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Much controversy exists as to the origin of language. Biblical scholars and some linguistic experts believe that all men once spoke a common language. These linguistic experts postulate that the clicking noises used by the Khoisan language family of Africa were once the common speech of all man. On the other hand, linguists who interpret language development from an evolutionary standpoint conclude that primitive man first used hand signals and grunts to communicate. According to this line of thought, these grunts developed into actual language. Obviously, a wide gap exists between simple grunts and the elaborate language systems of today.
Using a Biblical perspective from Genesis 11, the descendants of the Tower of Babel left their home in the Plain of Shinar and emigrated throughout the world. Due to the geographical proximity of the Fertile Crescent of early human civilization to Africa, it seems plausible that some people may have settled in what is now Egypt, near the Nile. These people could have then spread out through Africa. As their speakers migrated and became more isolated, the languages brought from Babel would have eventually changed and developed to become the indigenous languages of Africa. Later, these oral languages would have maturated into written communication.
Most scholars agree that indigenous African languages were greatly influenced by a mass Bantu migration. Bantu, meaning "the people" consists of the stem -ntu, person, and the plural prefix of ba-.1 Bantu is also the name of the language that these migrators spoke. In the last century B.C., Bantu speakers from West Africa migrated throughout the continent, quickly spreading their language, iron smelting techniques, and agriculture to the inhabitants of East and South Africa. The Bantu language then either mixed with or wiped out the indigenous languages.2 Now, almost all modern African languages have some root or connection with Bantu.3
Four major language groups comprise Africa's modern languages. The first group contains the Afro-Asiatic languages, now spoken primarily in North and East Africa. With approximately 240 languages and 250 million people widespread, the Afro-Asiatic languages contain the subfamilies of Chadic, Berber, Egyptian, Semetic, Cushitic, and Omotic. Theory tells us that Ethiopia is the original homeland of the Afro-Asiatic language group. From there, the language was mixed and moved by tribal migrations to become the many diverse languages of modern times. Now, Chadic is spoken around Lake Chad, Berber in North Africa, and Egyptian Coptic in Egypt. Omotic and Cushitic are spoken in the Horn of Africa, primarily Ethiopia and Somalia. Also, as their name suggests, the Afro-Asiatic languages, classified as Semitic, are spoken in the Middle East.4
Writing originated in Ugarit, a Phoenician Afro-Asiatic speaking city in the cradle of civilization, whose prehistory dates to circa 6000 B.C. Discovered and excavated in Syria in 1928, Ugarit held the world's oldest alphabet as one of its primeval treasures. With 30 letters, this alphabet was modified from cuneiform by scribes around 1400 B.C.5 Archeologists found that Ugaritic literature consisted of mostly poetry, with some working lists. Identified works include mythological poems such as "Legend of Keret," the "Legend of Dan-el," the "Myth of Baal-Aliyan," and the "Death of Baal." 6 The Ugaritic language is classified in the major group of Afro-Asiatic and the subfamily of Semitic. Handed down to the Greeks, the Ugaritic alphabet became the parent of modern alphabets.
The second group of languages consists of the largest group of different languages in the world, the Niger-Congo languages. Spoken primarily in West Africa and Central Africa, the Niger-Congo languages include Bantu, the huge family of languages that was distributed throughout Africa by migration.7 As a major subgroup of the Niger-Congo languages, Bantu is spoken by 120 million people throughout Central and East Africa. The Bantu language with the largest number of speakers is Swahili, in East Africa. Other important Bantu languages are Zulu and Xhosa.8 Bantu languages developed in a different manner than Indo-European language groups because of their prefix and suffix orentation and tonality. In Bantu, prefixes and suffixes determine the gender and number of a noun. Also, Bantu nouns have many more classes than simply male, female, and neuter. There are classes for people, relatives, animals, plants, objects, and abstract concepts.9 Another of Bantu's distinguishing features is tonality. By definition, a tonal language or tone language is one in which changes in pitch lead to changes in word meaning. 10 Finally, Xhosa consonants use three different clicks, borrowed from the Khoisan language family. Interestingly, the grammatical characteristics of Bantu languages such as prefixes and tonality are singularly widespread among other African languages due to the addition of Bantu into their development.3
The third group of languages is the Nilo-Saharan languages. As their name suggests, this group is spoken around the Nile and Chari rivers, including Nubia. An interesting aspect of this language group is the Nubian alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet of Ugarit was adapted to become the Greek alphabet. After the Greek invasion of Egypt in the third century B.C., the Greek alphabet was further modified as the Coptic alphabet of Egypt. Then the Nubians developed their own alphabet from their near neighbors, the Egyptians. This Nubian alphabet was used from the eighth to the fifteen centuries A.D. to record mostly Christian documents.11
The final and smallest language group is Khoisan languages, spoken in the Kalahari Desert in south-western Africa. Khoisan derives its name from the Khoi and San ethnic groups. These bushmen were derogatorily named Hottentots or "stutterers" by the Dutch, because of the clicking noises by which they communicated.12 In their languages, fifty click consonants are composed by using three different clicks combined with phonemes. By definition, a phoneme "is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can change the meaning of a word."13 Of these three Khoisan clicks, "the first is the dental click, which is made with the tongue on the back of the teeth, and is the sound represented in English by "tut-tut" or "tsk-tsk" used to reprimand someone. The second is the lateral click, which is made by the tongue at the sides of the mouth, and is similar to the sound used to call horses. The third is the postalveolar click, which is made with the body of the tongue on the roof of the mouth."9 Interestingly, scientists are hypothesizing that the "Khoisan languages could resemble the ancestral tongue of all humankind." They speculate that "all living humans descended from speakers of a click language."14 Could the Khoisan language really have developed so little since the creation of the world?
Afrikaans, although not considered a major language family by linguists, is worthy of mention. Now spoken in South Africa and Namibia, Afrikaans is sometimes referred to as "African Dutch" because of its origin. In the midseventeenth century, settlers from the Dutch East India Company brought this dialect with them. Afrikaans is now a blend of Dutch, German, and English.15
Some African languages developed writing as an alterative to oral communication. Others, such as the Nilo-Sarahan group and the Niger-Congo group, have no writing of their own, except for translations of the Bible using the Latin alphabet.16 Several exceptions to this rule include Zulu, Swahili, Xhosa and Nubian. As previously stated, Nubian uses a modified Greek alphabet. Zulu, Swahili and Xhosa use the Latin alphabet of Europe. So how do these languages with no writing record history and important events? Myths and oral literature are used to instruct and amuse children.
Unfortunately, no one knows the exact linguistic origins of Africa. Speculation by linguistic experts does nothing to satisfy the question of Africa's linguistic diversity. Yet the confusion of Africa's language multiplicity can be understood not by faulty human conjecture but by simple acceptance of the story told in God's Word. The commonality of click consonants can be seen as a result of people emigrating together from Babel to Africa. In the same way, the unifying strand of Bantu prefixes and tonality can be interpreted by the Bantu migration in the last century B.C. Later, as some of these languages developed, alphabets were invented and then modified to fit the phonetic needs of each language. While man formulated and improved alphabets for petty human needs, God was preparing the alphabet to preserve both Old Testament stories and the Good News of the New Testament. Thus God used the evolution of the African languages and alphabets to record the truth of his spoken word.
Quick Quiz:
Bibliography 1 Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. "Bantu languages." World History. 11 Jan. 2004. < http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/B/Bantulan.asp >
2 Hooker, Richard. "Civilizations in Africa: The Iron Age South of the Sahara." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
3 Mills, Wallace G. "Bantu Languages and their Origins." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
4 Wikipedia. "Afro-Asiatic languages." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
5 Wikipedia. "Ugarit." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
6 Wikipedia. "Ugaritic language." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
7 Wikipedia. "Niger-Congo languages." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
8 Wikipedia. "Bantu languages." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
9 Wikipedia. "Xhosa language." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
10 Wikipedia. "Tonal language." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
11 Wikipedia. "Nubian language." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
12 Wikipedia. "Khoikhoi." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
13 Wikipedia. "Phoneme." World History. 11 Jan. 2004. < http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneme >
14 J.T. "DNA hints at origin of all language." World History. 11 Jan. 2004.
15 Wikipedia. "Afrikaans language." World History. 11 Jan. 2004. < http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans >
16 Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. "African languages." World History. 11 Jan. 2004. < http://www.bartleby.com/65/af/Africanlng.html >
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