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Grex Language Item 21: Ciluba? Never heard of it!
Entered by aaron on Fri Sep 27 04:06:51 UTC 1991:

Has anybody here heard of a language called "Ciluba"?
(Who might be able to share where it is spoken?)

9 responses total.

#1 of 9 by window on Mon Aug 22 19:52:48 1994:

No

#2 of 9 by brighn on Mon Aug 22 20:01:19 1994:

Well, it was almost three years ago that somebody asked, 
but since nobody answered then:
Chiluba (var. Luba, Kiluba, Ciluba) is spoken by 3 mil Ziarians.
It is a Bantu language.

#3 of 9 by kami on Mon Aug 22 22:27:18 1994:

THANK YOU!
Can YOU pronounce the clicks?

#4 of 9 by brighn on Tue Aug 23 16:01:21 1994:

Yes, actually, I can.  Does Ciluba have clicks?  I imagine it might, but 
Bantu as a general thing doesn't.  The clicks come from the !Kung, but many
Bantu languages surrounding the Kalihari have incorporated some.

#5 of 9 by kami on Wed Aug 24 02:39:10 1994:

how are the Bantu and !Kung languages/peoples related?  I thought the latter
was a subset of the former, but that the whole group were linguistically
similar.  I do not believe I can differentiate or produce all the various
clicks or stops, but it might just be a matter of exposure.

#6 of 9 by brighn on Wed Aug 24 06:30:36 1994:

The !Kung are not a Bantu people.  They just happen to live close by.
!Kung is a Khiosan language spoken in Botswana, South West Africa,
and South Africa.  Hottentot is related to !Kung.  There are about
50,000 !Kung speakers.  The movie The Gods Might Be Crazy (and its
sequel) features a speaker, !Xi.  (All of this except the last bit 
comes from Katzner's The LAnguages of the World (Routledge & Kegan 
Paul 1986).)  Oh... there are only four identified Khoisan languages.
Double oh... Katzner calls !Kung "Bushman" throughout. 

In general, btw, Bantu language names start with ci-, chi-, ki-, kwe-,
li-, and a couple of others.  These prefixes just mean "language":
hence the language Swahili is properly called Kiswahili, and Kikuyu
is the language of the Kuyu people (while the Luba speak Ciluba).
U- means place.  Given that in the language Luganda, the Lu- is
the prefix meaning language , where is Luganda spoken?  Anyone?

#7 of 9 by kami on Thu Aug 25 06:53:13 1994:

ah, Uraguay? ;)
OK, my only exposure to the !Kung or Bantu was from "The Harmless People",
a monograph on "the !Kung bushmen of the Kalahari (sp?) desert".  I forget
the author.  It was about 12 years ago.

#8 of 9 by debraj on Sun Jul 25 05:18:00 1999:

In Uganda, eh ?

#9 of 9 by keesan on Sun Aug 1 21:50:52 1999:

Luganda is spoken in Buganda.  Altavista listed 774 entries, the first of
which, the Luganda society, had a link to a grammar.  THe language is strongly
influenced by Arabic and English and the society attempts to purify it.
Wonder where Buganda is.
My website on grex has a link to a free listing of online dictionaries
containing many languages i never heard of.

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