ENGLISH

A linguistic geography of Africa

By Derek Nurse , Bernd Heine

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2008
ISBN
0521876117, 9780521876117, 1397805218761
LCC
PL8005 .L56 2008
Open Library ID
OL10438132M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
12 MB (12268726 bytes)
Series
Cambridge approaches to language contact
Edition
1
Pages
390\390
Topic
Geography
Time added
2010-05-31 15:29:46

Description

More than forty years ago it was demonstrated that the African continent can be divided into four distinct language families. Research on African languages has accordingly been preoccupied with reconstructing and understanding similarities across these families. This has meant that an interest in other kinds of linguistic relationship, such as whether structural similarities and dissimilarities among African languages are the result of contact between these languages, has never been the subject of major research. This book shows that such similarities across African languages are more common than is widely believed. It provides a broad perspective on Africa as a linguistic area, as well as an analysis of specific linguistic regions. In order to have a better understanding of African languages, their structures, and their history, more information on these contact-induced relationships is essential to understanding Africa's linguistic geography, and to reconstructing its history and prehistory.

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