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Article published In: Linguistics in the Netherlands 2024
Edited by Marco Bril and Kristel Doreleijers
[Nota Bene 1:2] 2024
► pp. 133–150

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When words sail through the desert

The Songhay layer in Wolof

 | Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
 | Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Radboud University Nijmegen.

Published online: 24 January 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/nb.00013.bou
Abstract
Wolof is generally classified as a North-Atlantic language within the Niger-Congo phylum. However, despite a considerable number of cognates ( 2021b. Cognates between Northern Atlantic Groups and Bantu. (Draft).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), this classification is more of a working hypothesis than a demonstrated fact. Linguists such as Wilson, William A. A. 1989. Atlantic. In John Bendor-Samuel & Rhonda L. Hartell (eds.), The Niger-Congo Languages: A classification and description of Africa’s largest language family, 81–104. Lanham MD, New York and London: University Press of America.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and Lüpke, Friederike. 2020. Atlantic. In Rainer Vossen & Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of African Languages, 161–173. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar consider that the Atlantic group resembles more an areal/typological class rather than a genealogical unit, thus pointing to intense dynamics of language contact in the area. In this paper, as a follow-up of Bourdeau, Corentin & Luis Miguel Rojas-Berscia. 2023. The contact-based emergence of the subject-focus construction in Wolof: A dynamic perspective. Linguistics in the Netherlands 40(1). 4–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, we focus on a potential Wolof-Songhay non-genetic connection, based on triangulation (q.v. Kuorikoski, Jaakko & Caterina Marchionni. 2016. Evidential diversity and the triangulation of phenomena. Philosophy of Science 83(2). 227–247. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) between linguistic, historical and archaeological evidence. We further argue that Wolof is a language in layers, resulting from constant polylectal interaction between various peoples of the West Sudan world-system (Kea, Ray A. 2004. Expansions and contractions: World-historical change and the Western Sudan World-System (1200/1000 BC? 1200/1250 AD). Journal of World-Systems Research, 723–816. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Wolof-Songhay lexical parallelisms
    • 2.1Lexical parallelisms with a regular sound change pattern
    • 2.2Lexical parallelisms without regular sound change patterns
    • 2.3Lexical parallelisms between Wolof, Songhay and Fula-Sereer
    • 2.4Morphosyntactic parallelisms, the abstract concept nominalizer
  • 3.Triangulation
    • 3.1Archaeological evidence
    • 3.2Historical evidence
  • Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
References (31)
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