Dahl's law (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
: ''Das Dahlsche Gesetz''
) is a sound rule in some of the
Northeast Bantu languages
The Northeast Bantu languages are a group of Bantu languages spoken in East Africa. In Guthrie's geographic classification, they fall within Bantu zones E50 plus E46 (Sonjo), E60 plus E74a (Taita), F21–22, J, G60, plus Northeast Coast Bantu ( ...
that illustrates a case of voicing
dissimilation
In phonology, particularly within historical linguistics, dissimilation is a phenomenon whereby similar consonants or vowels in a word become less similar. In English, dissimilation is particularly common with liquid consonants such as /r ...
. In the history of these languages, a
voiceless stop
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
, such as , became
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
() when immediately followed by a syllable with another voiceless stop. For example,
Nyamwezi has ''-datu'' "three" where
Swahili, a Bantu language that did not undergo Dahl's law, has ''-tatu'', and
Shambala has ''mgate'' "bread" where Swahili has ''mkate''. Dahl's law is the reason for the name
Gikuyu when the language prefix normally found in that language is ''ki-'' .
The law was named in 1903 by
Carl Meinhof
Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof (23 July 1857 – 11 February 1944) was a German linguist and one of the first linguists to study African languages.
Early years and career
Meinhof was born in Barzwitz near Rügenwalde in the Province of Po ...
in his paper "Das Dahlsche Gesetz": in the paper, Meinhof explains that he named the rule after his pupil, the
Moravian missionary Edmund Dahl, who reported it in 1897 when visiting the
Wanyamwezi tribe in
Urambo
Urambo is one of the seven districts of the Tabora Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the north by the Kaliua District, to the east by the Uyui District, to the southeast by the Sikonge District, and to the southwest by the Katavi Region. ...
.
It is productive in
Sukuma, in the Nyanyembe dialect of
Nyamwezi, most E50 languages (such as
Kikuyu Kikuyu or Gikuyu (Gĩkũyũ) mostly refers to an ethnic group in Kenya or its associated language.
It may also refer to:
*Kikuyu people, a majority ethnic group in Kenya
*Kikuyu language, the language of Kikuyu people
*Kikuyu, Kenya, a town in Centr ...
,
Embu
Embu may refer to:
Places
; in Brazil
* Embu das Artes
* Embu-Guaçu
; in Kenya
* Embu, Kenya
* Embu County
Other
*Embu people of Kenya
*Embu language
Embu, also known as Kîembu, is a Bantu language of Kenya. It is spoken by the Embu peopl ...
and
Meru
Meru may refer to:
Geography Kenya
* Meru, Kenya, a city in Meru County, Kenya
** Meru County, created by the merger of
*** Meru Central District
*** Meru North District
*** Meru South District
* Meru National Park, a Kenyan wildlife park
Tanz ...
) and some J languages (such as
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 ...
,
Gusii and
Kuria). In other languages the law is no longer productive, but there are indications that it once was (such as in
Taita,
Kamba/Daisũ,
Taveta and
Luhya Luhya or Abaluyia may refer to:
* Luhya people
* Luhya language
Luhya (; also Luyia, Luhia or Luhiya) is a Bantu language of western Kenya.
Dialects
The various Luhya tribes speak several related languages and dialects, though some of them ar ...
/
Logooli). In some neighboring languages (and in other dialects of Nyamwezi) words reflecting Dahl's law are found, but they appear to be transfers from languages in which the law is productive.
[BFYP Masele & Derek Nurse (2003) "Stratigraphy and prehistory: Bantu Zone F". In Henning Andersen (ed.) ''Language Contacts in Prehistory: Studies in Stratigraphy''. John Benjamins.]
Dahl's law is often portrayed as the African equivalent of
Grassmann's law in
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...
.
However, an analogue of Grassmann's law (which is
aspiration, not voicing, dissimilation) has taken place in the Bantu language
Makhuwa, where it is called ''
Katupha's law.''
References
Sound laws
*
*
{{Bantu-lang-stub