Comparative Bantu: An Introduction to the Comparative Linguistics and Prehistory of the Bantu Languages, vol. 1-4

Description

Malcolm Guthrie's classic work on comparative Bantu, published from 1967 to 1971, with extensive listing of cognates and reconstructive work. This work also set the Bantu letter areas (A, B, C, D...), originally intended as merely preliminary. This scan was made in 2012 and is missing the last few content sections of volume 4, amounting to about 30 pages. Various irrelevant pages, mostly empty ones, have also not been included. "It is quite certain that this project would never have been completed without the generous research facilities made available to me by the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, in the form both of research visits to Africa and of work with speakers of various Bantu languages in London. It is also clear to me that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to bring a work of this kind to a successful conclusion in a different environment. The fact that academic administration has constantly eroded the time available for this work has inevitably meant a progressive delay in completing it." - Gurthrie, 1967