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Notes on Kimakonde

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Frederick Johnson
Frederick Johnson
Affiliation:
Newala, Tanganyika Territory.
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Extract

The Makonde language is spoken by a tribe inhabiting the plateau between the Lukuledi and Ruvuma Rivers (in the southern part of Tanganyika territory), conjointly with the Ndonde, Mavia, Maraba, and (near Newala) the Matambwe, Ngoni, and Makua. With the exception of a short grammatical sketch by the late Bishop Steere and a vocabulary included in Sir H. H. Johnston's Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages, little or nothing relating to this language has hitherto been published. (See Cust, Modern Languages of Africa, ii, 341, where it is called, mistakenly, “Konde.”) A good deal of information as to the above group of tribes is to be found in the works of K. Weule (Negerleben in Ostafrika, 1908, and Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse meiner ethnographischen Forschungsreise, 1908).

Type
Papers Contributed
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , June 1922 , pp. 417 - 466
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1922

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References

page 417 note 1 It must be distinguished from Konde or Ngonde, spoken at the north end of Lake Nyasa. The natives speak of A-Makonde, Chi-Makonde, and A-Makua, I-Makua, which suggests that the MA is a part of the root, though it may be a case of one prefix superimposed on another. Mr. Johnson follows Swahili usage in calling the language “Kimakonde”; the prefix actually used in this language is chi- (ci-).

page 427 note 1 -ohe is also used in the sense of “many” when it has a different tone.

page 428 note 1 In other words these two tenses are distinguished by tone.

page 430 note 1 This form should not have been included among “derivative verbs”. The reflexive pronoun is inserted like any other object pronoun—see above, “Objective Prefixes.”

page 434 note 1 Here the verb is omitted (as in Swahili), being expressed by the pronoun only.

page 435 note 1 This by analogy with other languages should mean “your mother”, as amama “my mother”. These distinctions, still observed in Zulu, tend to become obsolete in the Eastern Bantu languages.

page 461 note 1 Cf., in Swahili, the formula with which tales begin, Paukwa pakawa. See Taylor, , African Aphorisms, p. 108.Google Scholar

page 461 note 2 Properly belonging to Class V—cf. Yao lyuwa, Kinga eli-tsuva, etc. See Vocabulary, where the form liduwa is given as well as iduwa.

page 464 note 1 More probably it is the result of regarding animals as persons—see ante, pp. 418, 421. In the tales both forms of plural occur side by side.