SIL Electronic Book Reviews 2004-011
URL: http://www.sil.org/silebr/silebr2004-011
Ikalanga phonetics and phonology: A synchronic and diachronic study
Stanford Monographs in African Languages. Stanford, Calif.: CSLI Publications, 1999. Pp. 342. hardback $34.95. ISBN 1575861631.
Reviewed by William Gardner
SIL International and Pan Africa Christian College
In this revision of her 1996 Unversity of California-Berkeley Ph.D. dissertation, the author has described the phonetics and phonology of Ikalanga, a southern Bantu language of the Shona group, spoken mostly in eastern Botswana but also in far western Zimbabwe. Ikalanga is separated from the other Shona languages (e.g., Karanga, Zezuru, Ndau) by Ndebele (a Zulu language) and has been influenced by both Ndebele and Setswana, the national language of Botswana.
This is a great resource book, with plenty of data, especially in the lengthy appendices B (“Ikalanga Verb Paradigms,” including high and low tone stems with various prefixes) and C (“Ikalanga-English Lexicon,” including Bantu noun classes).
Interesting discussions include palatalization (chapter 4), velarization (chapter 5), aspiration (chapter 6), and "depressor consonants" (i.e., all voiced obstruents and the “breathy voiced” consonants [pʱ tʱ tsʱ ɦ kʷʱ ɦʷ]) and their effect on tone (chapter 7).
I found the descriptions of various morphophonological processes most helpful, including Bantu Class 5 noun prefixes and derivational suffixes (diminuitive, causative, passive), since I have studied similar “consonant mutations” in Ndau and other Shona languages. In addition, there is a helpful discussion in chapter 3 of the effect of Proto-Bantu “close vowels” (higher than /i/ and /u/) on various stops, summarized well in appendix A. Chapter 2 is a good discussion of various proposed consonant inventories for Ikalanga, with the author then proposing her own.
I did find some aspects of the book to be less helpful. There are several typos and spacing problems. The discussion of “dialects” in the introduction speaks of dialects of Ikalanga (not presented very well) as well as dialects of Shona (including Ikalanga). Chebanne’s Ikalanga consonant inventory in table 2 is poorly organized, with some consonants misplaced (e.g., /j/ and /c/ should be listed together, probably under affricates, rather than under different points of articulation), while others are missing (e.g., /dz/, /kh/, /h/).
I also felt the author’s “proposed Ikalanga consonant inventory” makes an unnecessary distinction between velarized stops and labialized stops. While there is a phonetic distinction, there is no contrast phonologically. Also, the discussion on vowel cooccurrence patterns in disyllabic and trisyllabic stems is unclear or inaccurate in some places.
Overall, however, this is a very rich resource, especially useful for linguists who work with one or more Bantu languages, as well as for students of (morpho)phonology, since many of the sound processes that occur in Ikalanga, whether synchronically or diachronically, also occur in other Bantu languages.