The Bantu poetic traditions: Interfaces between language and versification

Authors

  • Emiliano Minerba University of Bayreuth

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the versification practices of four Bantu languages—Swahili, Tswana, Zulu and Chewa—in a comparative perspective. This comparison is based on the fact that the suprasegmental phonologies of these four languages share a common feature, penultimate lengthening. It will be claimed that penultimate lengthening is the main linguistic feature that organises the line in the poetic traditions taken into account. As a linguistic phenomenon, penultimate lengthening shows some variation in its function among the four languages: it will be shown that this corresponds to analogous variations in the versification practices. The ultimate aim of this paper is to encourage further research in the field of stylistics of Bantu poetic traditions, a domain where joint work between linguists and scholars in literary studies could lead to innovative and fruitful results.

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Author Biography

Emiliano Minerba, University of Bayreuth

Emiliano Minerba graduated at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” in 2017. In 2018 he started his PhD research in joint agreement between “L’Orientale” and the University of Bayreuth. He completed his PhD thesis, Comparative historical analysis of Swahili and Wolof metrical systems, in 2022. Currently he is working at the University of Bayreuth as a post-doc in the frame of the PhiGe project (“Philosophy and Genre: Creating a Textual Basis for African Philosophy”). Beyond Swahili and Wolof poetic traditions, other research interests of his are modern Swahili and Wolof literatures, particularly theatre, and oral poetries, especially in the Bantu area.

Emiliano can be contacted at: emi.nerba@proton.me

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Published

2025-01-20

Issue

Vol. 28 No. 2 (2024): Kervan 28/2

Section

Articles

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