Dahl's law (
German: ''das Dahlsche Gesetz''
) is a sound rule in some of the
Northeast Bantu languages that illustrates a case of voicing
dissimilation. In the history of these languages, a
voiceless stop, 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 refe ...
() 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 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.
It is productive in
Sukuma, in the Nyanyembe dialect of
Nyamwezi, most E50 languages (such as
Kikuyu,
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, the Bantu language spoken by them
{{Disamb, geo ...
and
Meru) and some J languages (such as
Rwanda
Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...
,
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
Kamba may refer to:
*Kamba African Rainforest Experiences, a collection of eco-luxury lodges in the Republic of Congo
*Kamba people of Kenya
*Bena-Kamba, a community in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
*Khampa, also spelled Kamba, Tibetan peop ...
/Daisũ,
Taveta and
Luhya Luhya or Abaluyia may refer to:
* Luhya people
* Luhya language
{{disambig
Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...
/
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
Grassmann's law, named after its discoverer Hermann Grassmann, is a dissimilatory phonological process in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit which states that if an Aspiration (phonetics), aspirated consonant is followed by another aspirated consonant ...
in
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
.
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
Bantu sound laws
*
{{Bantu-lang-stub