RVN Webinar Series - Kinship Terms in the Tanzanian Rift Initial Observations
Channel: Rift Valley Network
Date: 31/07/2023

Note: This talk has not gone through a process of peer review, and 
findings should therefore be treated as preliminary and subject to change.

How to cite: Harvey, Andrew, Adoko, Daniel, Mensah, Samuel Obeng, Opoku, Enock Mensah, Opoku, Eunice, & Lartey, Samuel. 2023. Kinship Terms in the Tanzanian Rift: Initial Observations. Talk given at the Rift Valley Network Webinar Series. 26/07/2023.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8186829

Abstract: Tanzania’s Rift Valley has been shown to feature linguistic diversity punctuated by remarkable convergences. This talk is a first effort at extending that analysis to the words people use to refer to their relatives.

By way of context, this talk is a product of the University of Bayreuth course “Language and Meaning”, part of which was dedicated to kinship and kinship terminology across the African continent. Participants surveyed both lexical and ethnographic material from language communities across Africa, bringing together a wealth of material both lexical (kinship terms) and structural (kinship systems) in nature. This talk moblises this cross-continent data by employing it as a background against which languages of the Tanzanian Rift can be compared and contrasted, with the goal of asking questions about whether kinship terms and systems have been genetically inherited, affected by contact, or innovated in response to wider historical and social factors.

Following an introductory survey of kinship terms and kinship systems of the Tanzanian Rift, the talk identifies patterns and attempts some initial investigations, using three kin relations as concrete examples: 1) siblings and cousins; 2) in-laws; and 3) the mother’s brother.