Prehistoric Bantu-Khoisan language contact

Abstract

Click consonants are one of the hallmarks of "Khoisan" languages of southern Africa. They are also found in some Bantu languages, where they are usually assumed to have been copied from Khoisan languages. We review the southern African Bantu languages with clicks and discuss in what way they may have obtained these unusual consonants. We draw on both linguistic data and genetic results to gain insights into the sociocultural processes that may have played a role in the prehistoric contact. Our results show that the copying of clicks accompanied large-scale inmarriage of * BP is grateful to the labex aslan (anr-10-labx-0081) of Université de Lyon for its financial support within the program "Investissements d' Avenir" (anr-11-idex-0007) of the French government, operated by the National Research Agency (anr). HG acknowledges financial support from Ghent University that funds her PhD research. KB is grateful to the Special Research Fund (bof) of Ghent University for financing his research professorship. We furthermore thank Carina Schlebusch and two anonymous reviewers as well as Jeff Good for their insightful comments on a previous version of this manuscript.

Genetic structure and sex‐biased gene flow in the history of southern African populations

“…During the early phase of contact between agro‐pastoralists and foragers, the survival of the newly arrived food producing societies in an unfamiliar habitat is probably heavily dependent on the knowledge of autochthonous foragers, and as such their contact might be more egalitarian. It has been suggested that Bantu languages of the Kavango‐Zambezi transfrontier region that have incorporated click consonants might have acquired them during this more egalitarian phase, when Khoisan populations had higher social status (Pakendorf, Gunnink, Sands, & Bostoen, ). Later, as Bantu groups became more established and less dependent on local knowledge, they became more socially dominant, and hence sex bias increased in intensity due to the establishment of sociocultural taboos (Destro‐Bisol et al, ).…”

Unraveling African diversity from a cross‐disciplinary perspective

“…These groups have until recently led a hunter‐gathering way of life; however, other means of subsistence occur as well, for example, the cattle and sheep pastoralism found among the Khoekhoe or the “peripatetic” lifestyle of the Damara . The Khoe‐San have high linguistic, cultural, and genetic diversity, and some groups still preserve their hunter–gatherer lifestyle in remote and isolated areas . Presentations also brought insights into on‐going anthropological and genetic endeavors to encourage investigations of descendants of the earliest southern Africans who are still essentially “forgotten” by the authorities and the scientific community…”

“…11 The Khoe-San have high linguistic, cultural, and genetic diversity, and some groups still preserve their hunter-gatherer lifestyle in remote and isolated areas. 12,13 Presentations also brought insights into on-going anthropological and genetic endeavors to encourage investigations of descendants of the earliest southern Africans who are still essentially "forgotten" by the authorities and the scientific community. 14 The conference also reexamined ancient urban assemblages and complex spatial and sociopolitical organization at Great Zimbabwe and other Iron Age archeological sites in Africa.…”

Cross-Modality Information Transfer: A Hypothesis about the Relationship among Prehistoric Cave Paintings, Symbolic Thinking, and the Emergence of Language

“… 15 A piece of evidence for the borrowing of consonantal clicks into Bantu languages is the absence of clicks in Bantu languages outside the area where Khoisan languages are found ( Pakendorf et al, 2017 ). Furthermore, genetic analyses of populations indicate that there was a prehistoric contact between Khoisan and Bantu-speaking populations.…”

“…For instance, Barbieri et al (2013) undertook an extensive genetic study of the Bantu population in order to elucidate the nature of the borrowing. Their analysis favors “admixture in the maternal line between some of the Bantu groups from Zambia and Khoisan-speaking populations,” suggesting that the borrowing took place through “incorporation of Khoisan women” into the Bantu population; a conclusion endorsed by Pakendorf et al (2017) .…”