Verse and metre in Bantu languages: poetry in its historical development and connections

Ziel

In Bantu studies, versification has rarely been investigated. Except in the rare cases where a metrical theory was already locally established, the Bantu poetic traditions have been described as having only approximate verse patterns, not regular enough to be metres. Moreover, the scarce attention given to Bantu versification has prevented any attempt at a comparative investigation of their history. This project aims at filling all these gaps. The research will focus on a subset of Bantu languages, which share the linguistic trait of penultimate lengthening (PL). A concise definition of PL is the lengthening of the penultimate syllable of a prosodic unit. The starting hypothesis of this research is that PL is the basic linguistic device used for versification in several Bantu languages. To verify this, the researcher will analyse how PL interacts with the construction of the poetic line in Chewa poetry: this research will include some periods of fieldwork carried out in Malawi, where Chewa is the majoritarian language. The Chewa language serves as the main focus because it has already been the object of extensive research on suprasegmental phonology. Moreover, the Chewa people have deep historical bonds with other Bantu cultural foyers. The Chewa area is close to two zones with important poetic traditions, Great Lakes and Southern Bantu, and had strong trade bonds with the Indian Ocean and the Swahili world. This project will look at Chewa versification in comparison with Sena, another Bantu language of the Zambezi River valley, and with archaic Swahili poetry. In fact, due to the history of language contacts that has taken place in this zone, understanding Chewa versification opens the door to further, large-scale research on Bantu versification. This would rewrite our understanding of Bantu poetry, both in the past (mutual influences between cognate literatures) and in the present (how literary tradition is felt today and which role it plays in society).