The expression of Cardinal Directions in the Tanzanian Bantu languages. Occasional Papers in Linguistics (OPiL), University of Dar es Salaam, pp. 1-18.

Expression of the Cardinal Directions in TanzanianBantu Languages

Amani LusekeloDar es Salaam University College of Education

Abstract

This work articulates the linguistic mechanisms used to express the cardinaldirections in the Tanzanian Bantu languages. The conclusions herein arrivedat using the dictionary survey, lexical access approach and discusions withnative speakers. The findings pointed out that speakers of these languagesdemonstrate native abilities to reconstruct the four sides of the world; thenames for cardinal directions differ from language to language based onthe lexicons and the enviroments where the languages are spoken. Forinstance, Bantu languages which are surrounded by waterbodies, such asSwahili and Nyakyusa, adopt water-oriented names while other Bantu focuson the sky and the sun. Despite the differences of the traditional ways ofmaking reference to the cardinal directions, we observe some orderedmechanisms.

1. Introduction1

Migrations and movements from one place to the next have been oneof the inborn behaviours of the mankind. Such migrations andmovements are controlled by the use of different mechanisms,probably the features of the sky being the earliest ones. Suchmigrations and movements are, at least to some extent, governedby the four cardinal directions. In the western civilization, wehave at least four basic cardinal directions; namely, say in

1 This contribution benefited a lot from discussions withcolleagues at Dar es Salaam University College of Education(DUCE) and the discussion during LOT Project Workshop XII. I amgrateful to anonymous reviewers of this journal for commentswhich helped to shape the paper. Many thanks to my Mashami, Gogo,and Nyambo informants. Also, the input from several of my Swahiliand Nyakyusa discussants deserve recognition.

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English, North, South, East and West. These are influential on theindication of the channels towards the movements. This suggeststhat individual societies developed mechanisms to reconstruct thefour cardinal directions. For example, from the literature, weare informed that different languages and language groups of theworld developed independent and self-contained systems ofdescribing cardinal directions (Pasch & Mietzner, 2007). Specificto this paper, in the Bantu language Kwanyama, Otten (2005)claims that there are expressions for the cardinal directions butthey are language-specific.

Also, specific to this paper, Brauner (1998: 29) as in Pasch andMietzner (Ibid) states that in Africa, systems with only threecardinal directions are known in the Bantu languages Zulu, Sotho,Matengo, Hehe, Tonga, and Shona. This is further elaborated bythe fact that even over a period of several centuries many ethnicgroups in Africa remember the direction from where they came,before settling in their present locations. To accentuate this,we may use the Nyakyusa example in Wilson (1958) in that theNyakyusa claim to come from the kululu [North] and their source isrecognized as so. In Nilotic and Ubangian languages, Pasch andMietzner (2007) claim that the significant source concepts forcardinal directions are cosmological and atmospheric features,landmarks, ethnic groups, environment specific features; historyrelated features, body-part terms and right-left orientation aswell as deictic orientations.

However, from the discussions and interviews with the nativespeakers of some of the Tanzanian Bantu languages, it seems thereare no actual labels that are used for the four cardinaldirections in these languages. This is because native speakersseem to be not fully aware of the labels in their languages. Thissituation called for the survey of the cardinal directions insome Bantu languages spoken in Tanzania.

The central thrust of this work, therefore, is the articulationof the linguistic mechanisms used to express cardinal directionsin the Bantu languages of Tanzania. To be focused, we explore thedifferent mechanisms used to designate the four cardinal

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directions: North, South, East and West in seven Bantu languagesspoken in Tanzania.

2. Methodology2

In order to have a better understanding of the directional ideasadvanced in this paper, the methodological procedures used tocollect data for this paper need some explanations. First, it isa word of caution on the sample of the Tanzanian Bantu languages.Only representative Bantu languages of Tanzania, namely Mashami[E62a], Ciruuri [E253(J)], Nyambo [E21(J)], Swahili [G42], Gogo[G11], Chasu [G22], and Nyakyusa [M31] as in Maho (2003) wereselected as the sample3. One would find it easy to counter claimthat of all the eight Guthrie’s referential groups for TanzanianBantu (Maho, 2003), we present data from only groups E, G and M.This is a shortcoming but at least we will see after thediscussion that the findings from this sample are revealing.

With purposeful sampling principles (Cohen et al., 2000), therationale for the choice of these languages is the availabilityof the dictionaries and lexicons (which is the beginning point inthe survey) and the presence of the Bantuists in the office(DUCE) (for primary data collection and discussions). As hintedabove, it should be noted that this sample does not reflect thereality for the 130+/- Bantu languages spoken in Tanzania (Muzale& Rugemalira, 2008). However, I reiterate here, at the end of the

2 Before this contribution reached the shape it has now, we hadhad several informal talks with my colleagues in the departmentof Kiswahili and department of Linguistics and Literature at DUCEon the cardinal directions in Bantu languages like Nyambo, Nata,Ndali and Mashami. From the discussions, disappointingly, itseems there are no actual labels that are used for cardinaldirections in most of the languages in question.

3 I had been able to gather enough data for two languages, namelySwahili and Nyakyusa and the presentation on section 3 revealsthis.

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presentation and discussion; I realized that they provide enoughevidence to generalize for the whole Tanzanian Bantu languages.

Thereafter, three methodological techniques were involved in thegathering of data which is analyzed in this work. First, thedictionaries and lexicons were scrutinized for the representationof the notions for the cardinal directions in lexicons of theTanzanian Bantu4. I should confess here that I benefited a lotfrom the English-Native Language-Swahili approach as tracing thefour cardinal labels was easy.

The second methodological approach was through lexical accesstechnique. Borrowing from psycholinguistics, this procedure isused to gather data from native speakers (cf. Berman & Slobin,1994; Slobin, 2004) where by the speakers are asked to list thewords on that topic, in our case cardinal directions, withoutconsultations but with easiness and clarity. The assumption isthat native speakers of the languages will mention quickly thewords because they are available in the lexicon of the languageand used now and then. If the lexicons do not possess the labelsthen the native speakers will find difficulties to trace thewords.

The third technique employed was through discussions with thenative speakers of the Tanzanians Bantu languages about the usesof the terms. Here some sentential uses of the labels weregathered. Also, further information about the oriental sources ofthe names was elicited.

3. Expression of the Cardinal Directions in the SampleLanguagesIn this section, we will present the different mechanisms used toexpress the cardinal directions in each individual language. Inorder to depict the actual usage of these terms, all the gathered4 I would suggest that my purpose in this paper bears someutilitarian goal of the LOT project because the dictionaries andlexicons produced by the project are partly meant to be sourcesof data for linguists.

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data, comments from informants, and ideas from discussants willbe provided here. But first we get the dictionary data whichforms the benchmark for the elicitation of the other terms usedin each language, then data from informants will be provided, andlastly the comments from informants are provided. Notice alsothat these, in fact, will form an elaborate benchmark for thediscussion that follows in section 4.

Individual Bantu languages make use of their own mechanisms todesignate the four cardinal directions, as evidenced by Kwanyama(Otten, 2005). Such a claim is also evident in data from theseven languages in my sample. However, as we will see in hefollowing, some differences are also attested in the samplelanguages.

3.1 NyakyusaIn the English-Nyakyusa-Swahili dictionary by Knut Felberg, the followingcardinal directions for Nyakyusa are provided (Felberg, 1996).

(1) (a) kwitongo5, kumalundi ‘south’kululu ‘north’

(b) kubusokelo ‘east’kubujongelo ‘west’

The discussion with Nyakyusa speakers revealed that the terms in(1) above are commonly used in the day to day conversations by

5 David Massamba (pers. comm., May 2010) suggests that the wordtongo in Bantu means ‘deserted homesteads’. This seems to suggestthat the Nyakyusa speakers seem to have come from the southbecause they refer to their home of origin with the cardinal namekwitongo. However, this claim may not hold true because in theanthropological literature, the Nyakyusa are suggested to havecome from the north (cf. Wilson 1958; Ellison 1999, amongothers). Also, the nearest label for deserted homesteads would bethe Nyakyusa verbs taaga or leka (Felberg 1996: 67, 94, 159)which have not received the tongo notion in the dictionary.Nevertheless, this idea needs detailed investigation which mightbe an area for future research.

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the native speakers. But it will be evident in the followingdiscussion that two of the labels are authentic traditional namesthat mark the north-south distinction and the other two areverbal which mark the east-west distinction. The cardinal namekumalundi is associated with the body parts, specifically lundi‘leg’. This will be discussed in detail in the paragraphs below.

Further, the discussions with the native Nyakyusa speakersrevealed that, together with the traditional names in (1) above,the language has three other mechanisms used to designate thedifferent cardinal directions, namely the sun, geographicalfeatures and ethnic groups. These are discussed in detailimmediately below.

3.1.1 Traditional cardinal names and verbal expressionsAs pointed out above, two traditional names are used by Nyakyusapeople to designate two cardinal directions. The North is calledkululu and the South is kwitongo. The original of these terms isyet to be fully explored.

Also, in Nyakyusa, there is a possibility to indicate northwarddirections using verbs co-occurring with kwitongo ’South’ andkululu ‘North’. Such expressions indicate that the direction ofthe movement is southwards, as in (2a) or northwards (2b)respectively.

(2) (a) Aba-sukulu ba-buuki-ile kw-itongo2-student 2PL-go-Perf 17-south‘Students moved/went southwards’

(b) Aba-sukulu ba-buuk-ile ku-lulu2-student 2PL-go up-Perf 17-north‘Students moved/went northwards’

Furthermore, in Nyakyusa, there is a practice of using thedescending verb suluka ‘go down’ and ascending verb fyuka ‘go up’to indicate the direction towards South, as in (3a) and North, asin (3b) respectively.

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(3) (a) Aba-sukulu ba-sulwik-e (kw-itongo)2-student 2PL-descend-Perf 17-south‘Students moved/went southwards’

(b) Aba-sukulu ba-fyuk-ile (ku-lulu)2-student 2PL-ascend-Perf 17-north‘Students moved/went northwards’

The optionality of the names of the cardinal directions kwitongoand kululu is hooked to the fact that the inherent features ofthe Nyakyusa verbs suluka and fyuka mark southwards andnorthwards respectively. Therefore, with or without the cardinalnames the sentences remain grammatical and the interpretationswill be movements southwards (3a) and northwards (3b).

3.1.2 The sunThe sun ranks among the most productive sources for orientationterms, particularly for those denoting East and West. Forinstance, in (1b) above, the given terms kubusokelo ‘east’ andkubujongelo ‘west’ are associated with the rise and set of thesun. These cardinal names come from the Nyakyusa verbs sooka thatmeans ‘come out/from or get out’ and joonga that means ‘run away,disappear, escape, flee, vanish’ (Felberg, 1996: 56, 91). Theformer means the sun rises in the east while the latter means thesun sets in the west.

We also have a place called Busookelo situated in the easternpart of the Nyakyusaland. The place got its name because, as faras the traditional Nyakyusaland is concerned, it is situated inthe place where the sun rises.

There are also two expressions that show morning and eveningtimes by using the rising and setting of the sun (4).

(4) (a) i-suba li-fyuk-ile6 3-sun 1SG-ascend-Perf

6 Notice that (4a) has the verb fyuka ‘ascend, climb’ which alsoprovides the reading ‘northwards’ as in (3b) above.

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‘Rising of the sun, Morning. (Lit: The sun rose)’ [busokelo - East]

(b) i-suba li-jong-ile 3-sun 1SG-escape-Perf‘Setting of the sun, Evening. Lit: The sun is lost’

[bujongelo - West]

3.1.3 Physical features and landformsIn environments where water bodies like, a big river, lakes,ocean etc. are the most important geographical features, suchfeatures are likely to be chosen as objects of references for thedetermination of cardinal directions (Otten, 2005). InNyakyusaland, two important geographical features are used: (i)the Lake Nyasa and (ii) Mount Rungwe. The lake is also calledSumbi and it is known of being located in the Southern parts ofthe Nyakyusaland. The mountain is traditionally known as Rungweand it is situated to the north of the Nyakyusaland. Therefore,such places could be used to refer to people coming from north –kurungwe and south – kwa sumbi.

Also, these geographical features are associated with two typesof rainfall, as in (5).

(5) (a) i-fula i-ji ja kwa sumbi 3-rain 3-Dem COP 3SG-be of Sumbi‘This rainfall comes from Lake Nyasa’Int: This rainfall comes from the south

(b) i-fula i-ji ja kurungwe 3-rain 3-Dem COP 3SG-be of Rungwe‘This rainfall comes from Mt. Rungwe’Int: This rainfall comes from the north

These two rainfalls behave differently. The one in (5a) ischaracterized of windy and short lived (windy showers) while (5b)is heavy and windless.

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Also, the name Muntebela that is found to denote the present dayKyela district received its name from the lakeshores/wetlands. Inthe naming of different peoples from different parts of theNyakyusaland, normally people from the northern parts used tocall the Nyakyusa speakers from the lakeshores as bamuntebela‘people of lakeshores’ because they settled at the lakeshoreswhile the northerners are known as bamwamba ‘people of mountains’because they settled in mountainous areas (Wilson 1958). Withregard to indication of the cardinal directions, therefore,Muntebela could easily be translated as Southern Nyakyusaland.May be, in my opinion, the word matebe ‘stagnant water’ makes theorigin of Muntebela because the lakeshores are wetlands.

3.1.4 Ethnic groupsReference to neighbouring ethnic groups is another strategy ofcreating cardinal directions in Africa. The Nyakyusa makes use ofthe large ethnic groups in signaling cardinal directions.Historically the North end of Lake Nyasa is the home of theNyakyusa (Wilson, 1958). The neighbours of the Nyakyusa inTanzania include the Ndali to the West, Safwa to the North, andKinga to the East. These are used to signal cardinal directions(6).

(6) (a) Abo bi-ku-fuma m-bundali 2-Dem 2PL-come 18-Ndaliland‘Those (people) come from Western areas’

(b) Ba-sam-ile m-bukinga 2PL-shift-Perf 18-Kingaland‘They shifted to the North East’

(c) Eg-ile nu ku-samila m-busafwa 3SG-marry-Perf and Inf-shift 18-Safwaland ‘He married and shifted to the North’

Notice that (6a) could give the reading Eastern areas orNdaliland. If, in discourse, the intention is to point to thecardinal direction West, then Mbundali could mean so. Also, ifthe intention is to pinpoint the ethnic group involved, then

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Ndali area could be the reading. The same applies to the rest ofthe labels.

The last notion is the word kumalundi which is also provided forthe glosing of the cardinal name ‘south’ in Nyakyusa by Felberg(1996). As hinted above, it comes from the body parts malundi‘legs’ that receives the locative noun class 17 ku- and couldmean south. The plausible antonym is kuntu that is the head ntuwhich receives the locative noun class 17 ku- and could mean‘north’. However, this would rather qualify for the location ofthe positions in fields rather than a typical label for thecardinal direction. Put in other words, with my exposure to thelanguage, it is used to locate particularly the positions of thefields. This is well captured in (7) below where these labels areused to indicate the position of the cultivated portion of thefarm in the language.

(7) Ba-lim-ile ku-n-tu ba-ku-lek-ile ku-ma-lundi

3PL-cultivate-Perf 17-3-head 3PL-PRES-leave-Perf 17-6-leg

‘They cultivated on the upper part (northern) and left thelower side (southern) (of the farm)’

To sum up for Nyakyusa, we have observed how the movement of thesun, the positions of the physical features, ethno-linguisticmeans, and body parts show the cardinal directions in thelanguage. Now, we turn to Swahili in the following.

3.2 Swahili In the Swahili-English dictionary (TUKI, 1996), the following labelswith their origins are provided.

(8) kusini ‘south, southern’ [Swahili]kaskazini ‘north, northward’ [Swahili/Arabic]mashariki ‘east, eastward’ [Arabic]magharibi ‘west, westward’ [Arabic]

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Swahili has at least three mechanisms, both local (traditionalmechanisms used in various dialects of Swahili) and borrowedmeans (widely used in standard Swahili) which are used todesignate the different cardinal directions.

3.2.1 Traditional and borrowed cardinal namesThe names kusi and kasikazi are traditional in the Swahili coastof East Africa (Pasch & Mietzner, 2007). In the present daySwahili, four traditional names are used to indicate cardinaldirections: kusini ‘south’, kaskazini ‘north, magharibi ‘west’and mashariki ‘east’. In Tanzania, we have added other refinedcardinal directions: kusini-mashariki ‘south-east’, kaskazini-magharibi ‘north-west, kusini-magharibi ‘south-west’ andkaskazini-mashariki ‘north-east’ (TUKI, 1996).

Notice also that the locative suffix -ni appears in two of thesetraditional names hence we get kusini and kaskazini (Turuka,1974).

3.2.2 The sunIn Swahili, the sun ranks among the least productive sources fororientation terms, particularly for those denoting East and West.We have two expressions that show morning and evening times byusing the rise and set of the sun (9). In East Africa, machweooccurs to the east and mawio to the west.

(9) machweo ‘Rising of the sun, morning’mawio ‘Setting of the sun, evening’

3.2.3 WindsSwahili language originally was a language of the people dwellingin the East African coast until the 19th century (Massamba, 2009:1). The East African coast and its islands are surrounded by theIndian Ocean. Originally, the Swahili people depended on theocean for fishing and navigation. Various blowing winds,therefore, formed the core traditional means of expressingcardinal directions. The wind-oriented cardinal directions startwith the labels in (10) below.

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(10) (a) kusi(ni) North-East monsoon winds(b) kasikazi South-East monsoon winds

Notice that only two distinct cardinal directions are referred tousing winds, North and South. (10a) indicates that the wind movesfrom North towards South while (10b) refers to winds blowing fromsouth towards north; then kusini means south and kaskazini meansnorth. Two Swahili examples provided in (11) and (10) below will sufficeto illustrate some cardinal directions in the language.

(11) Upepo u-na-vum-a kuelekea kusiniwind 3SG-PRES-blow-FV towards south‘The wind blows towards the south’

(12) Nchi za Afrika mashariki zina umojaCountry-pl of-pl Africa east have unity‘The East African countries are united’

Notice here that in the Swahili examples provided in (11) and(12) above, we find the common cardinal directions kusini andmashariki are used in the two examples by a Swahili speaker.

3.2.4 Neighbours In Swahili, at least two notions associated with the Coast andInterior/Inland as well as the neighbouring ethnic groups areimportant in indication of the west-east kind of distinction.Perhaps the following example will help us have a betterunderstanding of this point.

(13) Hawa ni wa-tu wa bara na wale wa pwaniDem CONJ 2-person of hinterland CONJ Dem of

coastland‘These are people from the interior and those come from the

coast’

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One finds that from the perception of the coast-hinterland, thereare two distinctions of the cardinal directions here. In thisexample two points are marked with the use of the words bara‘hinterland, mainland’ and pwani ‘coast’. Since the Indian Oceanis in east therefore all ethnic groups from the mainland orhinterland could be referred to as wa bara ‘westerners’ and theinhabitants of the coast or islands are wa pwani ‘easterners’.For example, in the case of Tanzania, someone from Zanzibar couldrefer to someone from Tabora as a westerner, wa bara and Swahilispeaker from Tabora could refer to a Zanzibaris as easterners, wapwani. These are east-west kind of distinctions sometimes used bySwahili speakers.

3.3 GogoThe Gogo forms one of the unique Tanzanian Bantu languages withhighly developed cardinal directions. The following mechanismsfor expressing cardinal directions are attested in the language.

3.3.1 Traditional cardinal directions in GogoIn the Cigogo-English-Swahili dictionary (Rugemalira, 2009), there areappears four cardinal directions which start with noun class 17with a prefix ku- and are coded as nouns.

(14) East kucilima West kumwezi, imwezi North kusumukaSouth kutakama

The notions kucilima and kumwezi require an explanation here.One, the cardinal direction kucilima ‘East’ suggests to haveoriginated from the Gogo verb lima ‘cultivate, dig, till, weed’(Ibid: 47). Therefore, the cardinal direction kucilima seems beassociated with the morning time when the Gogo people wake up andgo to farm, as it is the tradition in Sub-Saharan Africa. If thisholds true then the term is associated with the sun. But acounter argument is that the Gogo are basically pastoralists

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(Rigby, 1969; Sisson, 1984) hence this claim may not hold muchwater7.

Two, the name kumwezi/imwezi ‘West’ must have come from the nounmwezi ‘moon/month’ in Cigogo (Rugemalira, 2009: 73). This isassociated with first the sunset and then the rise of the moon(and/or stars) at night. This signals that the sun is essentialin indication of the cardinal directions.

The interviews with Gogo speakers revealed that they use thesecardinal directions to indicate the directions to and from. Theexample in (15) illustrates this point. In (15a & b) the cardinalnames are used. As opposed to Nyakyusa where verbs could beemployed to designate the cardinal direction and motion itself,in Gogo there are separate mechanisms whereby the verb andcardinal direction work separately, i.e. the verb marks motionand the location or direction to is marked by a label. Forexample, (15c) indicates that ‘in the valley’ could not beindicated by the cardinal name kutakama rather the actual namekibonde.

(15) (a) Chi-ku-bita ku-chilima1pPL-PRES-go from 17-east‘We are going to the East’

(b) Chi-ku-bita ku-takama1pPL-PRES-go from 17-west‘We are going to the South’

(c) Chi-ku-bita k-ibonde1pPL-PRES-go from 17-valley

7 At the LOT Project Workshop XII, a participant suggested thatsince the Gogo are traditionally pastoralists then the namekucilima could be used to mean Morogoro area, which is in theEast, where the native inhabitants are basically farmers. TheGogo speakers use it to refer to ‘the place where the farmers hadsettled’. The plausibility of such a claim would need anotheranthropological kind of study to substantiate it.

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‘We are going to the valley’

3.3.2 Winds, Homesteads and Cardinal Directions8 The Gogo language is spoken in Dodoma region. Dodoma has a drySavannah type of climate which is characterised by a long dryseason and a short single, erratic rainy season annually. Thisenvironment has influences on the cardinal directions in thelanguage.

Traditionally, the Gogo tembe house is common in centralTanzania. According to Sisson (1984), the shape of the house islow built in a rectangular shape; roofs flat made of sticks,thatched and then covered with soil on top. There was only onedoor from each house which led to the cowshed (Rigby 1969). Themain gate, ideha was usually on the West, occasionally on theNorth or South. It is claimed that the physical forms andstructure of the Gogo houses is associated with their ecologicaladaptation (Victor Mtenga, pers. comm., April 2010).

For instance, the wind (mbeho) blows from the East to the Westand the prolonged dry season (cibahu) has winds loaded with dustand sand particles which are very strong. The Gogo believe thatcibahu is strong to the extent that it has some impacts so tolessen the problem they decide to place doors of their tembe onthe West.

Another instance, construction following the cardinal points has“ritual status” and justification. In Gogo, the East isassociated with light, goodness and fertility while the West isassociated with dearth, darkness and sickness. That is the reasonthe sickness or disease was always “thrown away” to the West.There the wind (mbeho) carries it far away (Victor Mtenga, pers.comm., April 2010). These are the findings from Gogo; now we turnour attention to the situation in Mashami.

8 I owe many thanks to my colleague from History Department ofthe University of Dodoma who introduced me to the facts onDiseases, Homesteads and Winds in Gogoland. Also, he provided me withthe literature cited herein on this topic.

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3.4 Mashami From the first glance, Mashami seems to be the least of all inthe richness of the expressions of cardinal directions becausethe native speakers pay attention only to elevation. In theMashami-English-Swahili dictionary (Rugemalira, 2009: 78), I found theword unún that refers to ‘south’. The Mashami speakers seem tolink it directly to ‘lower part or valley’. However, its counterpart in the dictionary, slope is iolokyo (Ibid: 23) which is notlinked to the expression of the cardinal direction ‘north’ ratherit keeps the meaning slope.

It seems Mashami has two traditional cardinal directions. Myinformants claim that they use two cardinal directions providedin (16) below.

(16) North ndoo. South sinde

Also, as exemplified below, Mashami speakers insist that cardinaldirections are marked in relation to elevation. And there aresome verbs in Mashami that are used through selection of thespecific cardinal name to express northwards and southwardsdirections. (17a) shows the ascending/descending differenceswhile (17b) indicates the down-valley (southwards) and up-valley(northwards) movements.

(17) (a) isoka sinde (*ndoo) ‘to go to the south’ighwa ndoo (*sinde) ‘to go to the north’

(b) iolokya unún (*uhoko) ‘to go to the valley/lowerpart/South’

iolokya uhoko (*unún) ‘to go to the top/upperpart/North’

During the discussion at the LOT Project Workshop XII, two morenames for the cardinal directions with the east-west distinction

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were elucidated9, as in (18a) below. Such terms seem to beassociated with the rise and fall of the sun

(18) (a) aha ighwa ‘where/that rises’ Eastaha íwâ ‘where it falls’ West

(b) aghwa ‘go up/north’íwâ ‘fall/drop’

But (18b) gives the different readings. Following Rugemalira’s(2008) dictionary and as common in other Tanzanian Bantulanguages, notice that these expressions are associated with theup-mountain and down-valley movements that lead to north-southdistinctions.

3.5 Nyambo Turning our attention to Nyambo data, in the Runyambo-Swahili-Englishdictionary (Rugemalira, 2002), the following names for the fourcardinal directions are presented.

(19) (a) ruguru ‘north’ífo ‘south’

(b) bugwa izóoba ‘west’burugwa izóoba ‘east’

Also, in (Rugemalira, 2002), the cardinal directions appear intwo other expressions in Nyambo, as in (20).

(20) burûndi ‘south or Burundi’bugwa iguru ‘west’

9 I thank Rehema Rajabu for pinpointing these expressions. Theseexpressions, however, seem to hold less water in Mashami. Also,following Lexical Access Procedures, it became evident and Istill believe that in Mashami the elevation plays a vital role tomark cardinal directions because three of my informants could notmanage to recall these two expressions which she mentions.

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During the interview, the Nyambo informant mentioned only twoconstructions available in the language that are used to expressthe notion east and west (21).

(21) Obhurugwa izobha ‘where the sun rises/East’Obhugwa izobha ‘where the sun falls/West’

Three issues could be pointed out from Nyambo data. Firstly, asfor the exact names for the cardinal directions South/North, itseems the missing of the names by my informant was right becauseRugemalira (2002: 9, 55, 137) mentions ífo in relation toelevation as it means ‘south, lower side’. The same is true forruguru as it means ‘north, up/above’. This is also attested inthe Bantu language Mashami, as presented above.

Secondly, some of the names are associated with the body partrûndi ‘leg’ that means south, as in (19b). Also, the sky, i.e.iguru and the descending verb ighwa ‘fall’. The function of theverbs that denote ‘descend/ascend, fall’ in Bantu languages is tomark East and West. In Nyambo it is gwa ‘tamble, fall’(Rugemalira 2002: 45).

Thirdly, as for the names of the cardinal directions East/West,following Rugemalira (2002), the Nyambo names are associated withthe sun – izóoba and sky – iguru. This is common in other Bantulanguages Swahili machweo/mawio and Nyakyusa busokelo/bujongelo,as presented above.

3.6 Ciruuri In the English-Ciruuri-Swahili lexicon (Massamba, 2005), we find onlythree expressions for cardinal directions. In the dictionary, thename for North is not represented and it should be assumed thatthe author missed the expression.

(22) bhugwa isuubha ‘West’ebhuturaka isuubha ‘East’emwaaro ‘South’

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From the dictionary data, it seemed that two phenomena wereessential in the articulation of the cardinal directions inCiruuru: one, the sun that is used to mark East and West; two,the elevation that is used to denote South. However, it was foundthat elevation has north-south distinction in the language. Afterthe presentation and discussion, David Massamba (pers. comm..,May 2010) mentioned four cardinal directions in Ciruuri, as in(23).

(23) (a) uturuka isuuba ‘the rise of the sun’ Eastubugwa isuuba ‘the fall of the sun’ West

(b) inguru ‘up’ Northemwaaro ‘lake/basin/valley’ South

In (23a) the sun forms the central oriental feature for thecardinal directions in Ciruuri. Also, elevation is significantbecause in the Ciruuri-Swahili-English lexicon (Massamba, 2005: 79), theword inguru is glossed as ‘top or high’ and emwaaro is ‘valley’.As started above, all these pointed out that elevation isessential for the north-south distinction in the language.

3.7 Chasu In the book A classified vocabulary of the Pare language (Kagaya 1989) andthe Chasu-English-Swahili dictionary (Mreta, 2008: 76), the labels northand south totally do not surface. In the dictionary the followingexpressions for the east-west distinction are represented (Mreta,2008: 35-36), as in (24).

(24) kibhúka idhúbha East, the orient sunrisekigwa idhúbha West, the sunset

After the presentation and discussion, Abel Mreta (person comm.,May 2010) mentions four ways through which the Chasu indicate thefour cardinal directions.

(25) (a) uvu ‘up’ Northishi ‘down’ South

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(b) kibuka idhuba ‘where the sun explodes’ Eastkigwa idhuba ‘where the sun falls’ West

Notice the significance of the elevation in (25a) and sun (25b).Further, these labels are used even to describe the two dialectsof Chasu namely Chasu cha Uvu ‘northern dialect of Chasu’ andChasu cha Ishi ‘the southern dialect of Chasu’.

Furthermore, the Chasu speakers have developed another strategyto describe a plain land or unidirectional expressions, as in(26).

(26) chama aho mbai ‘that (place, group, thing etc.) which isthere’

A detailed survey pointed out that this is not a uniqueexpression. This expression is formed by three important Chasulexical items whose analysis suggest that it refers toneighbouring ethnic groups scattered in various plain-lands. Inthe dictionary (Mreta 2008), chama means ‘club, guild or society’hence an ethnic group (Ibid: 9). In Chasu aho is an adverb thatrefers to ‘there’ hence it denotes a place (may be where theethnic groups settle) (Op.Cit: 1). The word mbai is associatedwith distance. Also, we have the word mbare (Mreta 2008) whichmeans ‘clan, lineage, community) hence the place where such acommunity come from. Kagaya (1989) gives the word mbáré ‘kind orsort’. In my opinion, the expression in (26) above is used toindicate either the place or ethnic group in the direction thatthe speaker indicates. Also, with all these suggestions in mind,it becomes clear that the expression in (26) could possibly beassociated with the neighbouring ethnic groups.

With regard to (26) above, we provide further counter argumentshere. Felix Ameka (pers. comm. June 2010) explicitly claims thatthere are several expressions whose interpretations are contextbased hence such meanings could not be represented indictionaries. He went on to claim that some of the expressionsused to indicate directions are associated with gesturesspecifically pointing gestures. I presume this is the case with

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the expression in (26) above that the direction is pointed duringthe discourses. It would be important that further scrutiny ofthe Chasu expression in (26) to be done basing on these claimstoo.

4. General Discussion on Cardinal Directions in theSample LanguagesThe fact that Bantuists have developed the dictionaries of thelanguages they speak is essential to open this discussion with. Iam of an opinion that the Bantu languages have their independentmechanisms to designate the cardinal directions. However, itseems the native speakers do not pay much attention to the namesbecause most of the dictionaries miss some of the four cardinalnames. Also, the discussions with other Bantuists suggest thatthey can not recall the names of some cardinal directions intheir languages. This seems to suggest that their schemas missthese names because they are not such useful in the day to dayuse of the languages.

I should better take up in this discussion the equivalentsprovided for cardinal directions in the dictionaries. Thefindings pointed succinctly out that the Swahili, other Bantulanguages, and the English do not conform in the way severalissues about the universe are reconstructed. The fact here isthat the questionnaires seem not able to capture all the semanticnotions and the way individual societies construct andreconstruct the world. Some Bantu languages, say for instanceMashami, Chasu and Ciruuri, seem to miss a good deal of thecommon cardinal directions.

The third area of discussion is on the use of the exacttraditional names to designate the four cardinal directions. Forthe Bantu languages surveyed, it is only the Gogo speakers whohave developed the names for the four cardinal directions and hadbeen pervasively in use in the language. Using the labels, theGogo speakers have the ability to manipulate their dry and plainSavanna area. They indicate the cardinal directions using thelabels and not the elevation or the sun as in other TanzanianBantu languages, as discussed below.

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Elevation is an important part of the landscape which is highlyused to designate the North-South distinctions by the Bantuspeakers. Almost all Bantu languages surveyed, except (to a leastextent) the Gogo, make use of the upward and downward elevationsas distinctions for north and south respectively. For languagesspoken in the mountainous areas, like the Mashami and Nyakyusa,all the places to the north are assumed to be located up themountain and the vice versa is true. Also, the north-southdistinction involves body parts. It was found that the bottom ofthe human body, particularly LEGS, could be used to designatesouth and the HEAD denote north. This is substantiated by theevidence from Nyakyusa and Nyambo.

Another very significant element on the articulation of thecardinal directions in the Tanzanian Bantu languages surveyed isthe sun. In all Bantu languages, except Gogo, the sun is used toindicate the east-west distinction. The rise of the sun isemployed to mean East while the setting of the sun denotes West.Therefore, the sun in tropical Africa where the surveyedlanguages are spoken form a central part of the cardinaldirections. Its rise and fall means east-west distinction. Withthese evidences, it appears that the importance of the East andWest directions results from the easiness with which thesedirections can be determined by observing the daily movements ofthe sun (Pasch & Mietzner, 2007).

Other features used, though in some Bantu languages, include theneighbouring ethnic groups and the water bodies. These have someinfluence on the underdevelopment of some of the labels becausethe neighbouring ethnic groups and water bodies are used in placeof the names.

Two verbs of vertical motion are highly used to make the north-south distinction. In the Tanzanian Bantu languages, the namesdenotes fall/descend that indicates southward movement andascend/rise denote northward movements.

5. Conclusion

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We scrutinized, in this paper, the different mechanisms employedby the speakers of Tanzanian Bantu languages to express the fourcardinal directions: North, East, West and South. Apparently, throughthe dictionary survey, lexical access and discussion approaches,the findings are revealing and generalizable for the wholeEastern Bantu languages. Pervasively, the languages generallypossess seven mechanisms of expressing cardinal directions;primarily associated with (i) the traditional names as in Gogolanguage, (ii) the use of the movement of the sun for east-westdistinction, (iii) the elevation, i.e. up-down valley positionsfor north-south distinction, (iv) geographical features such aslakes and winds as in Swahili, (v) the leg-head division forsouth-north distinction, (vi) ethnonymic references as inNyakyusa, and (vii) the verbs of descend/fall and ascend/rise tomean south and north. Some of these mechanisms have been found inother Bantu languages, such as Kwanyama (Otten, 2005) and inNilotic and Ubangian languages of Africa (Pasch & Mietzner,2007). The specific terms for the Tanzania Bantu languagesinvolve the difference marking of the north-south cardinaldirections which include the LEG-HEAD (south-north) distinction,ascend-descend (north-south division, and the up-down mountain(north-south) distinction.

Abbreviations1, 2, 3 etc. noun class prefix 2, 3SG second, third person singular2, 3PL second, third person plural CONJ conjunctionsCOP copula verb Dem deomnstrativesFV final vowelInf infinitive marker Perf perfective aspect pl plural PRES present tense

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