Proto-Bantu language
Proto-Bantu is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Bantu languages, a subgroup of the Southern Bantoid languages. It is thought to have originally been spoken in West/Central Africa in the area of what is now Cameroon. About 6,000 years ago, it split off from Proto-Southern Bantoid when the Bantu expansion began to the south and east. Two theories have been put forward about the way the languages expanded: one is that the Bantu-speaking people moved first to the Congo region and then a branch split off and moved to East Africa; the other is that the two groups split from the beginning, one moving to the Congo region, and the other to East Africa.
Like other proto-languages, there is no record of Proto-Bantu. Its words and pronunciation have been reconstructed by linguists. From the common vocabulary which has been reconstructed on the basis of present-day Bantu languages, it appears that agriculture, fishing, and the use of boats were already known to the Bantu people before their expansion began, but iron-working was still unknown. This places the date of the start of the expansion somewhere between 3000 BC and 800 BC.
A minority view casts doubt on whether Proto-Bantu, as a unified language, actually existed in the time before the Bantu expansion, or whether Proto-Bantu was not a single language but a group of related dialects. One scholar, Roger Blench, writes: " he argument from comparative linguistics which links the highly diverse languages of zone A to a genuine reconstruction is non-existent. Most claimed roto-Bantu is either confined to particular subgroups, or is widely attested outside Bantu proper." According to this hypothesis, Bantu is actually a polyphyletic group that combines a number of smaller language families which ultimately belong to the Southern Bantoid language family.
Urheimat
The homeland of Proto-Bantu was most likely in the upland forest fringes around the Sanaga and Nyong rivers of Southern Cameroon. It was formerly thought that proto-Bantu originated somewhere in the border region between Nigeria and Cameroon. However, new research revealed that was more likely the original area of Proto-Southern Bantoid, before it spread southwards into Cameroon long before Proto-Bantu emerged.Phonology
Proto-Bantu is generally reconstructed to have a relatively small inventory of 11 consonants and 7 vowels.Consonants
The above phonemes exhibited considerable allophony, and the exact realisation of many of them is unclear.- Voiceless consonants *p, *t, *k were almost certainly articulated as simple plosives,,.
- Voiced consonants *b and *g may also have been fricatives and in some environments.
- *d was a plosive before a high vowel and a lateral before other vowels.
- *c and *j may have been plosives and, affricates and or even sibilants and. is also possible for *j.
Consonant clusters did not occur except prenasalised consonants, which were sequences of a nasal and a following obstruent. They could occur anywhere a single consonant was permitted, including word-initially. Prenasalised voiceless consonants were rare, as most were voiced. The nasal's articulation adapted to the articulation of the following consonant so the nasal can be considered a single unspecified nasal phoneme which had four possible allophones. Conventionally, the labial prenasal is written *m while the others are written *n.
- *mb, *mp; phonemically *Nb, *Np
- *nd, *nt; phonemically *Nd, *Nt
- *nj, *nc; phonemically *Nj, *Nc
- *ng, *nk; phonemically *Ng, *Nk
Vowels
The representation of the vowels may differ in particular with respect to the two "middle" levels of closedness. Some prefer to denote the near-close set as *e and *o, with the more open set represented as *ɛ and *ɔ.Syllables always ended in a vowel but could also begin with one. Vowels could also occasionally appear in a sequence but did not form diphthongs; two adjacent vowels were separate syllables. If two of the same vowel occurred together, that created a long vowel, but that was rare.
Tones
Proto-Bantu distinguished two tones, low and high. Each syllable had either a low or a high tone. A high tone is conventionally indicated with an acute accent, and a low tone is either indicated with a grave accent or not marked at all.Morphology
Noun classes
Proto-Bantu, like its descendants, had an elaborate system of noun classes. Noun stems were prefixed with a noun prefix to specify their meaning. Other words that related or referred to that noun, such as adjectives and verbs, also received a prefix that matched the class of the noun.Maho offers a broad characterization of five types of Bantu concordial systems. Languages descended from Proto-Bantu can be classified into each of the five types.
- Type A: Traditional, strictly formal
- Type B: Traditional with general animate concords
- Type C: Animacy-based SG/PL-marking
- Type D: SG/PL-marking only
- Type E: No concords at all
| Number | Bleek 1869 | Meinhof 1932 | Meeussen 1967 | Guthrie 1971 | Welmers 1974 | Demuth 2000 | Typical meaning |
| 1 | *mʊ- | *mʊ- | *mʊ- | *mo- | *mʊ- | *mʊ- | Humans, animate |
| 2 | *ba- | *ʋa- | *ba- | *ba- | *va- | *va- | Plural of class 1 |
| 3 | *mʊ- | *mʊ- | *mʊ- | *mo- | *mʊ- | *mʊ- | Plants, inanimate |
| 4 | *mɪ- | *mi- | *mɪ- | *me- | *mɪ- | *mɪ- | Plural of class 3 |
| 5 | *dɪ-, *lɪ- | *li- | *i- | *ji- | *lɪ- | *lɪ- | Various |
| 6 | *ma- | *ma- | *ma- | *ma- | *ma- | *ma- | Plural of class 5, liquids |
| 7 | *kɪ- | *ki- | *kɪ- | *ke- | *kɪ- | *kɪ- | Various, diminutives, manner/way/language |
| 8 | *pi- | *ʋɪ- | *bi- | *bi- | *ʋi-, *li- | *ʋi-, *di- | Plural of class 7 |
| 9 | *n- | *ni- | *n- | *nj- | *nɪ- | *n- | Animals, inanimate |
| 10 | *thin- | *lɪ, ni- | *n- | *nj- | *li-nɪ- | *di-n- | Plural of class 9 and 11 |
| 11 | *lʊ- | *lʊ- | *dʊ- | *do- | *lʊ- | *lʊ- | Abstract nouns |
| 12 | *ka- | *ka- | *ka- | *ka- | *ka- | *ka- | Diminutives |
| 13 | *tʊ- | *tʊ- | *tʊ- | *to- | *tʊ- | *tʊ- | Plural of class 12 |
| 14 | *bʊ- | *ʋʊ- | *bʊ- | *bo- | *ʋʊ- | *ʋʊ- | Abstract nouns |
| 15 | *kʊ- | *kʊ- | *kʊ- | *ko- | *kʊ- | *kʊ- | Infinitives |
| 16 | *pa- | *pa- | *pa- | *pa- | *pa- | *pa- | Locatives |
| 17 | *kʊ- | *kʊ- | *ko- | *kʊ- | *kʊ- | Locatives | |
| 18 | *mʊ- | *mʊ- | *mo- | *mʊ- | *mʊ- | Locatives | |
| 19 | *pɪ- | *pi- | *pi- | *pi- | *pi- | Diminutives | |
| 20 | *ɣu- | Putative | |||||
| 21 | *ɣɪ- | Augmentative | |||||
| 23 | *i | Locative |
An alternative list of Proto-Bantu noun classes from Good is as follows:
| Singular | Singular | Plural | Plural | Semantics |
| 1 | *mù- | 2 | *βà- | humans |
| 3 | *mù- | 4 | *mì- | trees, plants |
| 5 | *lì- | 6 | *mà- | mixed/cl. 6 liquids |
| 7 | *kì- | 8 | *βì̧- | mixed |
| 9 | *nì- | 10 | *lì̧-nì- | animals, mixed |
| 11 | *lù- | mixed | ||
| 12 | *kà- | 13 | *tù- | augmentative, diminutive, etc. |
| 14 | *βù- | abstract | ||
| 15 | *kù- | infinitive | ||
| 16 | *pà- | location on | ||
| 17 | *kù- | location at | ||
| 18 | *mù- | location in | ||
| 19 | *pì̧- | diminutive |
Wilhelm Bleek's reconstruction consisted of sixteen noun prefixes. Carl Meinhof adapted Bleek's prefixes, changing some phonological features and adding more prefixes, bringing the total number to 21. A. E. Meeussen reduced Meinhof's reconstructed prefixes to 19, but added an additional locative prefix numbered 23. Malcolm Guthrie later reconstructed the same 19 classes as Meeussen, but removed locative prefix numbered 23.
Hendrikse and Poulos proposed a semantic continuum for Bantu noun classes. Numbers identifying noun classes in the table are referenced from the above table giving a reconstruction of nominal classes.
| Nouns | → | Adjective-like Nouns | → | Adverb-like Nouns | → | Verb-like Nouns |
| 1/2, 3/4, 9/10 | 5/6, 7/8, 11 | 12/13, 19, 20, 21, 22 | 16, 17, 18, 23 | 14 | 15 | |
| Concreteness | Attribution | Spatial orientation | Abstractness |
This arrangement permits the classification of noun classes via nonlinguistic factors like perception and cognition. Hendrikse and Poulos have grouped singular and plural classes together, and created "hybrid positions" between the varying categories.