The Bantu languages of the Eastern Caprivi: A dialectometrical analysis and its historical and sociolinguistic implications

Abstract

This paper develops hypotheses about historic and sociolinguistic interrelationships between the different Bantu language varieties in the Caprivi, based on phonological and lexical proximities which are established through a statistical method called dialectometry (cf. Möhlig, 1982 and Guarisma & Möhlig, 1986). Because the linguistic and ethnic situation in the Caprivi is highly heterogeneous, the statistical proximities between the language varieties are not converted into a classification of the language varieties. Instead, the resulting historic and sociolinguistic implications will be put into relation with the differing claims about linguistic and ethnic affiliations in the Caprivi already encountered in the literature.