Kinship Terminology and the Initial Vowel

Africa ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. H. Whiteley
Keyword(s):  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Full Study ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Kinship Terminology

Opening ParagraphAmong a number of interlacustrine Bantu languages the nominal prefix is commonly of a shape V1CV2 (vowel, consonant, vowel). It is convenient to refer to V1 as the ‘initial vowel’ of the prefix, even where—as in Class 9—the prefix comprises only a single vowel or a vowel followed by a nasal. In certain contexts the prefix has been noted to occur without this initial vowel, and while no full study of such contexts has yet been made, the recently published Luganda Grammar establishes a number of practical rules for the omission of the ‘Initial Vowel’. Here, there is a reference to the ‘…loss of the I(nitial) V(owel)…to distinguish certain nouns when indicating close personal relationships…’, but there is no further reference to the important series of contexts provided by kinship terminology.

Early Bantu Ethnography from a Philological Point of View

Africa ◽  
1930 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. J. v. Warmelo
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Compact Body ◽  
The One ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphFew of the secrets that Africa still holds from us to-day have, I think, such an absorbing interest as the problem of Bantu in its relation to the neighbouring families and types of speech. Taking the continent of Africa as a whole, we find on the one hand the huge, yet marvellously homogeneous and compact body of the Bantu languages, clear-cut in structure, simple and transparent in phonology, and, at the back of much apparent diversity, exceptionally uniform in vocabulary. On the other hand there are in Africa numerous other languages of various type, which differ so much amongst each other that they have not yet been brought under any but the very broadest of classifications. The essential points of these are as follows.

Inzuikizi

Africa ◽  
1935 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-480
Author(s):  
Edwin W. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphIf we are to understand the firm belief in witchcraft we must first investigate the African's conception of ‘medicine’. In many Bantu languages the word for ‘medicine’ is identical with, or similar to, the word for ‘tree’, e.g. Zulu umuthi, Herero omuti, Lamba umuti, mean both ‘tree’ and ‘medicine’ ; in Ila musamo (plural misamo) is ‘medicine’ and isamo is ‘tree’. This points, I imagine, to the fact that most medicines are of vegetal origin.

Alternate Generations among the Lele of the Kasai, South-West Congo

Africa ◽  
1952 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Social Condition ◽  
South West ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Kinship Terminology ◽  
As If

Opening ParagraphIn the last fifty years certain instances of a special privileged relation between grandparents and grandchildren have been quoted so frequently as to have become almost classic cases. The three most important are those reported for the Dieri tribe of SE. Australia (Howitt 1904), the Pentecost Islanders of Melanesia (Rivers 1914), and the Oraons of Chota Nagpur (Sarat Chandra Roy 1915). In all three cases the system of kinship terms treats grandchildren as if they were in the same generation as their grandparents, but in each report slightly different aspects of the relation between grandparents and grandchildren are emphasized. Among the Oraons it is the bantering mode of conversation between a man and his granddaughter or greatniece ‘in which the two parties habitually act the part of man and wife’ to which attention is drawn, leading to the conjecture that there was formerly a system of marriage between grandparents and grandchildren. In Pentecost Island the classing of alternate generations together in kinship terminology is ‘connected with an ancient social condition in which it was the normal occurrence for a man to marry the granddaughter of his brother’. Among the Dieri tribe the custom of marriage with a daughter's daughter of the man's own brother was reported as actually in practice.

The Moon as a Symbol of Life and Fertility in Sandawe Thought

Africa ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Ten Raa
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
The Other ◽  
Central Position ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Good And Evil

Opening ParagraphThe Sandawe of central Tanzania speak a click language which shows no relationship with the languages of their Bantu-speaking neighbours, nor with any of the other non-Bantu languages in the neighbourhood; rather, it may be remotely related to the Khoisan languages of South Africa, in particular to Nama Hottentot. Physically the Sandawe differ to a degree from their neighbours, and their closest affinities may again be with Hottentot peoples. Sandawe material culture also differs to a degree from the cultures of their neighbours; like them, the Sandawe have an economy which largely depends on cattle-keeping and horticulture, but it is less sophisticated and their reliance on food-gathering and hunting is still considerably greater. Considering this difference in background it would be not at all surprising if their system of beliefs also showed differences. Comparisons cannot yet be profitably made, however, because little has so far been published about Sandawe religion, except a paper by van de Kimmenade and some details which can be found in the writings of Dempwolff and Bagshawe. In his ethnographic survey Huntingford draws our attention to the lack of knowledge of Sandawe religious beliefs, pointing out that these have been imperfectly recorded; yet he recognizes that the moon (láb′so or !áoso) and the sun (//′akásu) occupy a central position in Sandawe religion, which he summarizes as follows:It appears that the sun and the moon are regarded as supreme beings, and that propitiatory sacrifices are made to the ancestral spirits who can do both good and evil to mankind.

European and Bantu Languages in South Africa

Africa ◽  
1939 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 308-319
Author(s):  
C. M. Doke
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe future of the Bantu languages in South Africa is a question often discussed both by Europeans interested in them and by thinking Natives who use them. The ideas and views expressed on this question are extremely varied, for the subject has its economic and political aspects as well as its natural and cultural aspects, and to-day there is a tendency, particularly among the educated and semi-educated Natives, to stress the economic and political at the expense of the other aspects.

The Linguistic Prehistory of Southern Africa: Bush, Kwadi, Hottentot, and Bantu Linguistic Relationships

Africa ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. O. J. Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Traditional Language ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Language Areas ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Opening ParagraphThe languages dealt with in this paper are Bush ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’, Kwadi, Hottentot, and about 20 Bantu language groups, comprising more than 50 distinct dialects. It is concerned with pre-Bantu history and the Bush, Kwadi, and Hottentot languages, but material on Bantu is included for the following reasons: (a) The information relevant to a discussion of the peopling of Southern Africa by Bantu-speaking peoples is scattered in the available literature or is not available at all, and, (b) Bantu traditional lore has something to say on the subject of pre-Bantu indigenous peoples of Southern Africa, and there must therefore be some evaluation of the relationship of modern and early Bantu languages and an attempt must be made to define their recent and early traditional language areas.

The Lingua Franca of the Middle Congo

Africa ◽  
1943 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 118-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Guthrie
Keyword(s):  
Central Section ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphFrom time to time there have appeared in this journal notes on the lingua franca spoken along the central section of the River Congo. On the usual principle of discarding the prefix in referring to the names of Bantu languages, this lingua franca has been called Ngala. In this case, however, we are obliged to retain the prefix to avoid confusion, as there exists in this area more than one language whose name is derived from this stem.

The Kinship Terminology of a Group of Southern Ibo

Africa ◽  
1954 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. W. Ardener
Keyword(s):  
Local Variation ◽  
Specific System ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Culture Area ◽  
The Social ◽  
Extreme Degree ◽  
Absolute Identity ◽  
The One ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Kinship Terminology

Opening ParagraphFull descriptions of the kinship terminology of the Ibo of south-eastern Nigeria are rare. One important reason for this is that, although the basic principles of kinship organization are similar over much of the Ibo culture area, terminology reflects, on the one hand, the extreme degree of dialect variation and, on the other hand, local variation in details of the kinship organization itself. Such variations occur sometimes over a very few miles. Certainly there is no single Ibo kinship terminology; there is only in a broad sense one southern Ibo terminology; while the area which can be said to have one terminology in the narrowest sense of an absolute identity of every term is often very restricted. Although this situation may be confusing to the investigator, it is not necessarily so to the Ibo. Every Ibo is conversant with kinship terms within and often far beyond the radius in which he may seek a wife, just as he is aware of dialectal variations in any other field of terminology. Thus it is that terminology in the literature has tended sometimes to be dialectally eclectic as well as incomplete. The growing body of publications in Ibo, both in the Onitsha and the Central dialects, also illustrates this tendency when kinship relationships are mentioned. It would therefore seem to be worth while to record one specific system of terminology in detail, within the social context of its area.

The Tones of Prefixes in Common Bantu

Africa ◽  
1954 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-54
Author(s):  
A. E. Meeussen
Keyword(s):  
Special Form ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Class 1 ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThose Bantu languages which show the greatest number of correspondences in their concord systems have three kinds of prefixes:1. Nominal prefixes, with m- in classes 1, 3, 4 and 6; they are used in nouns, locatives (as pre-prefixes), and adjectives.2. Pronominal prefixes, usually without m- in classes 1, 3, 4, 6 and without forms for 1st and 2nd person (except in the personal pronoun); they appear in all other concording words except principal (i.e. non-relative) verb forms.3. Verbal prefixes, usually without m- in classes 1, 3, 4, 6, with forms for 1st and 2nd person, and often with a special form in class 1 (e.g. a- as opposed to the pronominal prefix u- or yu-); they obtain as subject-prefixes in the principal verb forms.

Psychisches Befinden, Beschwerden und Belastungen: Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen Studie

2011 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sören Schmidt ◽  
Franz Petermann ◽  
Manfred E. Beutel ◽  
Elmar Brähler
Keyword(s):  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Patient Health Questionnaire ◽  
Health Questionnaire ◽  
Klinische Praxis ◽  
Psychisches Befinden ◽  
Patient Health

Zusammenfassung. Die Erfassung von Beschwerden und der Befindlichkeit sind wesentlicher Teil eines klinisch-diagnostischen Prozesses. Da Angststörungen und Depressionen in hohem Maße mit verschiedenen psychischen und körperlichen Belastung einhergehen, wurden in dieser Studie primär die prädiktiven Eigenschaften der Beschwerden-Liste (B-LR) und der Befindlichkeits-Skala (Bf-SR) in revidierter Form mittels Regressionsanalysen (linear und hierarchisch) an einer Stichprobe von N = 2504 untersucht. Als abhängiges Kriterium galt die Ausprägung von Angst- und Depressionssymptomen, ermittelt über das Kurzscreening Patient-Health-Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4). Da vermutet wurde, dass entsprechende Symptome auch einen Einfluss auf die Qualität sozialer Beziehungen des Betroffenen haben und die globale Lebenszufriedenheit beeinflussen, wurden zudem das Quality of Personal Relationships Inventory (QRI) sowie der Fragebogen zur Lebenszufriedenheit (FLZM) eingesetzt. Sowohl B-LR als auch Bf-SR verfügten über alle Altersgruppen und geschlechtsinvariant über hohe prädiktive Eigenschaften. Die Qualität sozialer Beziehung (QRI) eignet sich nicht zur Vorhersage von Angst und Depressionen. Globale Lebenszufriedenheit nimmt in der Altersgruppe 14–74 gegenläufig zum Anstieg von Angst- und Depressionssymptomen signifikant ab, in der Altersgruppe der ⩾ 75-jährigen Männern leistet diese jedoch keinen signifikanten Beitrag zur Varianzaufklärung. Bei den Frauen dieser Altersgruppe geht eine Erhöhung der Lebenszufriedenheit mit der Zunahme von Angst- und Depressionssymptomen einher. Die Ergebnisse lassen den Schluss zu, dass der Einsatz von B-LR und Bf-SR eine gute Informations- und Handlungsbasis für Forschung und klinische Praxis darstellen. Die unterschiedlichen Tendenzen innerhalb der Analysen zwischen Männern und Frauen weisen auf geschlechtsspezifische Verarbeitungsmechanismen hin. In höherem Alter sollte die Ausprägung von Beschwerden Indikator für die Ermittlung weiterer Ressourcen darstellen, um einen positiven Einfluss auf die Lebenszufriedenheit auszuüben.

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