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Proto-Niger–Congo Language
Proto-Niger–Congo is the hypothetical reconstructed proto-language of the proposed Niger–Congo language family. Validity Unlike Nilo-Saharan languages, Nilo-Saharan, the Niger–Congo language phylum is accepted by mainstream linguists and Africanists. Atlantic–Congo languages, Atlantic–Congo (roughly, Niger–Congo but excluding the Mande languages, Mande, Kru languages, Kru, Siamou language, Siamou, Kordofanian languages, Kordofanian, Dogon languages, Dogon and Ijoid languages) is accepted by ''Glottolog'' 4.4 Origin Blench (2006, 2016) proposes that Proto-Niger-Congo originated about 11-10,000 years before present in the western part of the "Green Sahara" of Africa (roughly the Sahel and southern Sahara), and that its dispersal can be correlated with the spread of the bow and arrow by migrating hunter-gatherers. Phonology Tones Larry Hyman (2016) reconstructs two contrastive level tone (linguistics), tones for Proto-Niger–Congo, which are: * *H (high tone) * *L (l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area.Sayre, April Pulley (1999), ''Africa'', Twenty-First Century Books. . With billion people as of , it accounts for about of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, behind Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, tribalism, colonialism, the Cold War, neocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Afr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bow And Arrow
The bow and arrow is a ranged weapon system consisting of an elastic launching device (bow) and long-shafted projectiles ( arrows). Humans used bows and arrows for hunting and aggression long before recorded history, and the practice was common to many prehistoric cultures. They were important weapons of war from ancient history until the early modern period, where they were rendered increasingly obsolete by the development of the more powerful and accurate firearms. Today, bows and arrows are mostly used for hunting and sports. Archery is the art, practice, or skill of using bows to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 A person who shoots arrows with a bow is called a bowman or an archer. Someone who makes bows is known as a bowyer,Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 31 someone who makes arrows is a fletcher,Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 56 and someone who manufactures metal arrowheads is an arrowsmith.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Arche ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. (2011). ''Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages'', pp. 337ff. About 5,000 years ago, it split off from Proto-Southern Bantoid when the Bantu expansion began to the south and east. Two theories have been put forward about the way the languages expanded: one is that the Bantu-speaking people moved first to the Congo region and then a branch split off and moved to East Africa; the other (more likely) is that the two groups split from the beginning, one moving to the Congo region, and the other to East Africa. Like other proto-languages, there is no record of Proto-Bantu. Its words and pronunciation have been reconstructed by linguists. From the common vocabulary which has been reconstructed on the basis of pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benue–Congo Languages
Benue–Congo (sometimes called East Benue–Congo) is a major branch of the Volta-Congo languages which covers most of Sub-Saharan Africa. Subdivisions Central Nigerian (or Platoid) contains the Plateau, Jukunoid and Kainji families, and Bantoid–Cross combines the Bantoid and Cross River groups. Bantoid is only a collective term for every subfamily of Bantoid–Cross except Cross River, and this is no longer seen as forming a valid branch, however one of the subfamilies, Southern Bantoid, is still considered valid. It is Southern Bantoid which contains the Bantu languages, which are spoken across most of Sub-Saharan Africa. This makes Benue–Congo one of the largest subdivisions of the Niger–Congo language family, both in number of languages, of which '' Ethnologue'' counts 976 (2017), and in speakers, numbering perhaps 350 million. Benue–Congo also includes a few minor isolates in the Nigeria–Cameroon region, but their exact relationship is uncertain. The neighbouri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kwa Languages
The Kwa languages, often specified as New Kwa, are a proposed but as-yet-undemonstrated family of languages spoken in the south-eastern part of Ivory Coast, across southern Ghana, and in central Togo. The name was introduced 1895 by Gottlob Krause and derives from the word for 'people' (''Kwa'') in many of these languages, as illustrated by Akan names. Languages See the box at right for a current classification. The various clusters of languages included in Kwa are at best distantly related, and it has not been demonstrated that they are closer to each other than to neighboring Niger–Congo languages. Stewart distinguished the following major branches, which historical-comparative analysis supports as valid groups: * Potou–Tano (including Akan) * Ga–Dangme * Na-Togo * ormerly Gbe (inclusion doubtful, as they show more features of Kwa the closer one moves to Akan) The Lagoon languages of southern Ivory Coast are not particularly close to any of these, nor to each other, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gur Languages
The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur or Mabia, belong to the Niger–Congo languages. They are spoken in the Sahelian and savanna regions of West Africa, namely: in most areas of Burkina Faso, and in south-central Mali, northeastern Ivory Coast, the northern halves of Ghana and Togo, northwestern Benin, and southwestern Niger. A few Gur languages are spoken in Nigeria. Additionally, a single Gur language, Baatonum, is spoken in Benin and in the extreme northwest of Nigeria. Three other single Gur languages, the Tusya, Vyemo and Tiefo languages, are spoken in Burkina Faso. Another unclassified Gur language, Miyobe, is spoken in Benin and Togo. In addition, Kulango, Loma and Lorhon, are spoken in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso. Additionally, a few Mossi speakers are in Senegal, and speakers of the Dagaare language are also found in Cameroon. The Samu languages of Burkina Faso are Gur languages. Typological features Like most Niger–Congo languages, the ancest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oti–Volta Languages
The Oti–Volta languages form a subgroup of the Gur languages, comprising about 30 languages of northern Ghana, Benin, and Burkina Faso spoken by twelve million people. The most populous language is Mooré, the national language of Burkina Faso, spoken by over 55% of Burkina Faso’s 20 million population and an additional 1 million in neighboring countries such as Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, and Mali. The family is named after the Oti and Volta rivers. Languages The internal classification of Oti–Volta, as worked out by Manessy 1975–79 and Naden 1989 (Williamson & Blench 2000) is as follows: Native Dagbani speakers assert that Dagbani is mutually intelligible with Dagaare, Frafra, Mamprusi, and Wali, but in the case of Dagaare, Frara and Wali it is rather the case that many people can understand some of a language which is not their mother tongue. These languages are not mutually intelligible with Mõõré or Kusaal (a language spoken in Bawku West District and adja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Languages
The West Atlantic languages (also the Atlantic languages"West Atlantic" is the traditional term, following Diedrich Hermann Westermann; "Atlantic" is more typical in recent work, particularly since Bendor-Samuel (1989), but is also used specifically for the northern branch of West Atlantic. or North Atlantic languages) of West Africa are a major subgroup of the Niger–Congo languages. The Atlantic languages are spoken along the Atlantic coast from Senegal to Liberia, though transhumant Fula speakers have spread eastward and are found in large numbers across the Sahel, from Senegal to Nigeria, Cameroon and Sudan. Wolof of Senegal and several of the Fula languages are the most populous Atlantic languages, with several million speakers each. Other significant members include Serer and the Jola dialect cluster of Senegal. Temne, a major language of Sierra Leone, was included in the Atlantic subgroup in earlier classifications but in modern proposals, it is no longer grouped with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Konstantin Pozdniakov
Konstantin Igorevich Pozdniakov (born 24 July 1952, Leningrad, USSR) is a Russian-French linguist who works on the comparative-historical linguistics of the Mande, Atlantic, and Niger-Congo families.Pozdniakov, Konstantin & Segerer, Guillaume (2017)"A Genealogical classification of Atlantic languages."(Draft) To appear in: Lüpke, Friederike (ed.) ''The Oxford guide to the Atlantic languages of West Africa:'' Oxford:Oxford University Press. He also works on Rongorongo of Easter Island. Education In 1974, Pozdniakov graduated from the West African Languages Department (in the Department of African Studies, Oriental Department) of Leningrad State University. In 1978, he defended his thesis at the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Moscow) on the comparative study of Mande languages. Career From 1978-1982 he worked at the Soviet cultural mission in Dakar, Senegal. From 1982–1997, he was a researcher at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Blench
Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and works as a consultant. Career Blench is known for his wide-ranging interests and has made important contributions to African linguistics, Southeast Asian linguistics, anthropology, ethnomusicology, ethnobotany, and various other related fields. He has done significant research on the Niger–Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Afroasiatic families, as well as the Arunachal languages. Additionally, Blench has published extensively on the relationship between linguistics and archaeology. Blench is currently engaged in a long-term project to document the languages of central Nigeria. He has also carried out extensive research on the herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria. Blench collaborated with the late Professor Kay Williamson, who died in January 2005, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kay Williamson
Kay Williamson (January 26, 1935, Hereford, United Kingdom – January 3, 2005, Brazil), born Ruth Margaret Williamson, was a linguist who specialised in the study of African languages, particularly those of the Niger Delta in Nigeria, where she lived for nearly fifty years. She has been called "The Mother of Nigerian Linguistics" and is also notable for proposing the Pan-Nigerian alphabet. Early life Professor Kay Williamson was born in Hereford, England, where she lived for the first 18 years of her life. She was the eldest of six children. Her father, Alfred Henry Williamson, also known as Harry, was the founder of Wyevale Nurseries. Her father and mother, Harriett Eileen Williamson, turned the Wyevale nurseries into one of the largest garden center chains in Europe. Williamson was educated at Hereford girls' high school and St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she took a BA in English in 1956, followed by an MA in 1960. Career Her many publications include a grammar an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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