Examination of a set of non-Bantu Niger-Congo languages shows that most are aspect-prominent languages, that is, they either do not encode tense —the majority case— or, as the quotation indicates, there is reason to think that some have added tense to an original aspectual base. Comparative consideration of tense-aspect categories and morphology suggests that early and Proto-Niger-Congo were as...

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup L2 originated in Western Africa but is nowadays spread across the entire continent. L2 movements were previously postulated to be related to the Bantu expansion, but L2 expansions eastwards probably occurred much earlier. By reconstructing the phylogeny of L2 (44 new complete sequences) we provide insights on the complex net of within-African migrations in t...

A case of xeroderma pigmentosum with associated band-shaped nodular dystrophy of the cornea is discussed. Band-shapped nodular dystrophy of the cornea usually occurs in elderly Bantu men. Band-shaped nodular dystrophy in a young Bantu man suffering from a genetically determined solar sensitive disease lends credence to the possibility that band-shaped nodular dystrophy is a solar sensitive dise...

In this paper, we carry out a combined analysis of autosomal (ten microsatellites and an Alu insertion), mitochondrial (HVR-1 sequence, 360 nucleotides) and Y-chromosomal (seven microsatellites) variation in the Mbenzele Pygmies from the Central African Republic. This study focuses on two important questions concerning the admixture and origin of African Pygmies. Ethnographic observations sugge...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate whether a secular trend in growth occurred during the last century in Pygmies from Cameroon (West Pygmies) and in Bantu rural farmers, the latter being studied to serve as controls. DESIGN The evolution in height of West Pygmies and Bantu farmers from 1911 to 2006 was evaluated using data from the literature as well as data gathered by our re...

The existing literature on Bantu verbal semantics demonstrated that inherent semantic content of verbs pairs directly with the selection of tense, aspect and modality formatives in Bantu languages like Chasu, Lucazi, Lusamia, and Shiyeyi. Thus, the gist of this paper is the articulation of semantic classification of verbs in Kiswahili based on the selection of TAM types. This is because the sem...

In rural Tanzania, recent major influences happen between Kiswahili and English to ethnic languages rather than ethnic languages, which had been in contact for so long, influencing each other. In this work, I report the results of investigation of lexical changes in indigenous languages that aimed at examining how ethnic communities and their languages, namely Cushitic Iraqw, Nilotic Datooga, N...

This paper describes the implementation of Finite State methods, fsm2 in particular, in automatic analysis of Bantu nouns in one of the under resourced languages, Runyakitara. This is the first effort towards computational analysis of Runyakitara. A detailed description of Runyakitara noun classes and how they were analysed using fsm2 is given. In the current state of developing the system, 80%...