The Mbugu (or Ma'á) language (Tanzania) is one of the few genuine mixed languages, reputedly combining Bantu grammar with Cushitic vocabulary. In fact the people speak two languages: one mixed and one closely related to the Bantu language Pare. This book is the first comprehensive description of… read more
The paper discusses a shift in the number system of Proto-Tanzanian Cushitic from the word for “three” to mean “four”, and the one for “two” to mean “three”. This shift was brought about by contact between an incoming group of northern Cushitic speakers and the already present group of Tanzanian… read more
Body part terminology has been studied cross-linguistically, but there are few studies on the typology of body actions. We present a pilot for a typological study of body action lexicalization taking the action of “yawning” as a test case. We look into the morphological properties of words for… read more
Iraqw has a number of morphological means to derive nouns from verbs. All of these can develop specific meanings but it is the nominalisation that expresses the action of the verb that allows for the expression of arguments, irrespective of the actual nominalisation morpheme. These arguments… read more
Swahili has transformed the noun mpaka ‘boundary, border’ into a function word ‘until’, which has successfully spread to many other East African languages with locative and temporal readings. The grammaticalisation originated in a N-N construction without an associative ‘of’ interpreted as… read more
Youth ‘languages’ are an important topic of research in the domain of linguistic change through language contact because the change is rapid and observable and also because the social dimension of change is inevitably present. Engsh, as a youth language in Kenya expresses not only modernity and… read more
