Cover not available
Part of
Anthropological Linguistics: Perspectives from Africa
Edited by Andrea Hollington, Alice Mitchell and Nico Nassenstein
[Culture and Language Use 23] 2024
► pp. 83–103

Chapter 4
Mouths, tongues, and ears

Source concepts for ‘language’ across Africa

| University of Cologne
| University of Cologne
This paper investigates words for ‘language’ and their possible source concepts in 130 African languages. Radden (2001) noted that words for ‘language’ almost always draw on more basic meanings and proposed a metonymic chain from (i) speech organs to (ii) speaking as activity to (iii) speech as “object” to (iv) language. Our sample provides additional evidence for these semantic pathways, showing that ‘tongue’ and ‘mouth’ are important source concepts for ‘language’ across Africa, as well as concepts relating to speech. After summarizing the survey results, we consider the novel extension ‘ear’ to ‘language’ in Datooga. While frequently attested metonymic processes point to widespread conceptualizations of language as embodied, we nonetheless find cultural variation in which aspects of speech behavior provide conceptual material for words for ‘language’.
Keywords: language, metonymy, semantic typology
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data collection and coding strategies
  • 3.Cross-linguistic findings
  • 4.‘Language’ in Datooga
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 1 February 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/clu.23.04mit
References (30)
References
Alio, K., & Jungraithmayr, H. (1989). Lexique bidiya: Une langue centre-africaine (République du Tchad). V. Klostermann.Google Scholar
Bagasheva, A. (2017). Cultural conceptualisations of mouth, lips, tongue and teeth in Bulgarian and English. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), Advances in cultural linguistics (pp. 189–221). Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. (1971). A method of semantic description. In D. D. Steinberg & L. A. Jakobovits (Eds.), Semantics. An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics, and psychology (pp. 436–471). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Doke, C. M., D. M. Malcom, J. M. A. Sikakana, & B. W. Vilakazi. (1990). English Zulu–Zulu English dictionary. Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Echeruo, M. J. C. (1998). Igbo-English dictionary. A comprehensive dictionary of the Igbo language, with an English-Igbo index. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, N., & Wilkins, D. (2000). In the mind’s ear: The semantic extensions of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language, 76(3), 546–592. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goddard, C. (2011). The lexical semantics of language (with special reference to words). Language Sciences, 33(1), 40–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goddard, C., & Wierzbicka, A. (2014). Words and meanings. Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goosens, L. (2009). Metaphtonymy: The interaction of metaphor and metonymy in expressions for linguistic action. Cognitive Linguistics, 1(3), 323–342. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hammarström, H., Forkel, R., Haspelmath, M., & Bank, S. (2020). Glottolog, 4(3). Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hauck, J. D., & Heurich, G. (2018). Language in the Amerindian imagination: An inquiry into linguistic natures. Language & Communication, 63, 1–8. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Irvine, J. T., & Gal, S. (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. V. Kroskrity (Ed.), Regimes of language; ideologies, polities, and identities (pp. 35–83). School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Irvine, J. T., & Gunner, L. (2018). With respect to Zulu: Revisiting ukuHlonipha. Anthropological Quarterly, 91(1), 173–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jing-Schmidt, Z. (2008). Much mouth much tongue: Chinese metonymies and metaphors of verbal behaviour. Cognitive Linguistics, 19(2), 241–282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M., & Lakoff, G. (2002). Why cognitive linguistics requires embodied realism. Cognitive Linguistics, 13(3), 245–263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, R. M. (2010). Dictionnaire Boo-Français-Anglais: Avec index Français-Boo. Lincom.Google Scholar
Kari, E. E. (2008). Degema-English dictionary with English index. Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.Google Scholar
Lüpke, F., & Storch, A. (2013). Repertoires and choices in African languages. De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Makoni, S., & Mashiri, P. (2007). Critical historiography: Does language planning in Africa need a construct of language as part of its theoretical apparatus? In S. Makoni & A. Pennycook (Eds.), Disinventing and reconstituting languages (pp. 62–89). Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Mitchell, A. (2015). Words that smell like Father-in-Law: A linguistic description of the Datooga avoidance register. Anthropological Linguistics, 57(2), 195–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moroz, G. (2017). lingtypology: Easy mapping for Linguistic Typology. [URL]
Newman, P., & Schuh, R. G. (2016). Hausa language names and ethnonyms. Journal of African Languages & Linguistics, 37(2), 185–200. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Core Team. (2020). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved on 21 June 2023 from [URL]
Radden, G. (2001). The folk model of language. metaphorik.de, 1, 55–86.Google Scholar
Radden, G. & Kövecses, Z. (1999). Towards a theory of metonymy. In K.-U. Panther & G. Radden (Eds.), Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 17–59). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rongier, J. (1995). Dictionnaire français-éwé. Suivi d’un index éwé-français. A.C.C.T.Google Scholar
Rottland, F. (1982). Die südnilotischen Sprachen. Beschreibung, Vergleichung und Rekonstruktion. D. Reimer.Google Scholar
Streeck, J., Goodwin, C., & LeBaron, C. (Eds.). (2011). Embodied interaction. Language and body in the material world. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sweetser, E. E. (1992). English metaphors for language: Motivations, conventions, and creativity. Poetics Today, 13(4), 705–724. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wei, L. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Völkel, Svenja, Sambulo Ndlovu & Nico Nassenstein
2023. Naming and labelling contexts of cultural importance in Africa. International Journal of Language and Culture 10:2 ► pp. 145 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.