A typological perspective on Bantu nominal tone: the case of Ikoma-Nata-Isenye in western Tanzania

Abstract

This paper compares the nominal tone systems of three Bantu language varieties, Ikoma, Nata, and Isenye, spoken in the southern part of the Mara region in western Tanzania. These varieties are classified as dialects of a single language (JE45), and altogether they have approximately 30 000 speakers. All three varieties are mutually intelligible, if only with minor difficulties and adaptation. The nominal tone patterns in these varieties look very similar. However, when comparing the nominal tone systems, we see that the systems of assigning nominal tones in these three varieties are typologically different. Moreover, it has been suggested that the lexical tonal contrasts of the southern Mara languages have been greatly reduced or lost altogether, but the data presented in this paper shows that lexical tone systems are still functional in several of these languages and that the area shows great variety in the nominal tone systems.