1887
Volume 9, Issue 1
  • ISSN 2210-2116
  • E-ISSN: 2210-2124
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

This paper deals with the historical relations between dialects of Boni, a Cushitic language of Kenya and Somalia. Boni forms the subject of Volume 10 of the (Heine & Möhlig 1982). Heine presents evidence for three subgroups within Boni, as well as several areas of convergence between dialects belonging to different proposed subgroups. In reviewing his evidence, I find that two of the three splits are not supported by the data, and therefore his conclusions on convergence must also be reinterpreted. Given the presence of numerous intersecting isoglosses, the tree diagram is an inappropriate model for describing the relations between Boni dialects, and I turn to Historical Glottometry (Kalyan & François 2018) to provide a visualization of the data.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/jhl.18009.eli
2019-07-02
2025-01-21
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Anttila, Raimo
    1989Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 10.1075/cilt.6
    https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.6 [Google Scholar]
  2. Bryant, David & Vincent Moulton
    2003 Neighbor-Net: An Agglomerative Method for the Construction of Phylogenetic Networks. Molecular Biology and Evolution21:2.255–265. 10.1093/molbev/msh018
    https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msh018 [Google Scholar]
  3. Bryant, David, Flavia Filimon & Russel D. Gray
    2005 Untangling our Past: Languages, Trees, Splits and Networks. The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: Phylogenetic Approachesed. byRuth Mace, Clare J. Holden & Stephen Shennan, 67–83. London: University College London Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. François, Alexandre
    2014 Trees, Waves and Linkages: Models of Language Diversification. The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguisticsed. byClaire Bowern & Bethwyn Evans, 161–189. New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. 2017 Méthode comparative et chaînages linguistiques: Pour un modèle diffusionniste en généalogie des langues. Diffusion: implantation, affinités, convergenceed. byJean-Léo Léonard, 43–82. (= Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, XXIV.) Louvain: Peeters.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Google
    Google (n.d.). [Map of Kenyan coast]. Retrieved onNovember 20th, 2018. Available athttps://www.google.com/maps
  7. Heine, Bernd
    1977 Bemerkungen zur Boni-Sprache (Kenia). Afrika und Übersee LX, ed. byErnst Damman, Ludwig Gerhardt, Ernst Hammerschmidt, Emmi Kähler-Meyer, Hilke Meyer-Bahlburg & Jürgen Zwernemann242–295.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. 1978 The Sam Languages: A History of Rendille, Boni and Somali. Afroasiatic Linguistics, 61–93.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Heine, Bernd & Wilhelm J. G. Möhlig
    1982 Boni Dialect. Language and Dialect Atlas of Kenya: Vol. Xed. byBernd Heine and Wilhelm J. G. Möhlig. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Kalyan, Siva & Alexandre François
    2018 Freeing the Comparative Method from the Tree Model: A Framework for Historical Glottometry. Let’s Talk About Trees: Tackling Problems in Representing Phylogenic Relationships Among Languagesed. byRitsuko Kikusawa & Lawrence Reid, 59–89. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Meinhof, Carl
    1912Die Sprachen der Hamiten. Hamburg: Abhanglungen des Hamburgischen Kolonialinstituts.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Ross, Malcolm
    1988Proto-Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Sasse, Hans-Jürgen
    1979 Entlehnung morphophonemischer Regeln im Boni. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika1.93–108.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Schmidt, Johannes
    1872Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der indogermanischen Sprachen. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Simons, Gary F. & Charles D. Fennig
    2017Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twentieth Edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Available atwww.ethnologue.com
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Stiles, Daniel
    1988 Historical Interrelationships of the Boni with Pastoral Peoples of Somalia and Kenya. Kenya Past and Present20.38–45.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/jhl.18009.eli
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/jhl.18009.eli
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Boni dialectology; Historical Glottometry; wave model
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error