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Formality and Informality in Yao Speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Extract

Yao is a Bantu language spoken by about 100,000 people in Southern Tanganyika; by nearly a third of a million people in Nyasaland, and by a much larger but unspecified number in Portuguese East Africa. Grammatical studies of the language as spoken in Nyasaland have been made by Sanderson (1922) and Hetherwick (1902), and Sanderson's Dictionary appeared in 1954. Anthropologically the Nyasaland Yao have been intensively studied by Professor J. C. Mitchell, but the Tanganyika section has remained largely unstudied, either by linguists or anthropologists.

Résumé

FORMALISME ET NON-FORMALISME EN PARLER YAO

En yao, langue bantoue de l'Afrique Centrale, de nombreux substantifs dans les classes personnelles, Classes ½, sont associés à deux groupes de préfixes tout à fait distincts; ceci s'étend également aux adjectifs, possessifs, pronominaux et verbaux.

Sur le plan sémantique, ces préfixes sont associés respectivement avec le ‘formalisme’ et le ‘non-formalisme’; le premier implique le respect, la gêne, ou même l'aversion et l'autre l'affection ou l'absence de gêne.

Les préfixes paraissent intervenir dans trois domaines: les préfixes formels se présentent, par exemple, lors d'échanges entre les membres de générations voisines, également entre des personnes qui ne se connaissent pas, ainsi que, d'une manière générale, lorsqu'on s'adresse à d'autres personnes. D'une façon parallèle les préfixes non-formels se préentent lors d'échanges entre les membres de générations alternantes, ainsi que dans des situations caractérisées par une forte tension émotive. Ils se présentent également d'une façon tout à fait générale lorsqu'on fait allusion à des tiers.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1961

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References

page 135 note 1 A Yao Grammar, Sanderson, G.M., 1922 : A Hand-book of the Yao Language, A. Hetherwick, 1902.Google Scholar

page 135 note 2 A Dictionary of the Yao Language, G. M. Sanderson, Govt. Printer, Zomba, 1954.Google Scholar

page 135 note 3 See, for example, Seven Tribes of Central Africa, ed. Colson, Elizabeth and Gluckman, Max, Oxford, 1951 (Essay on the Yao of Southern Nyasaland)Google Scholar; The Yao Village, Manchester University Press, 1956Google Scholar, in which there is also a Bibliography of material dealing with the Yao.

page 135 note 4 See, however, the article by Lamburn, R. G. P., ‘Notes on the Yao ’, Tanganyika Notes and Records, No. 30, 1950.Google Scholar

page 135 note 5 Sanderson, op. cit. (1922) notes on pp. 116–17 the occurrence of ‘plural ’ forms in respect, ‘… the use of the plural in Yao for the sake of uchimbechimbe (“politeness”)…’. Note that the Tanganyika form of this word is lucimbicîmbi.

page 135 note 6 The opposite of this is jwákúmányá, and this is applied to the person who observes the conventions of speech and action.

page 136 note 1 The orthography adopted here differs from Sanderson in two main respects: the ‘v ’ is adopted for the bi-labial fricative, instead of ‘ŵ ’, and long vowels are doubled. Two level tones are recognized: a high tone (´), and a low or normal tone, unmarked. Rising tones, occurring only on long vowels, are indicated by a high tone over the second mora () or by ˇ over single vowels (ǎ). Where words are cited in isolation, the tone pattern cited is that proper to words followed by silence.

page 136 note 2 Vowels followed by a hyphen are always long, and are not, therefore, doubled.

page 137 note 1 With prefixes na-jacina- and which denote persons, animals and trees.

page 137 note 2 This term is associated with ‘kusyétó ’ which means, Behind the house, ‘the proper place for women ’. Another such term is vákumátúli, associated with the word litúli, Mortar. Such terms are commonly used in ‘formal ’ reference.

page 138 note 1 Associated with the nominal litiwo, the period of instruction for a woman having her first child. The prefix jwá- is also commonly associated with stems cognate with verbal radicals (see 12, 13) and in such cases there is frequently no ‘formal ’ prefix.

page 140 note 1 This term always occurs with a possessive enclitic: mjángú, My friend; mjénú, Your friend; mjétú, Our friend.

page 143 note 1 Note the non-occurrence of informal prefixes and contrast with ‘chief’, II. 21. Informal agreements may, however, occur. In contrast to the situation as described by Mitchell (1951), p. 320, the term occurs for both younger and elder brother, mpwǎnga seems clearly less common than in Nyasaland Yao.

page 143 note 2 No account can be taken here of the complex situations which arise when a kinship term and status is inherited.

page 145 note 1 The plural form of this, vaáli, may be used to refer both to girls and boys, especially during initiation ceremonies.