(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.