A Historical-Linguistic Approach to the
Introduction of Cereals in the Culinary Traditions
of Early Bantu Speech Communities
Birgit Ricquier1,2,3 & Koen Bostoen1,2,4
1
Royal Museum for Central Africa,
Africa, Leuvensesteenweg 13, 3080 Tervuren, Belgium
Université
Université libre de Bruxelles,
Bruxelles, Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
3 Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS
4Belgian Science Policy
E-mail: birgit.ricquier@
[email protected];
africamuseum.be; koen.bostoen@
[email protected]
2
NVAS studiedag ‘Afrikastudies
‘Afrikastudies in Nederland en België’, 16 oktober 2009, Den Haag
1. Background
• Linguistic approach to history of culinary practice in BantuBantu-speaking Africa
• Bantu expansion:
expansion: relatively rapid language dispersal over huge area in association
association
with early agriculture
• Interaction between history of food, cuisine and agriculture (cf.
(cf. Fuller 2005)
2. Origin of cereal agriculture in BantuBantu-speaking Africa: state of the art
• Widely believed to be first introduced through contact with non–
non–Bantu,
Bantu,
especially NiloNilo-Saharan, speakers in Great Lakes area and spread further from
there among ‘Savannah Bantu’
Bantu’ speakers (Ehret
(Ehret 1973, 1998; Schoenbrun 1993;
Vansina 2004)
• Recent contestation of single Eastern point of introduction
Archaeobotany:
Archaeobotany: cultivated pearl millet remains from southern Cameroon,
dating back to 400 to 200 B.C., probably linked to a period of climate
climate change,
forest disturbance and increasing seasonality between ± 500 and 100 B.C.
(Eggert et al. 2006, Kahlheber et al. 2010)
Linguistics: *-cángʊ́ reconstructible as term for ‘pearl millet’
millet’ to high node in WWBantu and even to ProtoProto-Bantu with generic meaning ‘grain’
grain’ (Bostoen 20062006-7)
3. Vocabulary related to the preparation of flourflour-based porridge
• Not reconstructible to ProtoProto-Bantu
• Often foodfood-related ProtoProto-Bantu vocabulary which undergoes semantic shift to
refer to flourflour-based porridge and its preparation, possibly a culinary innovation
innovation
associated with the introduction of cereal agriculture
*-kímà: ‘mash’
mash’ in ProtoProto-Bantu (retained in NWNW-Bantu) > ‘flourflour-based porridge’
porridge’
in EastEast- and SouthSouth-WestWest-Bantu
*-dúg- ‘paddle’
paddle’ in ProtoProto-Bantu > ‘stir flour in water’
water’ in EastEast-Bantu
*-jìpIkpIk- ‘cook,
cook, boil’
boil’ in ProtoProto-Bantu > ‘stir porridge’
porridge’ in SouthSouth-WestWest-Bantu
*-pòndpònd- ‘pound, stamp,
stamp, beat’
beat’ in EastEast-Bantu > ‘cook/
cook/stir porridge’
porridge’ in the
languages of the border region of Angola, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia
‘flour’
flour’ in languages of the rain forest: many loanwords, often of European
European
origins not an old tradition in the rain forest linked to the presence and
(re(re-)introduction of cereals?
4. Preliminary conclusions
• No vocabulary related to the preparation of cereals can be reconstructed
reconstructed into ProtoProto-Bantu
• Rain forest Bantu languages often use a European loanword to refer
refer to ‘flour’
flour’ both flour and flourflour-based porridge are
culinary innovations associated with the (re(re-)introduction of grain agriculture
• Time depth of the introduction of cereals + the single eastern point
point of origin?
Certain cerealcereal-related isoglosses manifest a clearclear-cut EastEast-West split, while others have a ‘Savannah Bantu distribution’
distribution’
possibly successive waves of cereal diffusion which interact differently with the Bantu language dispersal
Semantic shift of *-kímà ‘mash’
mash’ to ‘flourflour-based porridge’
porridge’: once or independently in different languages/points in time?
Complementary distribution of *-dúg- and *-jìpIkpIk- matches complementary distribution of W and E Bantu words for ‘pearl
millet’
millet’ possibly further evidence for at least two separate introductions
introductions of early cereal agriculture in Bantu domain
References
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Africa: A reconsideration of the lexical evidence. Afrika und Übersee 8989-90.
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Höhn, Stefanie Kahlheber,
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