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The thrust of this paper lies on semantic changes associated with
additive and substitutive borrowing in Bantu-speaking
communities in Tanzania. Due to contact of languages, semantic
differences of the terms related to architectural structures
emanate. Apart from data from a few elderly native speakers,
research was carried out with the help of undergraduate students
of linguistics. Further linguistic materials analysed herein come
from dictionaries and lexicons. Although retention of the proto-
Bantu words are apparent, findings indicate that cases of additive
borrowing are obvious for new concepts associated with new
architectural structures. The additive Swahili names incorporated
into Tanzanian Bantu tend to designate specific concepts
associated with modern (contemporary) architectural senses such
as mulango ‘modern door’ vs. luigi ‘traditional entranceway’.
Cases of substitutive borrowing are rare, as demonstrated by the
Swahili word dirisha ‘window’ which replaces chitonono in
Chimakonde, echihúru in Runyambo, ilituulo in Kinyakyusa etc. |
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