Much is already known about the prosodic systems of the indigenous South African languages from descriptions and analyses in the existing literature. All of the existing work has been carried out in the field of African studies or formal linguistics. In order to be able to implement the generalisations obtained into computational models in speech processing, the existing sources and results mus...

Locative inversion (LI) is a construction that is very prominent in Bantu languages. It involves inversion of a locative with the logical ⁄ thematic subject. The inversion is accompanied by a reversal of grammatical functions whereby the locative becomes the subject. LI is associated with a special discourse function, that of presentational focus. Within Bantu there is quite some variation, esp...

When two nominal constituents are in a relation of dependency in the Bantu languages, the syntactically dependent constituent is usually introduced by a relator. In Bantu studies this relator is called connective (also associative, genitive or connexive) element (or pronoun, clitic, prefix, marker or particle). The order is HEAD (R1) RELATOR (REL) DEPENDENT (R2). R1 and R2 are short for first a...

Major metabolic effects of human growth hormone (HGH) were assessed in the African Babinga pygmy. Plasma free fatty acid (FFA) and glucose concentrations were measured in pygmies, HGH-deficient dwarfs, Bantu tribesmen, and Caucasian controls after each received 4 mg of HGH intravenously over a 20 min period. Pygmies had an early decrease of plasma FFA and glucose concentration, but did not exhi...

Interindividual variation of human mitochondrial DNA has been extensively studied over the last two decades, and its usefulness for reconstructing evolutionary relationships of extant populations has been proved. However, some mitochondrial lineages still need to be studied using a combination of larger and tailored datasets and increased level of resolution in order to shed light on their orig...

Pygmy hunter-gatherers from Central Africa have shared a network of socioeconomic interactions with non-Pygmy Bantu speakers since agropastoral lifestyle spread across sub-Saharan Africa. Ethnographic studies have reported that their diets differ in consumption of both animal proteins and starch grains. Hunted meat and gathered plant foods, especially underground storage organs (USOs), are diet...

BACKGROUND Schistosomiasis and strongyloidiasis cause substantial morbidity and mortality among hundreds of millions of infected persons worldwide. In the United States, these infections are most commonly found among international travelers, immigrants, and refugees from areas of endemicity. Refugees resettled to the United States since 2000 include >3800 "Lost Boys and Girls" of Sudan and 8000...