3 ms·

> so-called "Bantu" languages Are you implying that Bantu languages don't exist?

by jgwil2 5y ago

bruce511 5y ago
I can't speak for the original poster, but Bantu as a word has pergoritive associations, which mean it's not commonly used today. In South Africa during apartheid, Bantu was used as a synonym for Black. The "self governing" regions were known as Bantustans and so on. Like with most words, Bantu has a neutral actual meaning, but it's been corrupted by use and would not typically be used by a polite (white) person today - at least in Southern Africa.
- rvense 5y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know that. In linguistics, it is the common (only) word for the family of languages that Swahili belongs to.
  - antonvs 5y ago
    Linguists may need to pay a bit more attention to their own use of language. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30564864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30564864 (Ignore the first sentence)
antonvs 5y ago
I think you may have an incorrect understanding of the meaning of "so-called". See: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/so-called https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/so-called Beyond that, "Bantu" is a colonial term, coined by German colonist Wilhelm Bleek. Bleek has been described as "the first serious thinker about and systematic theorist of ‘race’ in colonial South Africa." He studied African languages but called them "primitive", comparing them to the communication of non-human primates. Not surprisingly given this history, the word "Bantu" was notoriously used by the apartheid government of South Africa as a catch-all term for indigenous people, regardless of their actual ethnicity. But somehow, linguists haven't gotten any of these memos and continue to use the term to describe a family of languages. That may be because Western linguistics has deeply racist roots: > Western linguistics particularly its study of Eurasian languages, arose against a background of Eurocentrism, colonial racism, nationalism and related theories, later espoused by Nazism and other White Supremacy movements. The following article argues that significant traces of this racism remain in contemporary Indology and South Asian lingustics—casting a long shadow over how the world is viewed. -- https://www.jstor.org/stable/48505004 https://www.jstor.org/stable/48505004
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  > But somehow, linguists haven't gotten any of these memos and continue to use the term to describe a family of languages. That may be because Western linguistics has deeply racist roots Or, because linguists aren’t crazy Twitter-obsessed kids who want to purify everything.
  - antonvs 5y ago
    Tucker Carlson would be proud of you for that take.
    - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
      Am I supposed to feel guilt by association because of that?
- jgwil2 5y ago
  > I think you may have an incorrect understanding of the meaning of "so-called". Read my original comment as, "don't exist as a category." > Beyond that, "Bantu" is a colonial term, coined by German colonist Wilhelm Bleek. Per wikipedia, he came up with the name Bantu from a hypothetical reconstruction of the word "people" in the proto-Bantu language. So regardless of his politics or ideology, the term itself seems rather innocuous in origin. Having said that, if it has picked up racist connotations, feel free to suggest an alternative term. The "so-called Bantu language family" seems rather unwieldy.

> so-called "Bantu" languages Are you implying that Bantu languages don't exist?

by jgwil2 5y ago

> so-called "Bantu" languages Are you implying that Bantu languages don't exist?

I can't speak for the original poster, but Bantu as a word has pergoritive associations, which mean it's not commonly used today. In South Africa during apartheid, Bantu was used as a synonym for Black. The "self governing" regions were known as Bantustans and so on. Like with most words, Bantu has a neutral actual meaning, but it's been corrupted by use and would not typically be used by a polite (white) person today - at least in Southern Africa.

rvense 5y ago
Interesting, I didn't know that. In linguistics, it is the common (only) word for the family of languages that Swahili belongs to.
- antonvs 5y ago
  Linguists may need to pay a bit more attention to their own use of language. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30564864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30564864 (Ignore the first sentence)

antonvs 5y ago

I think you may have an incorrect understanding of the meaning of "so-called". See: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/so-called https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/so-called Beyond that, "Bantu" is a colonial term, coined by German colonist Wilhelm Bleek. Bleek has been described as "the first serious thinker about and systematic theorist of ‘race’ in colonial South Africa." He studied African languages but called them "primitive", comparing them to the communication of non-human primates. Not surprisingly given this history, the word "Bantu" was notoriously used by the apartheid government of South Africa as a catch-all term for indigenous people, regardless of their actual ethnicity. But somehow, linguists haven't gotten any of these memos and continue to use the term to describe a family of languages. That may be because Western linguistics has deeply racist roots: > Western linguistics particularly its study of Eurasian languages, arose against a background of Eurocentrism, colonial racism, nationalism and related theories, later espoused by Nazism and other White Supremacy movements. The following article argues that significant traces of this racism remain in contemporary Indology and South Asian lingustics—casting a long shadow over how the world is viewed. -- https://www.jstor.org/stable/48505004 https://www.jstor.org/stable/48505004

LudwigNagasena 5y ago
> But somehow, linguists haven't gotten any of these memos and continue to use the term to describe a family of languages. That may be because Western linguistics has deeply racist roots Or, because linguists aren’t crazy Twitter-obsessed kids who want to purify everything.
- antonvs 5y ago
  Tucker Carlson would be proud of you for that take.
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    Am I supposed to feel guilt by association because of that?
jgwil2 5y ago
> I think you may have an incorrect understanding of the meaning of "so-called". Read my original comment as, "don't exist as a category." > Beyond that, "Bantu" is a colonial term, coined by German colonist Wilhelm Bleek. Per wikipedia, he came up with the name Bantu from a hypothetical reconstruction of the word "people" in the proto-Bantu language. So regardless of his politics or ideology, the term itself seems rather innocuous in origin. Having said that, if it has picked up racist connotations, feel free to suggest an alternative term. The "so-called Bantu language family" seems rather unwieldy.