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Naming and Linguistic Africanisms in African
American Culture
Lupenga Mphande
Ohio State University
1. Introduction
Shakespeare once asked, “What is in a name?” The answer to this age-old question depends on the
particular culture from which it is framed: among many African cultures a name tells a lot about the
individual that it signifies, the language from which it is drawn, and the society that ascribes it. A
name may indicate the linguistic structures and phonological processes found in the language, the
position of the name’s bearer in society, and the collective history and life experiences of the people
surrounding the individual. African cultures have various ways of naming a child, ranging from the
Akan naming system based on days of the week to the Egyptian more cosmic one. Slavery,
colonialism, and globalization have all contributed to the exportation of the African systems of naming
into the African Diaspora. Among the various endeavors that African slaves made in becoming
African American in culture, orientation was the culture of resistance involving the process of renaming
themselves, constantly reverting back to their African cultural forms, such as spirituality,
burial rites, and naming for inspiration and guidance, and thus reasserting themselves and reaffirming
their humanity in a hostile world. Through re-naming themselves, African Americans have continued
the process of cultural identity formulations and re-claiming of their complex African roots in the
continuing process of redefining themselves and dismantling the paradigm that kept them mentally
chained for centuries.
How has the African naming system been retained and modified in the African Diaspora, and how
has it adapted to the black experience in the Americas? More specifically, what influence have African
languages exerted on the American naming system in the United States of America? What are the
historical and cultural traits and origins of African language practice that can be said to motivate or
influence contemporary African and African American cultural reality? How does a name contribute to
discourse and interlocution in the African and African American societies? These are some of the
questions we will discuss in this paper.
What are Africanisms in American and other diasporic cultures, and how were they introduced
into the New World? Joseph Holloway defines Africanisms as “those elements of culture found in the
New World that are traceable to an African origin” (1990:ix). As part of their politico-cultural
struggles, African Americans have endeavored to construct their identities partly by reclaiming those
features that speak to their African heritage. In recent years perhaps the most pronounced form of
claiming African identity has been the adoption of African names by people of African-American
descent. Thus through the naming system African Americans are re-claiming their complex African
roots in the continuing process of redefining themselves and dismantling the paradigm that kept them
mentally chained for centuries. The purpose of this study of Africanisms is not only to help confirm
the survival of African traditions in America, but also reveal the presence of a distinct African
American cultural enclave in the United States.
2. Literature on Africanisms in American Reality
Melville Herskovits pioneered the study of Africanisms in American culture in his seminal 1941
publication, The Myth of the Negro Past. But although Herskovits spoke of Africanisms in the United
States in a global sense, his evidence was drawn exclusively from the Caribbean and South America,
and his insistence on an exclusive West Africa base as the origin of the Africanisms further limited the
© 2006 Lupenga Mphande. Selected Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. John
Mugane et al., 104-113. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
scope and application of his concepts. Further studies intimated a broader continental African cultural
base that includes the Bantu. The 1926 publication of Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (1926), by
Newbell Pucket, was the first anthropological study of African carryovers found in Southern society. It
presented 10,000 folk beliefs of southern blacks that revealed African traits in African American burial
customs, folk beliefs and religious philosophy, including beliefs in ghosts, witchcraft, voodoo, and
conjuration. Other early studies examining African carryovers were those by Carter G. Woodson and
W. E. B. Du Bois. In The African Background Outlined (1936), Woodson listed technical skills, arts,
folklore, spirituality, attitudes toward authority, and generosity among the African carryovers. He also
drew attention to African influences in religion, music, dance, drama, poetry, and oratory. After the
publication of Du Bois’ 1939 Black Folk, Then and Now, consequent studies veered back to focusing
on the Caribbean, Suriname, and Brazil where there is a more abundant living African culture that is
still visible. However, current studies by scholars like Michael Gomez (1998) and Walter Rucker
(2001) have re-centered the study of Africanisms back on the United States.
Within the United States the most direct remnants of African culture are found in isolated
communities in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. Drum and Shadows (1940) by Guy Johnson
examined African retention in the Georgia Sea Islands and the nearby Gullah communities as part of
the Federal Writers Project that recorded the testimonies of ex-slaves. This was the first study to use
oral history as a methodology in analyzing Africanisms in North American culture. But it was the
publication of linguistic Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect (1949) by Lorenzo Turner that truly
transformed the study of Africanisms in America by not only documenting African American speech
patterns, but also examining African linguistic retentions. He recited numerous derivations in African
American speech and linked them to the speech patterns of the Niger-Congo and Bantu family of
African languages. However, it was Winifred Vass’ 1979 The Bantu Speaking Heritage of the United
States that brought a new dimension to the study of Africanisms by analyzing the African content in
various aspects of American language and culture, and tracing them to the Congolese language Tshi-
Luba, and thus providing the thesis of a Bantu origin for black American culture (Kubik, 1979; 2000).
3. Language and Social Behavior
The relationship between language, social structure, and behavior has fascinated researchers for a
long time. Language is part of the culture; it is the primary means of communication (Salzmann,
2004:48). But so too are customary acts of behavior. Taboo, (an inhibited expression), for example,
can be either behavioral (such as incest taboo) or linguistic (such as the Zulu hlonipha, or speech
avoidance), and the protective sanctions are much the same. Language is a guide to social reality, and
human beings at times seem to be at the mercy of the language that has become the medium of
expression for their society. Therefore, from this perspective, experience is largely determined by the
language habits of the community, and that each separate structure represents a separate reality. Juri
Lotman states that language is a modeling system and that “No language can exist unless it is steeped
in the context of culture; and no culture can exist which does not have at its center, the structure of
natural language” (1978:211-32). Although such views are a source of much debate, nonetheless they
seem to suggest that people are prisoners of language because it determines the way they think. This
view of language is apparent in the study of vocabulary and the semantics of words.
3.1. Words
Only words have semantic content, and pragmatic processes affect every level of interpretation.
The semantic value of an expression is determined by the speaker’s intentions, together with features of
context, in accord with the standing meaning of that lexical item (1997). The vocabulary of a language
plays an important role as a window into the universe of knowledge of its speakers and their view of
the world around them. Words are taken as a label of aspects of culture, and are thus an index of the
cultural world of society. If a language does not have a term for something, it may mean that thing is
probably not important in that culture. On the other hand, if a language has a set of names for
something then perhaps that thing reflects some cultural essence of the people. Clearly, from a
relativist point of view, there is no particular language or culture that names everything or catalogues
the whole compass of knowledge of the world (Nettle & Romaine, 2000:50-57). Underlying a word,
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therefore, is its relationship with other words, and the goal of analysis is to discover vocabulary sets
that carry the underlying semantic components of the language and a people's culture.
3.2. Names
Names, as words by which reality is known and spoken of, are the most meaningful lexicon in the
vocabulary of any language, and they are an important part of the language inventory as they not only
name the environment, but also store all the distinctions about the fauna and flora. When slaves were
captured on the African continent and brought to the New World, they brought with them names as the
means to identify their environment and themselves. Although many studies have catalogued African
names in America, no study has examined the processes that go into linguistic name construction and
encoding of its semantic import. There has been no study, therefore, that has discussed the process that
leads to the creation of names, other than just as a cataloguing of the forms themselves. In this paper I
will examine the linguistic remnants of the African naming practice in American culture, and
interrogate the imaginative processes African Americans have deployed in retaining their African
cultural heritage. Since many slaves are reported to have originated from Central and West African
cultures (Gomez 1998, Rucker 2005), I will describe the Zulu naming practice as an example of the
Bantu naming culture that such slaves were acquainted with before they arrived in the Americas and
the Caribbean. I will then examine the contemporary naming practice in the African American
community with a view of suggesting similarities between them, and therefore attempting to trace
specific linguistic processes as part of the African carryovers in African American culture. This study
will thus fill an existing gap in our knowledge of the mechanisms in the naming practice in African
languages and its importation into the African Diaspora. The study further hopes to serve people,
particularly African American students, who have expressed a desire to adopt African names for selfidentity,
a desire encouraged by the adoption of African names by famous celebrities, such as the
writer Paulette Williams who changed her name to the Nguni Ntozakhe Shange. The task of the
linguist, therefore, is to inform the name consumers about the language derivational processes that go
into the naming practice so that they can make informed choices, or engage in the exercise with better
knowledge.
3.3. African Names in African American culture
Because of the large human migrations of Africans to the New World predicated on the dynamics
of history and global capital, there is a preponderance of Bantu vocabulary in South and North
America and the Caribbean, including vocabulary for cultural forms as diverse as culinary, music,
literature, and place, as can be seen from the following examples of vocabulary from speech dialects in
Gullah of the Georgia Sea Islands, and Brazilian:
(1)
Animal names Slave Names Culinary Names
/kambaboli/ “a gray bird” Kato banana
/kandi/ “rabbit” Tshituba coffee
/kanka/ “a large fish” Zango cola
/kekele/ “a marsh bird” Zingo gumbo
/kilombo/ “a black and white” Zinka okra
/kimbi/ “a hawk” (Puckett, 1936) sesame
/kimbimbi/ “quail” sorghum
/kinkwawi/ “patridge” Tenah cucumber
/kulu/ “a blue and white marsh bird” Mima akee
/kusu/ “parrot” Cutto congo beans
/kuta/ ‘tortoise” Mahala (Holloway & Vass 1993:137-160;
/kuti/ “small pig” Juba and Harris 2001:170)
(Turner, 1949: 196-197) Mimbo
Mango
Mingo
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Angola
Quash
Jam Angila
Quaco
Jazz Quomo
Jive
Vigo
Lukelele
Sambo
(Gutman, 1976:242)
These are clearly African-origin names, and it is interesting that Turner’s list of small animals
and small birds above have similar characteristics to the diminutive in Bantu languages. The /ki-/
prefix of the noun class marker in Bantu seems to have been retained and incorporated into the African
Diaspora linguistic borrowing. Margaret Washington Creel (1990 Africanisms in American Culture)
reports that quite a significant number of the Gullah slaves probably originated from Central Africa
(the Congo-Angola), which is a Bantu speaking region. She says that after the 1739 Stono Rebellion
“when African-born Angolans rose up against Carolina masters…. The postwar years witnessed
another period of massive importations, and the Congo-Angola region once again supplied the
majority of African slave coffles” (69). She then gives linguistic evidence to show “that the dominant
African presence in the Sea Island region derives from the Kongo-Angola and Windward Coast. There
is thus a clear Bantu connection in the Gullah dialect.
There are many other sources documenting African names in American history and culture,
including slave documents, ship logs, court records, historical accounts, and accounts of slave
rebellions and witch trials. Most of these names have either a West African or Central African origin,
and some have since changed their linguistic forms, although many have retained their African forms.
Okra, for example, was grown by slaves in Brazil from the sixteenth century, and was at various times
called quiabo, (current use) or its variations of gombo, quigombo, quingombo, quingobo, quimbombo,
quingongo, and quibombo All these forms are derived from the Bantu languages of the Angola region,
and were brought to the New World through the Portuguese. Okra has retained its West African
linguistic origin in English, but it has also retained its Bantu root in the Romance languages – for
example, in French it is /gombo/.
3.4. The process of obliteration and retention of African names
Unlike culinary names, African slave personal names have disappeared, replaced largely by the
Anglo-American names of their owners. But the African definition of “name” is different from the
European one, and Gutman says that in 1783 some slaves’ surnames differed from their owners’,
displaying a social identity independent of slave ownership (Gutman, 1976:250). Those slaves who could
read and write, he says, “wrote their names in the copy of the Bible that they carried to church on Sunday”
(230). This contradicted the widely held belief among whites that slaves had neither history nor
culture, and that they could not have legal right to a name. The Hudson River Valley college president,
C. C. Gaines, for example, claimed that “A name is no name unless the bearer has legal right to it,”
and that “No slave could have a surname because he could not have a legal sire” (231). This attitude
reduced slaves to namelessness, and thus made them available for name re-assignment by their owners.
Many slaves, however, kept their African names and used them among themselves. Mr. Gaines above
later admited that the name a slave claimed for himself revealed a “mark peculiar to the person or
incident to his history… You will find many negroes today who do not retain the surname of their last
owner, but are known by that of a remoter ancestor” (231). But many more slaves were re-assigned
names by their master or government official. During trials, for example, court officials assigned
names based on the appearance of the accused, or the region in Africa where they came from, e.g.,
Paul d’Angola, Simon Congo, Anthony Portuguese, etc (Rucker, 2005:32). During the Witch-Hunt:
mysteries on the Salem Witch trials, three of the accused slaves from the West Indies were recorded as:
Tshituba Tony, John Indian, and Mary Black, but the records later show that these surnames referred
to the skin complexions of the accused (Aronson, 2002).
Gutman described, “a native African [who] had discretely kept a surname different from that of
his master” (1976:236), and that such hidden names came to light immediately after they were freed.
But such names subsequently disappeared again as part of the acculturation process where, as part of
their survival strategy, African Americans strived to assimilate to Anglo-American religion and culture
Place Names Music
banjo
107
by adopting Christian or English names. Similarly, some of the ex-slaves claimed double heritage by
adopting both their African and Anglo-American names; hence “Moses Mahala or Mahala Rose …
may have taken a parent’s given name” (Gutman, 1976:250). However, many of the African names
faded and disappeared because of (a) the threat of repatriation, and thus those who did not want to go
back to Africa had to claim that they were not Africans; (b) slave rebellions, particularly in South
Carolina: slaves did not want to be identified as “rebellious” because of their name-identity with
Africa; (c) some slaves were coerced into changing their names to that of their masters by the slave
owners; (d) although the Garvey brand of the back to Africa movement encouraged many to identity
with Africa, there were still some slaves who wanted to distance themselves from such close
identification with the continent. However, changing a personal name to suit the prevailing sociocultural
or political environment is nothing new in African and African American history. Because
they are social commentary, names can be changed to indicate contemporary socio-political situations
– Johnstone Kamau, for example, changed his name to Jomo Kenyatta, to match the prevailing
atmosphere of his political activism in Kenya. In fact Jomo Kenyatta, who took himself as a political
messiah or liberator of his people, went a step further: he named his first born son ‘Peter,’ with
obvious biblical implications of “On this rock I build my church!” Is the ‘rock’ referred to here the
‘stone’ in his European name, Johnstone?
3.5. Identities and Cultural Reformulation
In America, African names were reconfigured for retention into new shapes more suited for
survival in a hostile environment, and the plantation was the site where Africa cultures were forged
into a new African American reality, reformulated on the prevailing experience. Hair styles, oration,
hand shake/hand clapping being perhaps the most obvious examples of this process that Henry Louis
Gates (1988) calls “signifying” and “troping.” The troping process, he says, involves reinterpreting or
“repeating previous existing texts with a difference” and hence reinventing and transforming them, a
process fundamental to African American culture. As part of this process, after Emancipation in the
1860s, many slaves named themselves or their children after political ancestors: Benjamin, Jackson,
Jefferson, Washington, etc. The movement for re-naming and self-identification among African
Americans started at the very dawn of American history. African Americans had to re-name
themselves for various reasons, including: (a) repatriation – some of those sent back to Africa
reclaimed African names, others stuck with European or slave-master’s names, and still others
hyphened their names to claim both heritage, notably in Sierra Leone (Fyle, 2004); (b) in the back to
Africa movement of Marcus Garvey; (c) the Pan African movement that encouraged some to identify
more closely with African culture; (d) the Civil Rights movement and the need for a distinct African
identity; and (e) African American cultural nationalism and the rise of cultural activism and
institutional building, such as Kwanza and June Teen. The most visible outburst of African name
reclamation came with the Civil Right movement in the 1960s, and the high profiles of the people
involved in this naming exercise gave the process prestige:
(2)
institutional: – June Teen & kwanza! Personal names:
Nguza Saba (7 principles) Kwesi Mfume (Akan & Swahili)
Umoja (unity) Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael)
Kujichangulila (self determination) Jawanza Kanjufu (Swahili)
Ujima (collective work 7 responsibility Karim Abdul Jabal
Ujamaa (cooperative economics) Molefe Asante (Sotho & Akan)
Nia (purpose) Ntozake Shange Nguni (formerly Paulette
Williams)
Kuumba (creativity) Malik El Shabbaz (formerky Malcom X/Little)
Imani (faith) Cassius Clay became Muhamad Ali
While surnames may refer to collective and more historical experiences, first, or given, names
comment on more temporary social issues and are thus more relevant in deciphering the social
atmosphere at a given time. Apart from indicating an individual’s relationship with a physical and
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social environment, names are also statements about religion and the beliefs of the speakers and their
relationship with the supernatural. Personal names thus provide a barometer for measuring changes in
attitudes and moral codes at specific historical epochs.
3.6. Present trends in cultural reconfiguring
What is the present trend in the African American naming practice? In her Proud Heritage:
11,001 names for your African-American Baby (1990), Dinwiddie identifies da, de, la, le, sha, and ja as
the most common affixes that African Americans use to create new names, and that these account for
75 per cent of all new African American names (1990:16). Similar to Bantu languages such as isiZulu,
these affixes have gender implications, so that Leshandra, for example, can only be a woman’s name.
She also writes that African American families use certain Latin stems in creating new names, as
illustrated in the chart below:
(3)
Stem: Dante, Latin ‘durans’ – lasting, enduring
D’ante danatay dant
Dantereus Danutaye Danute
Dauntay Dauntrae De Ante
*Deante Deaunta Deonta
Deontae Deontay Deonte
Deontee Deontia Deontie
Deontre Deontrea Deontae
Deyonte Diante Diontae
Diontay Dionte Dondi
Donta Dontae Dontal
Donta Dontae Dontay
Dontaye Dontea Dontee
Dontei Donterius Dontez
Dontrell
In creating names, people take the forms with which they are familiar, and play with them in a creative
way to formulate new structures that fulfill their needs in a more satisfying and meaningful way. Thus,
they take a name-stem and give it a prefix such as “Le-,” or “La-” that evokes for African Americans
their historical connections, or contains the flavor of their French or New Orleans roots. The fact that
they are adding a French prefix to an English word is of little concern.
4. Name construction in African societies
The discussion so far shows a clear need to account for not only the historical occurrence of
linguistic Africanisms in America, but also the processes behind the naming exercise, or the
deconstruction of the rules of the “naming game.” If the African American naming practice is an
instance of African retentions, then the question we have to ask ourselves is: what are the social and
linguistic constructs of names in African societies? In other words, how are the African names
morphologically and semantically constructed, what are the linguistic processes involved, and how do
those morphological processes relate to the African American exercise in name creation? To answer
these questions, we will now examine the naming practice in Nguni, a Southern African group of
Bantu languages of which isiZulu and isiXhosa are members.
4.1. The morphology of names in Bantu
Of all Bantu languages, Nguni has perhaps the more elaborate and overt morphological and
derivational semantic processes for naming, and therefore offers an interesting opportunity to
adequately describe and account for the morphological and semantic processes involved in naming.
The emphasis in this paper is on the construction of proper names, particularly the process involved in
109
naming children. There are many ways in which names in Nguni are constructed, depending on the
semantic import that the name-giver wants to convey, but here we are interested only in three that
involve some form of derivational affixation – a very distinctive feature of Bantu languages. A
morpheme can be defined as the minimal unit having meaning associated with a constant form. In
Nguni, affix morphemes appear as either prefixes, as in noun class markers, or as suffixes, as in
verbalizers. Stems are fully formed "independent" words at the lexical level. However, some stems can
be turned into verbal stems by affixing verbal suffixes, and some verb stems in turn can be turned into
names by suffixation. Therefore, there are two types of name formation: lexical and derived.
4.2. Name construction in Nguni, the case of isiZulu
In Nguni, an agglutinating language, the process of naming is largely based on the deployment of
a network of affixes that are harmonized by the relevant phonological rules. In the morphological
processes, the noun or verbal conjugation is the main source for deriving meaning, and this poses an
interesting question of how meaning can be best implicated through the linguistic process. Context
affects the interpretation of linguistic items such as names, and therefore there can be no semantic
systematic theorizing because context determines what can be intuitively said about a lexicon in a
natural language. Names are thus like implicatives, and we need a declaration to provide the input to
implicatives which are pragmatic. You do not just draw from the lexical parts. Thus in a name like
Thandeka, “the loved one,” it is not clear who is loved: the child, mother, or ancestor? The
morphology of names also has fundamental implications for syntax because names tend to be both
words and sentences, for example: Thembinkosi is “We trust in the Lord,” or Bonangani, “How do you
see?”
4.3. The morphological process of name construction in isiZulu
Most of the names in Zulu culture result from the process of verbal conjugation, where
derivational affixes turn specific categories of morphemes into corresponding morphemes in another
category. These affixes can be as small as a single vowel:
(4) /themb + a/ → Themba (trust, hope)
Typically, all verbs in Bantu languages end in a final vowel [a], which is a default absolute tense
feature in verbs. In Nguni languages this is a common source of proper personal names. But names are
also morphologically related to other grammatical categories, and in the following example the
derivational process affixes [o] or [i] as a final vowel to verb stems:
(5)
/vusa/ (revise) → Vuso (revival) /hlaza/ (embarrass) → Hlazo (disgrace)
/zonda/ (hate) → Mzondi (hater) /thakatha/ (bewitch) → Mthakathi (witch)
Derivational affixes thus change the syntactic category of the lexical morphemes to which they are
attached, turning verbs into nouns, which then become another source for personal names. As
indicated in the last two examples in (5), there is another process that prefixes the nominal nasal
morpheme to the verb stem as shown in (6):
(6)
thakatha (verb, bewitch) → thakathi (noun) → Mthakathi (witch, wizard)
zonda (verb, hate) → zondo (noun, hatred) → Mzondi (the hater)
bonga (verb, thank, praise) → bongo (noun) → Mbongi (praiser)
In the cases in (6), nasalization, as a linguistic process, is a typical part of the Bantu noun class system.
Plural appeal is also indicated by either prefix –si, as in Sibongile (we are thankful), or suffix –ni, as in
Bongani (be thankful). Using this process of affixation, name-givers take the verb forms with which
110
they are familiar, and play with them in a creative way to re-create new names that convey a
meaningful reflection on what the new birth means to the community.
4.4. The verbalization process in name construction
The overwhelming majority of names in Nguni, however, are derived from the process of
verbalization by which a verbalizer suffix is attached to the verb stem to indicate the state of the action
denoted. The three most popular suffixes used in Nguni languages are the causative extension [-se], the
applicative extension [-le], the simple passive suffix [-we], and passive suffix [-ka]. There are two
observations to be made about verbalizers. First, each verbalizer behaves uniquely and second, some
verbalizers are more frequent than others. Note also that although both [-se] and [-ka] are causative
extensions and are used to name or define a quality in the individual bearing the name, there is a
qualitative semantic distinction between them in the way they indicate capacity or potential for
something. All the four suffixations are very common in the Nguni naming practice.
(7)
thanda (verb, love) → thando (noun) → Thandeka/Thandwa/Thandiwe (the loved one)
lungaa (verb, correct) → lungo (noun) → Lungile (the one set right)
nhlanza (verb, purify) → Nhlanzo (noun) → Nhlanzekile (the cleansed one)
linda (verb, wait) → lindo (noun) → Lindiwe (the awaited one)
dinga (verb, need) → dingo (noun) → Dingile/Dingase (the needed one)
These suffixes not only convert the stem into different phonological and grammatical realizations,
but also impart different semantic impulses of the social meaning. It is these semantic impulses that
help interpret the related activity implied in the verbal extension, i.e., applicative, causative, intensive,
passive, etc. The {-ka} extension, for instance, indicates a stative condition with respect to social
space, as in Bongeka (be thanked), or Thandeka (the favorite one). The name with a {-le} suffix
indicates a semantic element of persistence: Hlanzekile (purified, continuously cleansed), or Lungile
(be righteous, consistently well behaved). The {-se} suffix indicates a cause-and-effect intensity,
causing or being caused, as in the forms Dingase (cause to need), and Mzondwase (the one caused to
hate). The intensification can be further reinforced by the affixation of another pronominal suffix {-yo)
onto the causative one, as in Dingiswayo (the needy one), or Sunduzwayo (the one made to be pushed
aside, forced out). The plural suffix {-ni} is also used in Nguni names as an appeal or form of
command: Bongani (be thankful), Kholwani (be faithful), Thembani (be trusting), and Tholani (give
birth, adopt, offer shelter). The {-ni} suffix also indicates collectivity, an appeal to a group rather than
to a single individual, and should not be confused with the locative of the same form. Thus, while
/mzonde/, “hate her/him,” refers to a single addressee, in Mzondeni more than one addressee is referred
to. Although there are several morphemes in Nguni languages that can be attached to various verbal
stems to turn them into different types of words of different categories, only a few can be used in this
way to form verb-based names.
5. The Morphophonology of Names
The preceding discussion of the process of affixations in name construction raises several
questions for Nguni languages. For example, how are these types of verbal extension suffixes
represented in Bantu languages? The traditional and accepted view is that these suffixes are typically
of the VC-shape, and that what in this study we call the final vowel suffix (FV) should not be regarded
as part of the verb morpheme. On the other hand, the suffix must be represented in a way that enables
us to interpret the derivation of name from verbal stems as a morpho-phonological process that is
executed in accordance with the vowel harmony rules of the language. The implication for the latter
interpretation is obvious – since this is a feature-changing process, the question then is: can
phonological processes perform a semantic function? Or is this the exclusive function of morphology
and syntax? Words have semantic content, but not sentences, and this is enough justification for
studying names.
Because of the agglutinating nature of Nguni morphology, monosyllabic words tend to be
unstable, resulting in a constraint on monosyllabic names. Monosyllabic forms can be manipulated in
111
size through the process of expansion, i.e., by reduplication or triplication, under specific
morphological requirements. Monosyllabic stems have a tendency to replicate before they can be
acceptable names in the language, hence a form such as /sho/, “mean,” can be extended to three
syllables to form the name Shoshosho (the stubborn one). For disyllabic forms, a name can be formed
simply by reduplicating the syllables:
(8)
Verb stem: { [ x x x]word/name ...}
/ho/ “hollow” →Hoho (place name)
/swa/ “rustle sound” →Swaswa (place name)
shoba (tail) → Shobashoba (restless one), also Mashobani
shanga (roam about) → Shangashanga (one who roams about), also Shangani
Four syllables seem to be the maximum name, and two the minimum, and hence the monosyllable
form /ho/ above is extended to the maximum. In reduplication of a monosyllabic form, the first CV is
targeted as a base, reduplicated, and then re-attached to the original base: This means that in
monosyllabic forms with a long vowel the syllabification seems to behave like a CVC.V type where
the final vowel is extrametrical and therefore the final C attaches to the previous syllable, forming
CVC. But in Nguni every word must end in a vowel, which means either adding a vowel at the end or
deleting the final C. There is a maximal limit to the length of a word that a name affix or verbal
extension can be attached to, and that limit is three syllables. Therefore, although the forms above can
replicate endlessly, this process is limited by the phonological rules.
There is also a constraint on the minimum word template that is relevant on the construction of
nicknames in Nguni. Just as a short/monosyllabic name can be extended, a long name can be reduced
in order to conform to the restrictions on the word size and other morphological rules in the language.
As McCarthy and others have noted, truncated words are not chopped to fit by leaving off prosodic
units, but "instead, starting at some designated point, the melodic elements of a word are associated
with a template” (McCarthy 1986, p. 56). In Nguni this process of truncation is employed to form
nicknames:
(9)
Morpheme: [Verb stem] fi [ x x x]word/name + [suffix (+ truncation)]
Full name Short form or nickname
Sibongile Bongi
Thandeka Thandi
Thembani Themba
Dingiswayo Dingi
Two syllables are the maximum stem size in the language to which a name can be truncated to form a
“nickname.” Therefore, forms like Vuso or Chitha are not truncated because they are already minimum
foot size since the shortened name has to be bi-moraic. This is evidence of the enforcement of a
foot/minimal word template that results in systematic patterns of shortening input words. This also
supports a CVC syllable structure in Nguni, which corresponds to vocative truncation or nickname
abbreviation. It should also be pointed out, however, that the nickname is not culturally accepted as a
substitute for the full (or ‘real’) name, so that with a man who is called “Dingi,” everybody knows that
his formal (or ‘real’) name is Dingiswayo, just as if a woman is called “Thandi,” then her formal name
is Thandeka or Thandiwe. This is different from English where the name Tony does not necessarily
mean that the person’s real name is Anthony, Antonio, Antonia, or Antonette.
6. Conclusion
In conclusion, I have demonstrated that African and African American cultures share similar
rhetorical strategies in verbal exposition in creating new personal names reflective of their sociopolitical
environment. I have shown that the coining of new names from old morphological roots is an
112
element of syncretism, which is very characteristic of both African and African American cultures. I
have argued that African Americans have retained in their speech African linguistic roots used in
naming, as well as the ability to fundamentally manipulate the base name-stem of a language to
construct new names and encode them with the relevant semantic import through the affixation
process. I hope this study will help develop a more adequate paradigm to explain the process of
cultural orientation and the presence of cultural retention and presence in America through naming
than has been attempted so far.
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113
Selected Proceedings of the 35th
Annual Conference on African Linguistics:
African Languages and Linguistics
in Broad Perspectives
edited by John Mugane,
John P. Hutchison, and Dee A. Worman
Cascadilla Proceedings Project Somerville, MA 2006
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