An Introduction to African Linguistics

An Introduction to African Linguistics is a book which deals with the main features of languages as found mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and more particularly in Bantu languages. As mentioned by one of the authors, "one motivation for writing the book is that, during my graduate studies, I always wished I had access to an introductory book of this nature. Very often, Doug Pulleyblank or Larry Hyman would refer me to certain phonological processes found in some African languages, and I thought it would be helpful if students of African linguistics could have easier access to such examples in an introductory book on African Linguistics. My hope is that this book will prove interesting not only for most linguistics students but also for any linguist or any linguistic sympathizer who will find in this book precious information scattered in various published and unpublished materials not easily accessible." Maybe, what renders the book most unique is the three chapters on Phonology: chapter 3: non tonal phonological processes, chapter 4: tonological processes, chapter 5: exercises on phonological processes. These chapters basically encapsulate the richness of African phonology made available in one single introductory volume. Other chapters are equally interesting. Thus chapter 8, "Notes on the historical linguistics of African languages," provides background material on African languages; chapter 7, "the Syntax of African languages," provides an easy-to-understand explanation of syntactic terms and their illustrations through various African languages. This chapter is a contribution of Pius N. Tamanji together with the sections on "lexical expansion" in chapter 10, "verbal extensions,"and "tense, aspect and mood" in chapter 6.