Keeping in Step with Modern Times

E. Kashoki

Description

Prof. Mubanga E. Kashoki deals with a subject that is often neglected in linguistics - lexical borrowings, and how they enrich a language that adopts them. The study is organised into four parts, Introduction; Glossary of Lexical Adoptives in Icibemba; The Sociocultural Context of Lexical Adoptives in Icibemba; and Phonological and Morphological incorporation in processes involved in lexical adoption in Icibemba.

Sujets

• Language
• Lexicography
• Languages of Africa
• Sociolinguistics
• Etymology
• Linguistics
• Lettres et linguistique
• Foreign Language study
• African Languages

Informations

• Publié par: Gadsden Publishers
• Date de parution: 27 décembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9789982241359
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

KEEPING IN
STEP WITH
MODERN TIMES:
A Comprehensive Account of Lexical
Adoptives in Icibemba

By
Mubanga E. Kashoki

Bookworld Publishers

Bookworld Publishers
P.O. Box 32581, Lusaka, Zambia

©uM kihoas KE.a ngba

First Published in 2009 by The Centre for Advanced
Studies of African Society, Cape Town.
This edition published in 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without prior permission of the publisher

ISBN: 978-9982-24-084-0

Printed by
Printech Limited (Lusaka)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication and Acknowledgements................................................................................v

Preface ............................................................................................................................vii

Chapter 1:
The Study .........................................................................................................................1
Preliminary remarks .....................................................................................................1
Icibemba: A brief linguistic profile...................................................................................1
Lexical adoptive, borrowed word, loanword or loan?: A note on terminology...................3
Research methods employed .......................................................................................5
Icibemba phonology and orthography ..........................................................................6
Vowels ..........................................................................................................................6
Consonants ..................................................................................................................7
Tone..............................................................................................................................8
Orthography..................................................................................................................8

Chapter 2:
Glossary of Lexical Adoptives in Icibemba...................................................................10
Introductory remarks ................................................................................................10
Key to abbreviations..................................................................................................10
A supplementary note concerning orthography .........................................................10
Glossary of Lexical adoptives by category..................................................................12

Chapter 3:
The Sociocultural Context of Lexical Adoptives in Icibemba.....................................133

Chapter 4:
Phonological and morphological incorporation processes involved in lexical
adoption in Icibemba................................241....................................................................

References ....................................................................................................................151

DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In recognition and appreciation of his widely-acknowledged and hugely influential
indefatigable commitment to the cause of the practical promotion of African languages as
reflected most demonstrably in the CASAS Africa-wide Harmonization and Standardization
of African Languages Project, the present modest contribution to the on-going scientific
studies in many parts of Africa that seek to underscore the dynamic nature of all human
languages, with particular reference to African languages, is hereby dedicated to Professor
Kwesi Kwaa Prah, the founder, proprietor and Director of the Centre for Advanced Studies of
African Society (CASAS).
I consider it as most appropriate, in this regard, that, at the outset of this round of
acknowledgments, I should begin by making special mention of the singularly important fact
that the present monograph would not have attained fruition had I not been a beneficiary of a
very generous benefaction that gave me the opportunity, as well as the privilege, to work in a
conducive environment over a period of three months (April - June, 2008) as a CASAS
Research Fellow, on a special leave of absence from my own institution, the University of
Zambia. I am profoundly grateful to Professor Prah and the entire CASAS staff for being
such gracious and attentive hosts while I remained in their care during what will long linger in
my memory as one of the richest experiences in my entire academic career.
In like vein, I am equally indebted to Professor Stephen Simukanga, the Vice-Chancellor
of the University of Zambia, for granting me special leave of absence, during the
threemonth period of my attachment to CASAS, while retaining all my entitlements as an
academic member of the UNZA staff.

Given its relatively protracted period of gestation, stretching back to 1972, the study as
reported in the present monograph, has naturally benefited invaluably from two principal
categories of practical assistance and support: institutional and individual. At the
institutional level, the first debt of gratitude is most deservedly due to the University of
Zambia's former Research and Higher Degrees Committee which provided the initial grant
in support of the undertaking of the long-term language adaption project of which the
present iesIcn emibba ApmoCehernsive Account ofL xecilaA odtpvi no sfo eeht i
tangible outcomes. In the same regard, the University of Zambia's Institute of Economic and
Social Research (formerly the Institute for African Studies, IAS) that has for the past three
decades served as my base during the prosecution of the investigation, analysis and
documentation of the data that now constitute the contents of the present monograph,
similarly deserves my thanks.
Outside of the University of Zambia, I would like to acknowledge, equally gratefully,
the collaborative contribution of the following institutions, among others, during the early
days of gathering the necessary data: the then Ministry of Labour and Social Services
(for terms relating to sport), the erstwhile National Food and Nutrition Commission (for terms

v

relating to foodstuffs), the then Department of Zambia Broadcasting Services (ZBS), the
erstwhile Industrial Development and Economic Corporation (INDECO), the then two
mining conglomerates: the Nchanga Consolidated Copper Mines Limited (NCCM) and the
Roan Consolidated Copper Mines Limited (RCM) (for terms relating to mining), the then
Commission for Technical Education and Vocational Training (for terms relating to
bricklaying, carpentry and construction generally), the Zambia Police, Evelyn Hone College
(for musical terms), and Ilondola Language Centre (for terms relating to religion, with special
reference to the Catholic Church).
At the individual level, deserving pride of first acknowledgement are the research
assistants, the frontline of primary collaborators, who brought their native knowledge of the
language under study, Icibemba, to the crucially demanding task of, first of all, combing with
a critical, discerning eye through published literature (e.g., books, magazines and
newspapers) as well as jotting down for further verification words or terms that appeared at
first sight to qualify as possible lexical adoptives, and, secondly, identifying, compiling and
categorizing the accumulated raw lexical adoptive data. Selected and employed for this
purpose, in respect of Icibemba, were Maurice Chishimba (since deceased), Rudolph
Kangwa Mulenga (also deceased) and Chileshe V. Kashoki. I am much in their debt for the
lasting imprint they have left on the present work that testifies to the resilience and intrinsic
dynamic nature of Africa's indigenous linguistic resources.

Mubanga E. Kashoki
Professor of African Languages
Institute of Economic and Social Research,
University of Zambia
September 18, 2008

v

i

PREFACE

From a historical perspective, the present attempt at a comprehensive account of lexical
adoptives in Icibemba (more commonly referred to in the literature simply as either
Bemba or as the Bemba language) has had a fairly long history of gestation. This is
evidenced, first of all, by the fact that, as Dr. J. Donald Bowen, the then Director of the
Survey of Language Use and Language Teaching in Zambia (1970-1971), had occasion
to inform the readers in his introduction to Language in Zambia (Ohannessian and
Kashoki, Eds. 1978), even well before the conception and actual planning of the
language survey, the former Institute of African Studies (the present Institute of
Economic and Social Research), University of Zambia, had included among its long-term
research plans the need for linguistic studies whose primary objective would be to
contribute to the updating (or “modernizing”) of the existing dictionaries of the seven
officially recognized indigenous Zambian languages, viz., Icibemba ba),(Bem
Kikaonde,) noed( aKCi, levaLu, daunLajnayn,)ajnayN (a nd Chitonga uh,s (Tnoag.)T
by 1969, Dr. Dorothea Lehmann, at the time a Senior (Linguistics) Research Fellow in
the Institute, had already published an article titled “Loanwords in S.A. Mpashi's Bemba
Story: nehs ouBhskiuUkwwa”( Lehmann 1969).
It was on this early foundation that my own subsequent linguistic studies sought to build
after being employed by the University of Zambia (UNZA) as a Research Fellow
(Linguistics) in May 1971 at the Institute for African Studies. ofs he tre pntsehTeg eisen
attempt at what it is hoped will represent as complete a glossary of lexical adoptives evident
in Icibemba eht nehw ,297 1ask ac bar f ssaadetli eocpmbly ossian pal cidniudivnis elg aas
then UNZA Research and Higher Degrees Committee a