Bantu Words in American English

Montclair State University Department of Anthropology
Anth 140: Non Western Contributions to the Western World

Dr. Richard W. Franke
Bantu Words in American English

Week 11 Lecture 02
African Contributions Part 4
This lecture was last updated on 15 November, 2014
11/15/2014

Bantu Words in American English:

The learning objectives for week 11 part
02 are:
to understand the main facts about the
slave trade as they help to understand
African contributions to the Americas
to learn some of the ways in which African
Bantu languages have influenced the
development of American English
2


Terms you should know for week 11 part 02
are:
Middle passage
Bantu languages
Slang
Play the dozens: the "dozens" is a form of competitive
poetry common among African Americans. It is
probably the origin of rap and has its own origin in the
Bantu languages of Africa where competitive poetry is
also common.
3

Anth 140: Non Western Contributions to the Western World: Dr. Richard W. Franke

Week 11 Additional Sources: : Updated 2011
Curtin, Philip D. 1969. The Atlantic Slave Trade; a Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press.
Eltis, David and David Richardson. 2010. Atlas of the Atlantic Slave Trade. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.
http://slavevoyages.org

Bantu Words in
American English
The Week 11
Lecture 02 is
based primarily on
Vass, Winifred
Kellersberger. 1979. The
Bantu Speaking Heritage of
the United States. University
of California at Los Angeles.
Center for Afro-American
Studies. Monograph Series.
11/15/2014
No. 2.

1. The English language is the most

important language in the world today.
360 million native speakers
Up to 1.5 billion who speak English as a
second language
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2. English spoken in widely different parts of the

world
Spread largely because of British empire, once
the worlds largest
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3. The wide geographic spread of English

over the past 400 years has led to
regional accents and vocabulary
differences from original, British
English.
4. We have Jamaican English, Indian
English, South African Englishand
11/15/2014

5. American English
6. American English was influenced by
about 200 words from Native
Americans as we noted earlier in the
course: including the names of about
26 US states. We saw examples in week
06.
11/15/2014

7. Many New Jersey place names are also

from Native American words:
Watchung [hill]
Kittatinny [great hills]
Hackensack [a local clan name]
Wanaque [place where the sassafrass
grows]
11/15/2014
10

8. You can look up New Jersey place

names and their origins at:
http://www.getnj.com/origname/origintro.
shtml
Native American names are highlighted
in red and are translated into English.
11/15/2014
11

9. American English differs from British

English:
A lorry is a truck.
A lift is an elevator.
A fortnight is two weeks.
A chemist is a person who works in a
drugstore.
A dual carriageway is a divided highway.
11/15/2014
12

9. American English has received minor

influences from many immigrant
groups and their languages:
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13

10. French:
la carte
Adieu
Au pair
Chic
Prairie
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14

11. Spanish
Canyon
Mesa
Ranch
Albino
armada
11/15/2014
15

12. Dutch
Kill [small streams in NYC area]
Stoop
Hock
Brandy
Apartheid
Decoy
11/15/2014
16

13. German
Hamburger
Wiener
Kindergarten
Delicatessen
Diesel
11/15/2014
17

14. Italian
Umbrella
Bank
Ghetto
Graffiti
America
11/15/2014
18

15. Russian
Bistro
Pogrom
Vodka
Steppe
11/15/2014
19

16. Yiddish
Schmooze
Chutzpah
Kvetsch
Nosh
Nudnik
11/15/2014
20

17. Arabic
Admiral
Alcohol
Algebra
candy
Genie
Mafia
magazine
Mattress
Zero
11/15/2014
21

18. Hindi
Bangle
Cot
Dungaree
Jungle
Shampoo
sugar
11/15/2014
22

19. Farsi (Persian; Iranian)

Caravan
Azure
Khaki
Serendipity
Tiger
11/15/2014
23

20. Chinese
Ginseng
Chow mein
Ketchup
Kowtow
Tea
11/15/2014
24

21. Japanese
Bonsai
Origami
Honcho
Futon
Tofu
11/15/2014
25

22. Dravidian [South Indian] languages

Pariah
Teak
Curry
Atoll
Mango
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26

22a. Ancient Egyptian

Pyramid
Desert ( from ancient Egyptian deser
meaning red)
Paper (from Egyptian papyrus)
diamond
11/15/2014
27

Update: 15 November, 2014

22b. Hawaiian
Aloha
Hula
Ukulele
Wiki (as in a wiki or Wikipedia)
Wiki means fast in Hawaiian. For more info on
how Wikipedia got its name, click here.
11/15/2014
This slide was added on 15 November, 2014
28

Foreign Words in American English

22c. If you like this kind of thing, you can surf around
for all kinds of English words of origins you might
not have expected:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_English_words_of_f
oreign_origin
11/15/2014
29

23. Less well known is the influence of

the African languages on English
particularly American English
11/15/2014
30

Bantu Words in
American
English
24. The Bantu

languages
are widely
distributed
in Africa.
11/15/2014
31

25. There are estimated to be 310 million

speakers of Bantu languages
26. A few years ago a woman named
Winifred Kellersberger was studying at
UCLA.
11/15/2014
32

27. She had grown up the daughter of

Christian missionaries in Zaire, Central
Africa [where the Ishango Bone was
found]
28. Kellersberger was trilingual in
English, French [ the government
language in Zaire]and
11/15/2014
33

29. Tshilubaa Bantu language spoken

by her African schoolmates and
common in Katanga Province of Zaire.
30. Tshiluba has 47% Bantu based

vocabulary.
11/15/2014
34

31. Kellersberger was struck by the

resemblance of some of the phrases
used by her African American
classmates at UCLAthey sounded a
bit Bantu.
32. So, she decided to study Bantu
influences on American English for her
Ph D dissertation.
11/15/2014
35

33. There hardly could have been a better

fit between student and study.
34. Kellersberger developed a logical
design for her research:
11/15/2014
36

35. Bantu words came into English via

the slave trade.
36. Therefore the slave trade had to bring
Bantu speakers into the US
37. Andshe had to find a mechanism to
explain how Bantu words would get
borrowed into English.
11/15/2014
37

38. Lets begin with the slave trade you

already know some things about it from
the reading for this week topic 01, the
African rice contributions as described
in Judith Carneys book and the lecture
for this week on African rice.
11/15/2014
38

Slave Trade Facts: Updated 2011
39. How Many Came?

See Week 11
Lecture 01 (on African rice)
Slides 6575
for the basic facts now updated and
more detailedthen
11/15/2014
39

Slave Trade Facts

40. By about 1850 1/3 of all Africans lived outside
Africa.
41. Who were the traders?
Portuguese
Dutch
British
Cubans
11/15/2014
Spanish
French
North Americans
Brazilians
Some local Africans
40

Slave Trade Facts
42. Who supported the slave trade?

In 1808, the US Congress outlawed the
slave trade. Merchants were able to
continue slave trading in the New World
until 1870. Slavery was abolished legally
within the United States in 1865 by the
13th Amendment to the Constitution.
11/15/2014
41

Slave Trade
Facts
43. From where
did they
come?
From
1701 to
1810
about
59%
came
from
West
Africa:
Senegam
11/15/2014
bia,
42

Anth 140: Non Western Contributions to the Western
World
Slave Trade Facts

44. From where
else?
The other
41% came
from the
coast of
Angola
(Angola=
Gullah, the
name of the
Sea Island
peoples off
the U. S.
Georgia
11/15/2014
coast) and
43

Slave Trade Facts
45. What languages did they speak?

A large proportion spoke types of Bantu
The peak US slave importing years were
1741-1810, coinciding with the period
when most slaves imported came from
Bantu speaking areas, especially Angola.
11/15/2014
44

Slave Trade Facts
46. . Where did the slaves go in the New

World?
North America:
7%
(U. S.5%)
Caribbean:
42%
South America
49%
11/15/2014
45

Slave Trade Facts

47. Some of the
major Bantu
languages are:
11/15/2014
Kongo
Lwena
Rundi
Swahili
Shona
Zulu
Tshiluba
Bemba
46

Slave Trade Facts
48. Kellersberger discovered that Bantu

languages are a more likely source for
American English words than are West
African languages, even though slightly
more West African slaves came to the
US overall.
11/15/2014
47

Slave Trade Facts
49. The reason is that Bantu languages

have more common features among
themselves than do the more diverse
West African languages and thus the
Bantu speakers had more opportunities
to share common words on the slave
plantations.
11/15/2014
48

Slave Trade Facts
50. This meant they could maintain parts

of their vocabulary against the
pressures of the plantation culture to
abandon their languages and learn
English only.
51. While some West African grammatical
forms came to influence black English
in the US, Bantu words became
11/15/2014
49
absorbed into both black and white

Bantu Words in American Englsih
52. Kellersberger also came up with a

social mechanism to explain language
adoption:
53. Conquerors tend to impose their
vocabulary at the top of the status
hierarchy of a language: the high
language.
11/15/2014
50

54. For example, French words are

high words in English because, after
AD 1066, William the Conqueror
imposed French via the English court
and aristocracy. Anglo-Saxon words
are the roots for coarse and filthy talk.
(All dirty four letter words in
English are Anglo-Saxon; none are
11/15/2014
51
French.)

55. Bantu words in American English had

to make their way up from the bottom
of the status hierarchy, and therefore
we see them mostly in the arena of
what we call slang.
56. The word slang is officially of
unknown origin.
11/15/2014
52

11/15/2014
53

11/15/2014
54

Anth 140: Non Western Contributions to the Western World: Dr. Richard W. Franke
Engli
sh
Word
English Meaning
Mooc To pilfer; to
h
acquire by petty
thievery
Bantu
Word
Bantu
Meaning
Umush
a
To remove
from its place
I refuse the
slander
Play
the
doze
ns
Slander ones or
anothers parents
Mpala
disong
uela
Ruck
us
Noisy commotion
Lukash Loud
i
clapping,
shouts
Tote
Carry, pick up
Tota
11/15/2014
Yam
Red sweet potato
Lift, carry,
pick up
Nyambi Sweet potato
55

End of Week 11
Lecture 02
African Contributions Part 4
11/15/2014
56

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Montclair State University Department of Anthropology

Anth 140: Non Western Contributions to the Western World