This is super interesting. I'm from South Africa and my native tongue is Zulu which automatically means I can fully comprehend Xhosa, Swazi and Ndebele. Arguably the 4 languages are different dialects of one language. I've been learning Swahili for about 2 months or so now and I'm fascinated by the similarities in our languages.
I love Bantu languages and it is amazing to see how closely related they are to each other. I've been collecting grammars and dictionaries of various Bantu languages for some time now including Kikuyu, Luganda, Shona, Lingala, Kirundi, Zulu, Sotho, Tswana and Herero. Of course, Swahili is in my collection too, though it is a very simplified Bantu language, whereas all the rest are so much more complex.
I can't believe you learning my native language. You would love Rwanda you can get the chance to speak english, french, Swahili and maybe even ugandan in one day. i also have a great interest in language and would love to teach you some kinyarwanda.
"Molo mfondini!" :D A very interesting video about the beautiful Bantu Languages! I must, however, correct a mistake you committed. In Xhosa the infix "-diya-" doesn't exist. The "-di-" is part of the 1st person subject concord (SC) "ndi-". "-ya-" is the present tense infix. So "ndi-" means "I", "-ya-" representing the present tense, "-ku-" meaning "you (sg.)" and "-thanda" meaning "love (verb)". Thus you say "úyakuthanda" (ú-ya-ku-thanda) when saying "he/she loves you", and not "ú[di]yakuthanda". The infix "-ya-" is, however, not always used in the present tense. When an interrogative takes place in the sentence, such as "ntoni" meaning "what" the infix "-ya-" doesn't appear. For example: "Ùfuna ntoni?" meaning "What do you want?" Here the infix "-ya-" isn't used, because an interrogative takes place in the sentence. Thus you say: "Ùyafuna" = "You want", but "Ùfuna ntoni" = "What do you want?". The same happens when an object follows: "Ndiyasifunda" = "I study it (Xhosa)", but "Ndisifunda isiXhosa" = "I study Xhosa", since the object "isiXhosa" follows. The infix "-ya-" always appears after the conjunctions "kodwa" (but), "kuba" (because), and "ukuba" (if/that). However, it is never used after the conjunction "xa" (when/whenever). I hope this was informative for "bonke abantu" (everybody); if so, please like. - Fellow Xhosa learner (I've studied for two weeks)
Kinyarwanda is not one of Uganda's languages. Don't mislead people. The same with Congolese people. In Uganda kinyarwanda is spoken to themselves Rwandese Tutsi. Ugandans cant construct a word in kinyarwanda if you didn't know. So annoying..
You really should make more videos like this. I find it so interesting if you can recognize similarities in languages through the same language family or even from another.
Hey Tim. Your lesson regarding sharing grammar and pronunciation across a family of languages was very interesting. It led me to wonder if you have any insight or information about why mother is Ma/mama/mom/momma/mum/umma/madre/mommy/mummy/etc and father is pa/baba/papa/padre/etc across the world, for a significant proportion of languages and cultures??
I think this correlation to basic words like "mom" and "dad" is, for the most part, only noticed in Indo-European languages (which still constitute a TON of languages)
Zack Root It's consistent in most if not all far East Asian languages as well! (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Bengali, Nepali, Hindi, Filipino...)
Zack Root www.mothersdaycelebration.com/mother-in-different-languages.html the "ma" in mom is consistent for nearly all of the languages included in this list, which include isolated indigenous ones...most definitely consistent outside of Indo-European languages.
Nancy Cui It is thought that these words are similar across multiple languages due to the nature of language acquisition. Sounds like m,n,p,b, t,d, which are commonly used for mother and father words, are thought to be the easiest sounds to make and are amongst the first sounds that babies make when they babble.
Thanks for the cool video! I am an isiZulu teacher in South Africa, Zulu and Xhosa are very similar but with differences like: Me or I in Xhosa is "ndi" but in Zulu is "ngi"
Wow, this is amazing. I speak Kirundi which is very similar to Kinyarwanda and I am astounded by the way you speak with so much ease. I wanna learn Xhosa and any online resources you may suggest?
thank you for this, i did not know that there is languages similar to my language Xhosa other than the ones spoken in South Africa, I am so interested in trying Swahili and seems easy,.. #happy
English =eyes Xhosa =matcho Swahili =macho English =mouth Xhosa=mlomo Swahili =mdomo English =hair Xhosa=inyele Swahili =nywele English =white Xhosa =nyaupe isZulu =nyaupe Swahili =nyeupe Welcome brother.. You may correct me if am wrong for some of it.. Am from Tanzanian -East Africa.
Well done. I wish more of these would be produces especially by native speakers like myself. For our languages to thrive like European languages we need to allow these academic comparisons and education. This will also assist us understand that we are a people beyond borders that were placed by other foreign people, yet they keep us divided.
Neat! Try picking up on the Cushitic language groups as well like Somali or Oromo. Amharic is also a wonderful semetic language to pick up on with millions of speakers! :)
huh i've always wondered why i could understand some of the words from other bantu countries that i've never been or don't know the culture of. i am burundian and today i learned something. thanks!
waaoohh you are amazing person,, am a Swahili person and I can say you speak perfect and I like kinyarwanda its very similar to my mother tongue in Kenya like numbers 2-6.thanks for sharing Be blessed
Hey Tim, I discovered about your talents on the THINKR channel and thought of the multiple languages you have learned, thinking what you should learn next. I thought you could maybe learn a nordic language, like maybe Finnish, Hungarian or Estonian (they are in the same language group). I myself have learned 3 languages fluently (Finnish, French and English) and have been learning Japanese for 4 years now. Wish you luck, Väinö
OMG, I lived in South Africa for four years and my goodness, I chose French over xhosa because it was very difficult for me. Hearing your pronounce xhosa so easily is like what? I tried to explain the clicks to a friend and she said "they all sound the same..."
thank you for making bantu language videos, we need more. as previous commentators have said, there is an error in the Xhosa explanation: the subject prefix in Xhosa is "ndi" and not "n". Thus the word is structured as such with 5 distinct morphemes: ndi + ya + ku + thand + a
You should try learning Norwegian, since most Scandinavian languages are similar you will most likely get Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish :D keep up the good work dude!
Omg you should learn my first language, Somali. I want to learn Swahili seeing as how I was born in Kenya & might visit Mombassa soon. Everyone says it's an easy & fun language to learn.
That's really interesting. You should totally do more videos like this. Maybe I'm weird for finding the grammar of languages really interesting. haha How's your Japanese coming? Still working on it?
Vizuri kabisa rafiki yangu, siku moja nataka mazungumzo na wewe kwa kiswahili kwa sabau mimi mwanafunzi cha kiswahili lugha pia!!! Hongera na salama kaka yangu :)
hi Tim! your future will be great!!! i don´t know if you want to be a linguist, but i´m really sure if you wanna be one you´ll be the best in this area!! btw, thanks for all your videos, i came across to many books because of you and actually i´m studying arabic and indonesian just because of your first video!! you are my inspiration!!
Yes is very similar but our old version Xhosa is different n very difficult to learn even to Xhosas from the urban areas they can't hear our old rural isixhosa sobawomkhulu
Hi! This is super awesome. I'm wondering where you get your resources for learning languages in the Bantu family? I'm really interested in learning these languages, but I find resources are much harder to come by for them than say, romance languages.
Verb conjugation reminds me of Eskimo-Aleut languages and all of the noun classes are very logical - it is a little bit like idea of counters in Chinese or Japanese - this kind of vocab organization seems more reasonable than gender - when you think about it genders are just useless or at least unnecessary and they rarely differ the meaning (only in case we have the same word meaning something different depending on gender)
There's actually a hypothesis that Celtic languages and Italic languages which are extinct surviving only through the descendant languages of Latin referred to as Romance languages (French and Spanish etc.) are related.
Hey, I've recently been inspired by your videos to actually get off my ass and finally learn Hebrew more than the alephbet. How did you get started and do you have strategies for learning words and grammar specifically?
