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[ladydoesfieldwork]

Leg rattles in southern African music

Question (@culmaer): I've been slowly making my way through Percival Kirby's book on South African instruments (published in 1934), and I assume the spellings he uses for words from the various 'Khoisan' languages are ad hoc, phonetic transcriptions and not the standardised spellings in use today. part of me was hoping there was maybe a contemporary survey of instruments, or perhaps just easily accessible dictionaries/word-lists I could go through to check the spellings he uses

Kirby mentions ankle rattles made of springbok ears of the "Qung Bushmen" and cites the name from Bleek and Lloyd's Bushman Folk-lore as |keriten. I assume by Qung he means !Kung, but I'm not sure how similar !Kung and |Xam are, or if Kirby is making an attribution error ? nevertheless, are you able to verify that name and spelling ?

then, I'm particularly curious about a springbok horn flute, per Kirby, "used by the Kalahari Bushmen near Haruchas, SWA, [which] they call |garras or |garris" as well as a similar instrument used by the "Berg-Dama" called ǂnunib, although their version apparently stopped the horn with wood to create a more specialised embouchure, which I would love more details on. are these instruments still played ?

!Xun (<!Kung>) and |Xam belong to different language families: !Xun is a Kx’a language spoken along the northwestern Kalahari Basin fringe (northern Namibia, southern Angola, northwestern Botswana). |Xam was Tuu language of the !Ui subbranch which was spoken in the west of South Africa, all the way down to the Cape. |Xam went extinct during the first half of the 20th century, while !Xun is still a vibrant language with multiple dialects. !Xun and |Xam speakers were probably not in contact with each other in historical times, but received both influence from Khoekhoe herders (who speak an unrelated language of the Khoe-Kwadi family).

Kx’a and Tuu are resident language families exclusively spoken by foragers, while Khoe-Kwadi languages were introduced from the east around 2,000 years ago; at present, they are spoken by foragers (“Kalahari Khoe”) and herders (“Khoekhoe” and the extinct Angolan language “Kwadi”).

The ‘leg rattle’ word you cite here seems pretty widespread:

Interestingly, the root *ǀɢani (my reconstruction) is indeed distributed across all three families. The underlying uvular onset (uvularity is still visible in N|uu) is responsible for the sound changes /a/ > /u/ and /n/ > /r/. It is impossible to say which of the three families is the source and I am inclined to believe that this root may be very old and refer to a very widespread cultural practice (i.e., dancing with leg rattles) (this is not to say it is evidence for a “Khoisan” family; just for a very old contact area).

I wonder whether Kirby’s “|garras or |garris” ‘springbok horn flute’ is actually the same root. The word is certainly from Khoekhoe because it has the feminine singular suffix -s. The location where it was recorded, Haruchas, also seems Nama-territory to me, so I strongly doubt this was recorded among “Kalahari Bushmen”. Haacke & Eiseb (2002) have an entry <ǀgȁríb>  ‘quick grass, esp. Cynodon dactylon’, but that does not seem to make a lot of sense here - unless, of course, Kirby got confused and the word he lists actually denotes a grass flute. Damara  ǂnunib appears to be the standard Khoekhoe word for ‘flute, play flute’ (Haacke & Eiseb 2002: 415).

Leg rattles are still very common in many San and San-descendant groups from southern Africa. They are also used by some Bantu groups like the Tswana, probably due to influence from neighboring hunter-gatherers.

In the Botswanan San group I worked with for many years, leg rattles are especially used in ritual performances which are not meant for strangers to witness. However, I have videos from a cultural workshop in which a San group from Zimbabwe performs with leg rattles. I'll share the videos as soon as I am back in office next week.

The Khoekhoe flutes are, to the best of my knowledge, no longer used. I will make a post on that (and the terms associated with the flute ensembles) tomorrow.

[ladydoesfieldwork]

#ok but who shot first 🫣

[ladydoesfieldwork]

Gillian Anderson on set for The X-Files episode "Ice" (1993)

[ladydoesfieldwork]

hi, I know you're not too active on this blog anymore so I hope I'm not bothering. but I was wondering if you had info or sources to share about traditional Khoe and Bushman/San musical instruments ?

I also have a few more specific questions but don't just want to bombard you with them. would you mind if I sent them through in case you can point me in the right direction ?

Hi there,

thanks a lot for the message - and no worries, you're not bothering me at all :-) I once had that idea that I should blog more about my work / fieldwork, but the moment I step into Namibia/Botswana, I usually get so busy meeting people and doing things that I barely pay attention to my mail anymore ;-)

I admit I am not a super big expert on San music, but I do have recordings from various communities (Ts'ixa, Khwe, ||Ani and Tjwao) and I have a rough idea of the literature. Just go ahead with your questions and I see whether (and how) I can help you.

[ladydoesfieldwork]

At this point, I honestly don’t understand linguists anymore who work with a single informant in town, completely cut off from the speech community. I understand that it can be hard without transport, electricity, etc., but apart from the ethical importance of involving more than a small number of (young) speakers, an artificially created working environment can seriously distort the result.

For example, there is a fine line between borrowing and code switching/bilingualism, and unless you really immerse yourself into community life, you cannot distinguish one from the other.

[ladydoesfieldwork]

So I’m just going to give a small reading list with links for languages in Africa, because apparently it’s “hard” to find introductory resources even if they’re niche. So:

• “The Languages and Linguistics of Africa” (2018); Güldemann ed.

• “Beyond ‘Khoisan’: Historical Relations in the Kalahari Basin” (2014); Güldemann & Fehn ed.

• “ The Bantu Languages (Second Edition)” (2019); Van de Velde, Bostoen, Nurse, & Philippson ed.

• “Egyptian-Coptic Linguistics in Typological Perspective” (2015); Grossman, Haspelmath, & Richter

• “Dotawo: Journal of Nubian Studies (vol. 1)” (2014); Jakobi, Ruffini, & van Gerven Oei ed.

• “Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes” (2016); Blackwood, Lanza, & Woldemariam ed.

• “Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages” (2011); Dimmendaal

• “Nilo-Saharan: Models and Descriptions” (2015); Mietzner & Storch ed.

Of course, this doesn’t cover the entire breadth (minus Güldemann 2018) and there does need to be a degree of critical reading that’ll surely lead you to a plethora of other paths and so forth—but I chose these mainly because of either their broad reach, or their familiarity. Like I said, they’re good starting points and just always remember Nilo-Saharan is not a valid phylum. Also, yes these are all works from the 2010’s but all of them do require again, critical reading! I cannot say that enough.

I could list for days the grammars I myself would recommend and am in possession of but if those are what you’re looking for, message me an ask or something and I’ll see what I got.

[ladydoesfieldwork]

I’ll be doing a thing online:

“Extralinguistic Factors in the   Development of Typological Rarity”

Thursday 23 July, 09:00–10:30 (WIB)  The time and date are given in West Indonesian Time, see this link for conversion to your local time.

Feel free to join.

Abstract:

Some languages show many cross-linguistically “rare” or typologically “unusual” features. It has been suggested that extralinguistic factors like speaker community size or community isolation play a role in the raise and maintenance of such cross-linguistically rare features. In this talk, I will present a way to quantify “rarity” and evaluate how the presence or absence of rare features may correlate with speaker community size.

[ladydoesfieldwork]

[ladydoesfieldwork]

Hi everyone,

first of all - sorry for the long silence (not going into details here, but life can be a bitch sometimes)! I hope you’re all safe and well.

Anyways, I can announce that I actually started recording a series of short lessons on southern African “Khoisan” and will start to upload them soon.

I am also currently involved in setting up an online network with weekly talks (and other events) on southern African languages and cultures. We’re currently focusing on Bantu and Khoisan languages and their speech communities, but in the long run, we hope to involve researchers and students from history, genetics and archaeology as well. Talks start on July 23, and we already have an exciting program for August/September. If you’re interested in receiving the newsletter and Zoom links for the talks, message me and I’ll put you on the list.

Stay safe, everyone!

[ladydoesfieldwork]

For those of you who speak/understand German, I highly recommend listening to Johannes Krause’s talk “Die Reise unserer Gene”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh2GfytNMAE

[ladydoesfieldwork]

This is really great - thanks for sharing!

I recommend the talks by Salikoko Mufwene and Daniel Everett :-)

I am sure many of you already know about the lectures by the Brazilian Linguistics Society but I only found out about them yesterday, so I thought I'd share them here too! Enjoy :)

[ladydoesfieldwork]

I submitted a project on quantifying borrowings in a contact zone :-)

It became a bit tiring in the end, particularly because of technical difficulties, but everything went well and I feel I have the best collaborators in the world.

Thanks, MPI EVA Leipzig, you may no longer host a linguistics department, but I still owe you my (academic) life!

[ladydoesfieldwork]

I just discovered that the concept of ‘to marry’ is expressed by xae-ǁʔãĩ ‘to buy sex’ in the extinct Khoekhoe language !Ora (formerly spoken by pastoralists along the Orange River in South Africa).

[ladydoesfieldwork]

Quick introduction to Bantu languages

just a quick selection of videos/sources for people who don’t know much about the Bantu languages of Africa, but are curious to learn more. note that many languages on the continent are spoken across borders in multiple countries, nevertheless I’ve added flag emoji to give an idea of where they’re spoken or the dialect being referenced

1)   ORIGINS

the “Proto-Bantu” language was likely spoken in the area around Nigeria/Cameroon. then, between 3000BCE-1000BCE the Bantu peoples migrated into much of the African continent, reaching South Africa (Natal) in around 500CE.

the Bantu languages are represented by the pink area on the map below. they’re (distantly) related to the other Niger-Congo languages (like Mandé, Dogon, Yorùbá, &c.), but are not related to the languages spoken in the blank parts of Africa. some famous Bantu languages include : Swahili 🇹🇿, Zulu 🇿🇦, Xhosa 🇿🇦, Shona 🇿🇼, Lingala 🇨🇩, Kikongo 🇨🇬.  artistically, the Lega 🇨🇩, Chokwe 🇦🇴 and Fang 🇬🇶 are well-known internationally for their masks, the Makonde 🇲🇿, Lozi 🇿🇲 and Nyakyusa 🇲🇼 for their pottery, and the Ndebele 🇿🇦 for their beadwork and colourful houses

2)   LINGUISTIC FEATURES

Bantu languages are generally agglutinating, and feature extensive noun-class (≈gender) systems. See the videos below for further demonstrations/ explanations of this.

despite the stereotype about “African languages”, Bantu languages do not normally have click sounds. the exceptions are Xhosa, Zulu 🇿🇦 and Sotho 🇱🇸, which gained click phonemes by coming into contact with Khoe and San languages in southern Africa

the “whistled” consonants in Shona 🇿🇼 and Tsonga 🇲🇿 are also really interesting : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGAz166-NjQ (sorry I can’t seem to add another video)

3)   QUICK INTRO — by Tim Doner (4 mins), comparing Swahili 🇹🇿, Kinyarwanda 🇷🇼 and Xhosa 🇿🇦

(towards the end Tim makes a small typo in the Xhosa gloss. he breaks it down as *N—diya… instead of Ndi—ya…, but his point is still correct though)

4)   SWAHILI 🇹🇿🇰🇪 — Grammar overview by Langfocus (13 mins)

5)   LINGALA 🇨🇩🇨🇬 — Pronoun overview by Treceigh (4:30 mins)

notice how in the example sentences, Lingala seems to follow a similar pattern to Swahili and the other languages discussed in Tim and Paul’s videos. even though here, each particle is written separate from the verb root

6)   QONGQOTHWANE “THE CLICK SONG” — performed by Miriam Makeba (Xhosa 🇿🇦)

7)   DISCO MATANGA (YAMBAKHANA) — Sauti Sol ft. Sho Madjozi (Luhya 🇰🇪, Swahili 🇹🇿 and Tsonga 🇿🇦)

7)  XHOSA MEMRISE COURSE

https://www.memrise.com/course/1572/xhosa-an-intro/

This course is very well structured. on the desktop version of Memrise, every lesson is preceded by a short grammar explanation, which gives a really nice sense of how the language works. (on the Memrise app you can only do the vocab/flashcards)

8)   SEE ALSO

The languages of South Africa 🇿🇦

Overview of Tshivenḓa phonology 🇿🇦

Siswati: Linguistic Diversity Challenge 🇸🇿 by @languagessi​

Xhosa phrases for summer 🇿🇦

Sesotho vegetarian vocab 🇱🇸 🇿🇦

9)   MORE MUSIC

Miriam Makeba (above), Oliver Mtukudzi and Papa Wembo (below) are three of the Legends of African music

uMama — Sjava (Zulu 🇿🇦)

Vul’indlela —  Brenda Fassie, performed by Siki Jo-An (Zulu 🇿🇦)

[yt] Jamaa — Rita Ange (Kinyarwanda 🇷🇼)

[yt] Analengo — Papa Wembo (Lingala 🇨🇩)

[yt] Ngaibake — Freeman (Shona 🇿🇼)

[yt] Neria — Oliver Mtukudzi (Shona 🇿🇼)

[yt] John Cena — Sho Madjozi (Swahili 🇹🇿)

[yt] Dumi hi phone — Sho Madjozi (Tsonga 🇿🇦)

Ngeke balunge — Mafikizolo (Xhosa 🇿🇦)

[ladydoesfieldwork]

One of the biggest problems in drawing historical conclusions on the basis of synchronic data is clearly researchers who are quick to make generic statements based on a small number of under-documented languages, none of which they have an intimate knowledge of.

Once the available knowledge about these languages increases, the same researchers start to bring up “language loss” and “incompetence of the speakers” to defend their previous conclusions, many of which are clearly not compatible with the growing empirical evidence.

[ladydoesfieldwork]

Thanks a lot for your replies, everyone! I think with 18 people interested, I’ll definitely give it a shot. I thought about making a series of ~20 min videos, starting by an introduction to “Khoisan” in general, touching on research history and classification history, then make an intro to the Khoe-speakers of the Okavango River and Delta (aka Khwe and Ts’ixa), and eventually move on to the language (I’ll probably talk about both Ts’ixa and Khwe, they are pretty similar anyways).

Would anyone be interested in me recording an online class on Khwe or Ts’ixa (both Kalahari Khoe, part of “Khoisan” aka “African click languages”)?

I have materials for both languages which I prepared for several university seminars I taught over the years. It’s not exactly a language class that will teach you how to speak, but depending on who’s interested, I could make it a little more “popular”, for example make a bigger introduction on Khoisan, click sounds, etc.

If you are interested, please like or message me with details on what you’d like to see.

[ladydoesfieldwork]

Would anyone be interested in me recording an online class on Khwe or Ts’ixa (both Kalahari Khoe, part of “Khoisan” aka “African click languages”)?

I have materials for both languages which I prepared for several university seminars I taught over the years. It’s not exactly a language class that will teach you how to speak, but depending on who’s interested, I could make it a little more “popular”, for example make a bigger introduction on Khoisan, click sounds, etc.

If you are interested, please like or message me with details on what you’d like to see.