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In:Historical Linguistics 2023: Selected papers from the 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics,Heidelberg, 4-8 September 2023
Edited by Jadranka Gvozdanović
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 371] 2026
► pp. 312–337

Historical linguistics and Ubuntu Translanguaging

Towards a model of multilingualism, language change and linguistic convergence in the Bantu linguistic area

 | SOAS University of London
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Bantu languages are a well-established African language group with an extensive research tradition. However, questions remain of how to best understand the history behind today’s complex linguistic variation found among Bantu languages. In this chapter I propose that this is due in part to a methodological bias in the study of Bantu languages, and in historical linguistics more generally, arising from the inception of the field at a particular time in Western intellectual history. This bias favours inheritance over contact, divergence over convergence, and European (perceived) monolingual linguistic ecologies over multilingual ecologies. In order to address this bias, I introduce the model of Ubuntu Translanguaging (Makalela 2016) and propose that it provides the conceptual architecture for a more balanced and comprehensive understanding of the historical linguistics of Bantu languages and beyond.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: Two case studies
    • 2.1Centre-periphery effects among five Bantu languages (Marten et al. 2007)
    • 2.2Comparing East African Bantu languages (Gibson et al. 2019)
  • 3.Inheritance, contact, and convergence in Bantu linguistics
  • 4.Wissenschaftsgeschichtliche critique
  • 5.Ubuntu Translanguaging: An alternative model
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Author queries
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (71)
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