Department of Languages and Literature

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AN ACCOUNT OF INTERCULTURAL CONTACT IN NYAKYUSA PERSONAL NAMES
(African Study Monographs, 2018) Lusekelo, Amani
The impact of intercultural contact in African societies may be well articulated by examining personal names bestowed to children. The contact between different cultures yields different naming systems, apparent in the trends in personal names of children in the Nyakyusa community in Tanzania. Qualitative analysis of a sample of 220 personal names collected by the author yielded three layers: a layer of names with words and clauses with meaning in Nyakyusa language, another layer of names starting with mwa- which indicates the descent of the family, and yet another layer of nativized English, Swahili and/or Christian names. The findings were consistent with another sample of 786 names of primary school pupils in rural areas, foreign names accounted for about 60 percent of all names outnumbering, by far, the indigene names. It may follow that most parents in the Nyakyusa community opt for foreign names rather than native ones. This paper is a testimony that traditions in the Nyakyusa naming system are diminishing.
Adaptation of Sukuma Loanwords in the Western Dialects of Datooga (Taturu) and its Dialectological Implications
(ETHNOLOGIA ACTUALIS, 2019) Lusekelo, Amani
The exchange of linguistic materials between languages which come into contact is indeed reciprocal. The previous accounts of the outcome of contact between Datooga and Sukuma was skewed towards impact of Datooga on Sukuma. Based on ethnolinguistic vitality approach, the Datooga tend to reveal solidarity-related social identity by acquiring their language as a mother tongue. They also reveal prestige-related social identity by acquiring Sukuma language which is the prestigious lingua franca of the Itumba area in Igunga District. Moreover, the Datooga envisaged mechanisms to either isolate out-group members using their ethnonyms. Based on a list of 250 loanwords, this paper highlights the substitutive borrowing of kinship terms and additive borrowing of agricultural terms. The Sukuma loanwords penetrate into the Datooga lexicon.
Additive and Substitutive Borrowing against Semantic Broadening and Narrowing in the Names of Architectural Structures in Tanzanian Bantu Languages
(UJAH, 2017) Lusekelo, Amani
The thrust of this paper lies on semantic changes associated with additive and substitutive borrowing in Bantu-speaking communities in Tanzania. Due to contact of languages, semantic differences of the terms related to architectural structures emanate. Apart from data from a few elderly native speakers, research was carried out with the help of undergraduate students of linguistics. Further linguistic materials analysed herein come from dictionaries and lexicons. Although retention of the proto- Bantu words are apparent, findings indicate that cases of additive borrowing are obvious for new concepts associated with new architectural structures. The additive Swahili names incorporated into Tanzanian Bantu tend to designate specific concepts associated with modern (contemporary) architectural senses such as mulango ‘modern door’ vs. luigi ‘traditional entranceway’. Cases of substitutive borrowing are rare, as demonstrated by the Swahili word dirisha ‘window’ which replaces chitonono in Chimakonde, echihúru in Runyambo, ilituulo in Kinyakyusa etc.
Endocentric and exocentric compounds in Kiswahili
(SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 2019) Lusekelo, Amani
The endocentric-exocentric dichotomy is the core of the discussion in this article. The discussion concerns the semantic classification of compounds in Kiswahili. The data substantiates the presence of the firm dichotomy of the endocentric and exocentric compounds. I establish that endocentric compounds split into left-headed, double-head and right-headed structures due to semantic contribution of the words which form the compounds. I suggest that exocentric compounds require special attention in that the head of the compound is projected from the semantic-pragmatic context in the speaker community. In the article, I show that Kiswahili compounds reveal grammaticalisation of the proto-item *-yánà ‘child’ to reflex mwana that means ‘Specialist of X’. Also, Kiswahili data reveals the lexicalization of the proto-item *-ényé from the ‘Possessive Pronoun’ to left-most element of a compound mwenye ‘Having X’. I argue that this is a kind of bahuvrihi compounding.
Historicity of personal names in Tanzania: the case of the names in the Rombo-Chagga community in Kilimanjaro
(International Journal of Modern Anthropology, 2020) Lusekelo, Amani
The history of African societies, which are mostly oral, could be deciphered through onomastics. This is possible because naming practices, which are elaborate, and personal names, which are meaningful, are cherished in African communities. In most cases, the circumstances at birth, which split into several strands, dictate the choice of the name by the name-givers. Naming practice is an elaborate phenomenon amongst the Rombo-Chagga people of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania on two grounds. On the one hand, clan names are associated with Chagga calendar and socio-economic activities, e.g. Mkenda „born during unlucky days‟. On the other hand, home-names reveal circumstances at birth and historical events within the family and beyond, e.g. Ndekir‟yo„I am cured‟. In addition, amongst the Bantu speaking communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, naming practices have been influenced by Christianization, Islamicization and colonization. The personal names of the Rombo-Chagga people reveal the strands of religious (formal) names and foreign (English or Kiswahili) names, e.g. Barakaeli „God-bless‟.
Lexical borrowing in Africa with special attention to outcomes of languages in contacts in Tanzania
(Mgbakoigba, Journal of African Studies, 2018) Lusekelo, Amani
This article provides the impact of contact of Bantu and non-Bantu languages of Tanzania. Much attention is paid to the dispersal of Swahili words into Hadzabe, Iraqw and Maasai; and exemplary cases of Bantu-to-Bantu contacts have been included. Findings indicate that a layer of Swahili and English words exist in many languages of South-Western Tanzania such as Nyakyusa, Nyamwanga, Ndali, among others. Along the coast of Tanzania, influence of Swahili lexis is massive in such languages as Maraba. The Bantu to non-bantu contacts yielded numerous loans across Greebergian language phylums in Tanzania as evidenced in, for example, Swahili loans in Burunge and Hadzabe. Findings demonstrate distinct mechanisms of incorporation of loans. In Cushitic and Nilotic languages such as Hadzabe, Iraqw and Maasai, gender marking is the primary mechanism of adaptation of Bantu loans whilst Bantu languages assign noun classifications to the loanwords from English and non-Bantu languages.
LEXICAL VERBS EXPRESSING MODALITY IN BANTU LANGUAGES: THE CASE OF RUNYAMBO AND LUGURU
(Journal of West African Languages, 2020) Lusekelo, Amani
This paper provides novel documentation and description of the verbal modal system in Great Lakes Bantu languages. Runyambo (E21/JE21) is compared with Luguru (G35). The paper builds on Bostoen et al. (2012) and Kawalya et al. (2014, 2018) to revisit Runyambo data and add data from Luguru to reexamine findings in the Great Lakes Bantu Languages. This study is the first to discuss necessity modality in Rutara languages and the very first description of modality in Luguru. The study was conducted in Karagwe and Kyerwa Districts of Kagera Region and Morogoro Rural and Mvomero Districts in Morogoro Region. The field work that involved 10 informants included collection of written texts and in-depth dialogues and interviews for collecting oral texts. The study presents the modal baas- ‘be able’ as the only modal verb for expressing possibility in Runyambo language. Moreover, the modal baas- in Runyambo as opposed to dah- ‘be able/capable/permitted’ in Luguru, has both modal and lexical functions. We demonstrate further that the modal verb teekw- ‘must/ought to’ is used to express both weak and strong necessity in Runyambo. The modal teekw- modifies all verb types and it requires the auxiliary verb to either refer to the past or future. The modal verbs dah- ‘beble/capable/permitted’ and bamigw- ‘must/ought to’ in Luguru express possibility and necessity respectively. It is fascinating to identify that in both languages the modal verb for necessity requires both progressive formative and subjunctive form of the immediate verb. Lastly, we demonstrate that in the two languages the modal verbs interact with different tense and aspect formatives.
Linguistic and Social Outcomes of Interactions of Hadzabe and Sukuma in North-Western Tanzania
(Utafiti, 2020) Lusekelo, Amani
Social and linguistic contacts of the Hadzabe speaking people with the Sukuma people in Maswa District (now Meatu District) in northern Tanzania have been underreported in the existing literature, whereas the Hadzabe of eastern Tanzania have been researched in depth. Specialists have documented that in western Tanzania, the material culture of the Hadzabe differs significantly from what is found among their counterparts in the eastern region; so too the regional differences between their adaptations of kinship terms have been well documented. However, patterns of linguistic adaptation in the naming of plants and crops have yet to be analysed. Findings from Sungu Village in Meatu District reveal the significant influence of the Sukuma in the Hadzabe lexicon of plants and crops. It is understandable why the names of cultivated crops among the Hadzabe would demonstrate the Sukuma influence, since the Sukuma farmers introduced farming amongst the Hadzabe foragers. But it is unclear why the Hadzabe should have borrowed Sukuma names for wild plants as well, since the Hadzabe have depended upon their local biodiversity throughout their existence in the region, as has been documented for several decades now. We argue that despite their recency, communities which dominate through their sheer population density, such as the Sukuma, tend to influence the deeper lexicon of smaller communities like Hadzabe.
THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF URBAN TANZANIA: AN ACCOUNT OF THE LANGUAGE OF BILLBOARDS AND SHOP-SIGNS IN DISTRICT HEADQUARTERS
(JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, TECHNOLOGY & ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN AFRICA, 2018) Lusekelo, Amani
In examination of language use in public domains in Tanzania, this paper articulates the state of multilingualism in the composition of signposts in district headquarters countrywide. The paper challenges the suggestion that Tanzania is primarily a Kiswahili speaking country. It also challenges the suggestion that Tanzania consists of English as an official language with limited domains of use. While it is claimed that ethnic community languages are a vehicular of communication in domains related to informal settings and homesteads, the paper argues for the presence of in linguistic landscape. Findings from five regions of Tanzania, namely, Arusha, Iringa, Kagera, Manyara and Mbeya indicate the dominance of bilingual Kiswahili-English signposts in urban centres. Further, findings display dominance of English-only signposts, which is a good testimony that this public domain makes use of English rather than Kiswahili. Furthermore, on the basis of font-size and font-colour, English words turn more prominent than Kiswahili words. Nonetheless, on the basis of word counts, Kiswahili is significantly used in bilingual signposts than English. Thus, this article concludes that the importance of English surpasses Kiswahili in the language use in bilingual signposts in urban Tanzania.
The Linguistic Situation in Orkesumet, an Urban Area in Simanjiro District of Tanzania
(UJAH, 2019) Lusekelo, Amani
An investigation of the linguistic landscape in urban Africa is a welcome contribution to make in that multilingualism presents fascinating results. To satisfy this demand, the current paper investigates the patterns of language use in billboards in a small township of Orkesumet in northern Tanzania. Data demonstrates that the state of Kiswahili and English bilingualism is apparently open for religiously, privately and publicly owned institutions such as schools, churches, public offices, and accommodation facilities. Such bilingual billboards do not make use of hybrid language because there were no tokens of Kiswahili-English, Maasai-English and Kiswahili-Maasai recorded in the area. The main mechanism used to attract customers is through the selection of font-colour and font-size. The large font in black colour is preferred for names of firms, while red colour is opted for items sold and/or services rendered.
Naming practices in contemporary Machame-Chagga culture
(International Journal of Modern Anthropology, 2018) Lusekelo, Amani
Naming practices were cherished in African communities and personal names bestowed to children used to carry some semantic content usually determined by circumstances at birth. An examination of formal names of school children from the Machame-Chagga families exhibits an increasingly diminishing trend of naming practices. Most names of pupils are of English and/or Christian origin and just a fraction of names from a sample of 421 full names appear to be the typical Machame-Chagga names. In addition, Islamic names are numerous, which is another testimony that religion has dismantled the traditional naming system of the Machame-Chagga community. During the integration of foreign religious names, two patterns emanate. On the one hand, many Christian names are expressed in words with semantic content, e.g. Aikaeli „thank you God‟, Aminaeli „thank you God‟ and Ndumiakunde „the Lord tends to love‟. On the other hand, Islamic names in Hai District have been Swahilized, for example Azizi and Mustafa. All in all, the imposition of foreign religion in Machame-Chagga community has eroded the indigene naming system.
The nature of conditional sentences in Kinyakyusa
(Journal of Education, Humanities and Sciences, 2016) Lusekelo, Amani; Lusekelo, Amani
The mechanisms utilized to introduce conditional construction in Nyakyusa are partly similar to the patterns available in some Bantu languages because its protasis is introduced by the word lıınga. The counterfactual marker angali introduces the apodosis of the counterfactual sentences, similar to Zulu and Swahili. The main difference is that Nyakyusa differentiates reality and unreality situations primarily through TAM formatives. For instance, realistic situations manifest in future and present tenses while unrealistic events are primarily indicated by remoteness in past tense.
Properties of the adjective category in Runyambo
(South African Journal of African Languages, 2020) Lusekelo, Amani
The identification of adjectives in many languages seems to be a point of concern to many linguists. It has been established by some scholars that adjectives form a closed word category in many languages of the world, while in others they are said to form an open word category. The aim of this article is to determine the nature of adjectives in Runyambo, using the prototype theory. Any item deviating from the prototypical features of a category tends to be morphologically or syntactically marked. The items discussed in this article therefore range from core adjectives to adjectives derived from other word categories. Runyambo falls in a group of languages with a closed class of adjectives forming only 13 items. Among these 13 items, there are only six core adjectives, two adjectives derived from nouns, two from verbs and three flexible adjectives.
The Structure of the Nyakyusa Noun Phrase
(Nordic Journal of African Studies, 2009) Lusekelo, Amani
This article articulates the structure of the noun phrase in the Bantu language Nyakyusa. The aim of the study is to move a step ahead from the focus on concords across Bantu languages to the analysis of the order of elements within the noun phrase. As scholars have paid less attention to the syntax of the noun and its dependents (Rugemalira 2007), then the analysis of the order of elements in the Nyakyusa noun phrases is necessary. This study found the following: (i) the dominant attested order of the elements in a Nyakyusa noun phrase is N > [(Poss)(Dem)] > [(Num)(Quant)(A)] > [(Int)(Rel)], (ii) both the possessive and demonstrative may occur immediately after the head noun, but when the possessive immediately follows the head noun it must drop a pre-prefix. Also, the demonstrative can not precede the head noun if so, the meaning changes; (iii) hypothetically, with recurrence, more than seven elements can co-occur within a single noun phrase.
The Terms for the Cardinal Directions in Eastern Bantu Languages
(Journal of Humanities, 2018-12-01) Lusekelo, Amani
Different languages employ different mechanisms to express cardinal directions. New information on terms for cardinal directions is revealed in many studies by anthropological and cognitive linguists on minority languages of the world. However, there are gaps in studies on nomenclature for cardinal directions in Africa languages which this paper aims to fill by providing a detailed examination of such nomenclature. The paper is based on data from a sample of 42 Eastern Bantu languages. Elicitation and extraction of terms from dictionaries were the main data collection techniques used. The study found out that there are seven sources used to derive terms for cardinal directions namely, names of ethnic groups, names of bodyparts, direction of sunrise and sunset, water-bodies (oceans and lakes), terrain (uphill and downhill), winds, and lexical borrowing. The paper found that reference to terrain (uphill and downhill) and ethnic communities were the most popular sources of cardinal terms in Eastern Bantu. The study also found that naming cardinal direction based on wind, usually associated with coastal Bantu, is also found in the interior of Africa in such languages as Gogo and Ndebele. Finally, contrary to previous studies, the study found that in Eastern Bantu north/south cardinal terms are more prominent than terms for east and west.
Why did you Choose Runyambo instead of Ruhaya for your Research Project? By the way, why not Choose Kiswahili, the National Language? ‘Forces’ Acting upon the Choice of Language of Research in Tanzania
(Journal of Linguistics and Language in Education, 2019) Lusekelo, Amani
In this paper, I approach the choice of the language of study for a graduate research program. In a way, irrespective of the functionalist and generative warnings, I articulate the rationale for the choice of mother tongue language as the language of research by linguists. In the article, I caution that absence of existing research outputs is not a sound reason to allow straightforward research permit. Further, I point out that the main motivation of the selection of a research topic could be the contribution to an ongoing research in which the mother tongue of the researcher is staged to offer good evidence in favour or rejection of the existing claims available in the literature. This is the tradition in the scientific inquiry. Furthermore, I argue that comparative works can also engage the cluster of the languages to which the mother tongue of the researcher is affiliated. The motivation for the choice of the cluster should be to examine genetic affiliation rather than to allow the researcher to attract easy data collection practises. In the end, I open a discussion for more research on endangered languages of Tanzania, which is an open linguistic research area left to foreigners to date. However, I argue that an interplay of documentation and theory should be realised.

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