ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the linguistic features or characteristics that Zambian languages have in common. All Bantu languages in Zambia have five contrastive vowels, symbolis in writing as i, e, a, o, and u. Some observations on the occurrence of consonants in the Bantu languages of Zambia can now be made as regards common characteristics. The most striking feature of Zambian Bantu languages is what has been called the class system or concord system. One criterion suggested for distinguishing between language and dialect is that of mutual comprehension or mutual intelligibility. When linguists talk of the ways in which languages or dialects are similar or dissimilar, they are generally concerned with the proportion of the vocabulary the dialects have in common, or the structural relationships that they share, such as sounds, morphemes, or sentence arrangement. In some languages, however, the penultimate syllable seems to be pronounced with slightly greater force than the rest of the syllables in the same word.