The Linguistic Prehistory of Southern Africa: Bush, Kwadi, Hottentot, and Bantu Linguistic Relationships

Opening Paragraph The languages dealt with in this paper are Bush ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’, Kwadi, Hottentot, and about 20 Bantu language groups, comprising more than 50 distinct dialects. It is concerned with pre-Bantu history and the Bush, Kwadi, and Hottentot languages, but material on Bantu is included for the following reasons: (a) The information relevant to a discussion of the peopling of Southern Africa by Bantu-speaking peoples is scattered in the available literature or is not available at all, and, (b) Bantu traditional lore has something to say on the subject of pre-Bantu indigenous peoples of Southern Africa, and there must therefore be some evaluation of the relationship of modern and early Bantu languages and an attempt must be made to define their recent and early traditional language areas.