Southern African linguistic area

E1018687

The Southern African linguistic area is a region characterized by extensive language contact and shared structural features among diverse language families spoken in southern Africa.

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Observed surface forms (1)

Surface form Occurrences
Khoisan linguistic area 1

Statements (47)

Predicate Object
instanceOf Sprachbund
linguistic area
characterizedBy extensive language contact
shared structural features
continent Africa
hasContactType adstrate influence
language shift
long-term multilingualism
substrate influence
hasFeature areal diffusion of grammatical structures
areal diffusion of phonemes
click consonants
extensive use of tone in many languages
lexical borrowing across families
shared phonological patterns
shared syntactic patterns
hasResearchTopic areal convergence in southern Africa
contact between Bantu and Khoisan languages
origin and spread of click consonants
includesCountry Angola NERFINISHED
Botswana NERFINISHED
Eswatini NERFINISHED
Lesotho NERFINISHED
Mozambique NERFINISHED
Namibia NERFINISHED
South Africa NERFINISHED
Zimbabwe NERFINISHED
includesLanguageFamily Afrikaans language
Bantu languages NERFINISHED
English language
Germanic languages
Khoe languages NERFINISHED
Khoisan languages NERFINISHED
Kxʼa languages
Nguni languages
Sotho–Tswana languages NERFINISHED
Tsonga languages
Tuu languages
Venda language NERFINISHED
influences lexicon of Bantu languages in the region
phonological systems of Bantu languages in the region
phonology of Afrikaans in the region
regional varieties of English in southern Africa
locatedIn southern Africa NERFINISHED
studiedInDiscipline African linguistics
areal linguistics
timeDepth several millennia of contact

Referenced by (2)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Tom Güldemann hasResearched Southern African linguistic area
Kwadi isPartOf Southern African linguistic area
this entity surface form: Khoisan linguistic area