bis zehn in Bantusprachen". In ''Kalima na Dimi... .'' Stuttgart, 11-18. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1970). "Tone typologies for West African languages". ''African Language Studies'', 11: 266-271 . *Meeussen, Achille E. (1971). "Notes on conjugation and tone in Yao." ''Africana Linguistica'' 5: 197-203. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1971). ''Eléments de grammaire lega.'' Tervuren. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1972). "Japanese accentuation as a restricted tone system". ''Japanese Linguistics'' 1: 267-270. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1973). "Comparative Bantu: Test cases for method." ''African Language Studies'' 14: 6-18. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1974). "Notes on tone in Ganda." ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 37 (1): 148-156. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1974). "A note on global rules in Bangubangu tone". ''Studies in African Linguistics'' 5 (1): 95-99. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1975). "Possible linguistic Africanisms." ''Language Sciences'' 35: 1-5 *Meeussen, Achille E. (1976). "Notes sur la tonalité du nom en laadi". ''Etudes Bantoues'' 2: 79-86. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1977). "Trois pronominaux du mbala". ''Africana Linguistica'' 7: 359-374. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1977). "Aspects préliminaires de l'étude du Punu (Guthrie B43)". Unpublished. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1978). "Relative structures in Bantu". In Baumbach, E. J. M. (ed). ''Proceedings of the 2nd Africa Languages Congress''. University of South Africa: 98-104. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1980). ''Bantu Lexical Reconstructions''. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale. (Reprint of Meeussen's unpublished manuscript of 1969.) *Meeussen, Achille E. (1980). "Le cas du mbagani. Mbagani et Lwalwa : deux anciens membres du complexe kongo au Kasayi?" In Bouquiaux, Luc (ed.) ''L'expansion bantue. - Actes du Colloque International du CNRS, Viviers (France), 4-16 avril 1977'': 443-445. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1980). "Problèmes spécifiques du grammaire comparé du bantou: exposé introductif". In Bouquiaux, Luc (ed.) ''L'expansion bantue. - Actes du Colloque International du CNRS, Viviers (France), 4-16 avril 1977'': 457ff. *Meeussen, Achille E. (1980). "Degrés d'archaïsme en bantou." - Communication faite au Colloque de Viviers (1977). - In Bouquiaux, Luc (ed.) ''L'Expansion bantoue: actes du Colloque international du CNRS, Viviers (France), 4-16 avril 1977'': 595-600.

References

Bibliography

*Bostoen, Koen; Bastin, Yvonne (2016)
"Bantu Lexical Reconstructions".
Oxford Handbooks online. *Coupez, A. (1979)
"In Memoriam A. E. Meeussen 1912-1978"
''African Studies'' 38 (2): 231-232. *Coupez, A. (1980)
"Hommage à A. Meeussen (1912-1978)".
''Africana Linguistica'' 8 (1): 1-22. (In French). *Swiggers, Pierre (2006). "Meeussen, Achille Emile (1912-1978)". In Brown, E. K.; Asher, R. E.; Simpson, J. M. Y. (eds.) ''Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics'' (2nd edition). Elsevier, pp. 759–760. *Swiggers, Pierre (2009
"Meeussen, Achiel Emiel"
In Stammerjohann, H. (ed). ''Lexicon grammaticorum. A Bio-Bibliographical Companion to the History of Linguistics'', vol. 2: 993-994.

External links

"Bantu Grammatical Reconstructions"
''Africana Linguistica'' 3, 1967. pp. 79–121.
"Bantu Lexical Reconstructions 3".
Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren.
Achille Meeussen
Royal Museum for Central Africa {{DEFAULTSORT:Meeussen, Achille Emile Phonologists Linguists from Belgium Linguists of Bantu languages Belgian philologists 1912 births 1978 deaths 20th-century linguists 20th-century philologists