Amani Lusekelo
Biographic Data
| ID | 4217038 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Amani Lusekelo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Amani |
| FAMILY NAME | Lusekelo |
| SIGNATURE | LUSEKELO A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Dar es Salaam |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6275-237X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
‘The leopard has given birth’: Weather terms in Gisamjanga-Datooga
Meteorological events (ME) pose a notorious challenge to linguistic encoding due to a basic tension between their semantics and syntactic structure which, in most languages, requires a predicate and at least one participant. Since MEs typically do not involve any canonical participants, there is considerable leeway for languages to either construe participants or to find ways to do without them. This contribution seeks to describe the strategies …
Names of the days in the seven-day week in Bantu languages of Tanzania
Studies about the names of the days of the week in Eastern African societies have previously focused on a single ethnic group. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the names across Bantu1 languages of Tanzania in order to set apart the traditional names of days from the contemporary one. Findings revealed that African societies reckoned days of the traditional week in relation to working days, resting days, and days to worship the deity. Nam…
Examining plant names and their socio-cultural significance among speakers of Chasu in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
This study sought to examine the socio-cultural significance of the meanings of the plant names among the speakers of Chasu in rural areas in Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. Data were collected using free-listing, elicitation and walk-in-the-woods interviews. The study was guided by the cognitive semantic theory and a thematic analysis of the data was employed to generate different themes. Generally, findings indicate five socio-cultural signific…
Lexicalisation of crop names in Bena, Hehe, and Sangu societies of Tanzania
This paper examines the names of crops in the Bantu languages Bena, Hehe, and Sangu. This was sparked by the realisation that certain crops are native to Africa while others were introduced to inland Bantu languages through interactions with coastal communities. Coastal communities acquired these crop names from Asian and European languages before presenting them to the interior regions. The theory of lexicalisation guided this study to account f…
The properties of adverbs and adverbial expressions in Runyambo
This article identifies and classifies adverbs in Runyambo, a Bantu language spoken in north-west Tanzania. Runyambo is classified as E21. This article aims at discussing the morphology, syntax and semantics of adverbs and adverbial expressions ranging from the most to the least prototypical members of this group. Adverbs in this language are heterogeneous in nature. They are found in a range of forms and structures which make them reveal various…
When ‘Antiquity’ Meets ‘Modernity’ in Postcolonial Africa: Misrepresentation at Cultural Heritage Tourist Sites along East African Coastlines
Recent widely received claims about postcolonial Africa do not reflect any clear-cut connection between contemporary society and indigenous black African cultures as they prevailed before the colonial era, nor do they capture accurately the ways that European culture influenced – or failed to impact altogether – Africans during colonialism. Nor do proclamations about postcolonial reality present very well the hybrid linguistic cultures emerging a…
When ‘father’ means ‘husband’ and ‘sister’ means ‘cattle’: Lexicalization of kinship terms and address forms in Tanzanian Bantu languages
We articulate the lexicalization and extension of the meaning of kinship terms in Bantu languages spoken in Tanzania. We draw linguistic conclusion from proto-forms reconstructed in comparison with the maternal kin terms and affinal address forms in matrilineal and patrilineal societies. We assume that since societies (e.g. Luguru, Mwera, Ndendeule, Swahili) changed from matrilineal to patrilineal, the kin terms and address forms were altered to …
Investigating the ways of cooking and the properties of cook verbs in Nilamba (Bantu F31)
The motivation for the current study is based on the existing body of research on variations in the lexical semantic properties of cook verbs, particularly in the manner and result components of meaning across languages. However, there is a notable lack of contributions regarding this subject in Bantu languages, which limits our understanding of their properties in this context. As such, this article examines the lexical semantic properties of co…
Portrayal of the Covid-19 pandemic in political cartoons in Tanzania
Previous analyses of Tanzanian political cartoons unearthed corruption practices, impingement of democratic processes, stereotype representation of gender relations, and power relations between politicians. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic opened another avenue to investigate the contents of political cartoons in Tanzania, as had already been reported in Jordan, Nigeria and South Africa. This paper looks into the messages contained in caricature…
The lexicalization of concepts of time in naming sequences of days in Tanzanian Bantu
The conceptualization of time-frames in African societies was presumed to bear elaborate abstract past that connects to ancestors and short future that links to the present time. I argue against this claim and establish that both pasts and futures are elaborate at least in 26 Tanzanian Bantu languages. I used names of sequences of days which discretisize the actual events into eight time-frames, equally four on both sides beyond speech time. Thes…
The V and CV augment and exhaustivity in Kinyakyusa
In addition to the stem and noun class prefix, the structure of nouns in Bantu languages may contain an augment. This augment typically is a vowel, but some languages show a CV augment. Interestingly, the Bantu language Kinyakyusa shows nouns with a V as well as with a CV prefix, both of which have been analysed as augments (De Blois 1970). In this short paper we clarify the formal and functional properties of the ‘CV augment’ in Kinyakyusa. Firs…
Locating the Hadzabe People in the Wilderness: Kinship Relations and Naming Systems of the Hadzabe Society in Tanzania
There exists a close relationship between the use of a personal name as the means of individuating a single person and highlighting that person’s ties to an entire culture. Many aspects of the Hadzabe’s entire culture are reported as having been eroded by the influences of other major ethnic groups (including Datooga, Isanzu, Iraqw, and Sukuma) in the Lake Eyasi area, as well as by Christian missionaries and by the sedentarization programs of the…
Framing of Covid-19 News in Font-Page Headlines of Standard (Hardcore) Swahili Newspapers in Tanzania
COVID-19 pandemic rampaged the health of the world population for a very short period, from December 2019 to-date. Since the pandemic attacked each nation, in this article I discuss the representation of COVID-19 information in the headlines of front pages in “Habarileo”, “Mwananchi” and “Uhuru” newspapers circulated in Tanzania. Much of the information entrench transmission and prevention, as most of the verbs and nouns frame them. The contents …
The Language of the Public Spaces in Tanzanian Universities during the Covid-19 Pandemic
The language of public space in Tanzania is increasingly reported to be dominated by English in the bottom-up signage for maintaining the higher status quo. At the same time, the utility of Kiswahili predominates for the top-down signposts that aim to pass information to the public quickly. While the literature shows the utility of Kiswahili is skewed towards the communication intended message, the COVID-19 situation expanded this utility in the …
The Incorporation of the Kiswahili Names of Cereals and Tubers in the Non-Bantu Languages in Tanzania
I articulate the mechanisms for the incorporation of Kiswahili names of the New World cereals and tubers in the Afro-asiatic, Khoisan and Nilo-Saharan languages spoken in Tanzania. The penetration of pastoral-terms from non-Bantu societies into Bantu communities is extensively documented. But research on the impact of Kiswahili on non-Bantu languages has not been given prominence except in a few studies. Thus, specific investigation of the names …
Linguistic and Social Outcomes of Interactions of Hadzabe and Sukuma in North-Western Tanzania
Social and linguistic contacts of the Hadzabe speaking people with the Sukuma people in Maswa District (now Meatu District) in northern Tanzania have been under-reported in the existing literature, whereas the Hadzabe of eastern Tanzania have been researched in depth. Specialists have documented that in western Tanzania, the material culture of the Hadzabe differs significantly from what is found among their counterparts in the eastern region; so…
Historicity of personal names in Tanzania: The case of the names in the Rombo-Chagga community in Kilimanjaro
The history of African societies, which are mostly oral, could be deciphered through onomastics. This is possible because naming practices, which are elaborate, and personal names, which are meaningful, are cherished in African communities. In most cases, the circumstances at birth, which split into several strands, dictate the choice of the name by the name-givers. Naming practice is an elaborate phenomenon amongst the Rombo-Chagga people of Kil…
African Linguistics in North-Eastern and So-Called Anglophone Africa
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Adaptation of Sukuma Loanwords in the Western Dialects of Datooga ( Taturu ) and its Dialectological Implications
The exchange of linguistic materials between languages which come into contact is indeed reciprocal. The previous accounts of the outcome of contact between Datooga and Sukuma was skewed towards impact of Datooga on Sukuma. Based on ethnolinguistic vitality approach, the Datooga tend to reveal solidarity-related social identity by acquiring their language as a mother tongue. They also reveal prestige-related social identity by acquiring Sukuma la…
Naming practices in contemporary Machame-Chagga culture
Naming practices were cherished in African communities and personal names bestowed to children used to carry some semantic content usually determined by circumstances at birth. An examination of formal names of school children from the Machame-Chagga families exhibits an increasingly diminishing trend of naming practices. Most names of pupils are of English and/or Christian origin and just a fraction of names from a sample of 421 full names appea…
Naming practices in contemporary Machame-Chagga culture
Naming practices were cherished in African communities and personal names bestowed to children used to carry some semantic content usually determined by circumstances at birth. An examination of formal names of school children from the Machame-Chagga families exhibits an increasingly diminishing trend of naming practices. Most names of pupils are of English and/or Christian origin and just a fraction of names from a sample of 421 full names appea…
Naming practices in contemporary Machame-Chagga culture
Naming practices were cherished in African communities and personal names bestowed to children used to carry some semantic content usually determined by circumstances at birth. An examination of formal names of school children from the Machame-Chagga families exhibits an increasingly diminishing trend of naming practices. Most names of pupils are of English and/or Christian origin and just a fraction of names from a sample of 421 full names appea…
African Linguistics in North-Eastern and So-Called Anglophone Africa
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Adaptation of Sukuma Loanwords in the Western Dialects of Datooga ( Taturu ) and its Dialectological Implications
The exchange of linguistic materials between languages which come into contact is indeed reciprocal. The previous accounts of the outcome of contact between Datooga and Sukuma was skewed towards impact of Datooga on Sukuma. Based on ethnolinguistic vitality approach, the Datooga tend to reveal solidarity-related social identity by acquiring their language as a mother tongue. They also reveal prestige-related social identity by acquiring Sukuma la…
The Incorporation of the Kiswahili Names of Cereals and Tubers in the Non-Bantu Languages in Tanzania
I articulate the mechanisms for the incorporation of Kiswahili names of the New World cereals and tubers in the Afro-asiatic, Khoisan and Nilo-Saharan languages spoken in Tanzania. The penetration of pastoral-terms from non-Bantu societies into Bantu communities is extensively documented. But research on the impact of Kiswahili on non-Bantu languages has not been given prominence except in a few studies. Thus, specific investigation of the names …
Linguistic and Social Outcomes of Interactions of Hadzabe and Sukuma in North-Western Tanzania
Social and linguistic contacts of the Hadzabe speaking people with the Sukuma people in Maswa District (now Meatu District) in northern Tanzania have been under-reported in the existing literature, whereas the Hadzabe of eastern Tanzania have been researched in depth. Specialists have documented that in western Tanzania, the material culture of the Hadzabe differs significantly from what is found among their counterparts in the eastern region; so…
Historicity of personal names in Tanzania: The case of the names in the Rombo-Chagga community in Kilimanjaro
The history of African societies, which are mostly oral, could be deciphered through onomastics. This is possible because naming practices, which are elaborate, and personal names, which are meaningful, are cherished in African communities. In most cases, the circumstances at birth, which split into several strands, dictate the choice of the name by the name-givers. Naming practice is an elaborate phenomenon amongst the Rombo-Chagga people of Kil…
Framing of Covid-19 News in Font-Page Headlines of Standard (Hardcore) Swahili Newspapers in Tanzania
COVID-19 pandemic rampaged the health of the world population for a very short period, from December 2019 to-date. Since the pandemic attacked each nation, in this article I discuss the representation of COVID-19 information in the headlines of front pages in “Habarileo”, “Mwananchi” and “Uhuru” newspapers circulated in Tanzania. Much of the information entrench transmission and prevention, as most of the verbs and nouns frame them. The contents …
The Language of the Public Spaces in Tanzanian Universities during the Covid-19 Pandemic
The language of public space in Tanzania is increasingly reported to be dominated by English in the bottom-up signage for maintaining the higher status quo. At the same time, the utility of Kiswahili predominates for the top-down signposts that aim to pass information to the public quickly. While the literature shows the utility of Kiswahili is skewed towards the communication intended message, the COVID-19 situation expanded this utility in the …
Locating the Hadzabe People in the Wilderness: Kinship Relations and Naming Systems of the Hadzabe Society in Tanzania
There exists a close relationship between the use of a personal name as the means of individuating a single person and highlighting that person’s ties to an entire culture. Many aspects of the Hadzabe’s entire culture are reported as having been eroded by the influences of other major ethnic groups (including Datooga, Isanzu, Iraqw, and Sukuma) in the Lake Eyasi area, as well as by Christian missionaries and by the sedentarization programs of the…
Portrayal of the Covid-19 pandemic in political cartoons in Tanzania
Previous analyses of Tanzanian political cartoons unearthed corruption practices, impingement of democratic processes, stereotype representation of gender relations, and power relations between politicians. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic opened another avenue to investigate the contents of political cartoons in Tanzania, as had already been reported in Jordan, Nigeria and South Africa. This paper looks into the messages contained in caricature…
The lexicalization of concepts of time in naming sequences of days in Tanzanian Bantu
The conceptualization of time-frames in African societies was presumed to bear elaborate abstract past that connects to ancestors and short future that links to the present time. I argue against this claim and establish that both pasts and futures are elaborate at least in 26 Tanzanian Bantu languages. I used names of sequences of days which discretisize the actual events into eight time-frames, equally four on both sides beyond speech time. Thes…
The V and CV augment and exhaustivity in Kinyakyusa
In addition to the stem and noun class prefix, the structure of nouns in Bantu languages may contain an augment. This augment typically is a vowel, but some languages show a CV augment. Interestingly, the Bantu language Kinyakyusa shows nouns with a V as well as with a CV prefix, both of which have been analysed as augments (De Blois 1970). In this short paper we clarify the formal and functional properties of the ‘CV augment’ in Kinyakyusa. Firs…
The properties of adverbs and adverbial expressions in Runyambo
This article identifies and classifies adverbs in Runyambo, a Bantu language spoken in north-west Tanzania. Runyambo is classified as E21. This article aims at discussing the morphology, syntax and semantics of adverbs and adverbial expressions ranging from the most to the least prototypical members of this group. Adverbs in this language are heterogeneous in nature. They are found in a range of forms and structures which make them reveal various…
When ‘Antiquity’ Meets ‘Modernity’ in Postcolonial Africa: Misrepresentation at Cultural Heritage Tourist Sites along East African Coastlines
Recent widely received claims about postcolonial Africa do not reflect any clear-cut connection between contemporary society and indigenous black African cultures as they prevailed before the colonial era, nor do they capture accurately the ways that European culture influenced – or failed to impact altogether – Africans during colonialism. Nor do proclamations about postcolonial reality present very well the hybrid linguistic cultures emerging a…
When ‘father’ means ‘husband’ and ‘sister’ means ‘cattle’: Lexicalization of kinship terms and address forms in Tanzanian Bantu languages
We articulate the lexicalization and extension of the meaning of kinship terms in Bantu languages spoken in Tanzania. We draw linguistic conclusion from proto-forms reconstructed in comparison with the maternal kin terms and affinal address forms in matrilineal and patrilineal societies. We assume that since societies (e.g. Luguru, Mwera, Ndendeule, Swahili) changed from matrilineal to patrilineal, the kin terms and address forms were altered to …
Investigating the ways of cooking and the properties of cook verbs in Nilamba (Bantu F31)
The motivation for the current study is based on the existing body of research on variations in the lexical semantic properties of cook verbs, particularly in the manner and result components of meaning across languages. However, there is a notable lack of contributions regarding this subject in Bantu languages, which limits our understanding of their properties in this context. As such, this article examines the lexical semantic properties of co…
Names of the days in the seven-day week in Bantu languages of Tanzania
Studies about the names of the days of the week in Eastern African societies have previously focused on a single ethnic group. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the names across Bantu1 languages of Tanzania in order to set apart the traditional names of days from the contemporary one. Findings revealed that African societies reckoned days of the traditional week in relation to working days, resting days, and days to worship the deity. Nam…
Examining plant names and their socio-cultural significance among speakers of Chasu in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
This study sought to examine the socio-cultural significance of the meanings of the plant names among the speakers of Chasu in rural areas in Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. Data were collected using free-listing, elicitation and walk-in-the-woods interviews. The study was guided by the cognitive semantic theory and a thematic analysis of the data was employed to generate different themes. Generally, findings indicate five socio-cultural signific…
Lexicalisation of crop names in Bena, Hehe, and Sangu societies of Tanzania
This paper examines the names of crops in the Bantu languages Bena, Hehe, and Sangu. This was sparked by the realisation that certain crops are native to Africa while others were introduced to inland Bantu languages through interactions with coastal communities. Coastal communities acquired these crop names from Asian and European languages before presenting them to the interior regions. The theory of lexicalisation guided this study to account f…
‘The leopard has given birth’: Weather terms in Gisamjanga-Datooga
Meteorological events (ME) pose a notorious challenge to linguistic encoding due to a basic tension between their semantics and syntactic structure which, in most languages, requires a predicate and at least one participant. Since MEs typically do not involve any canonical participants, there is considerable leeway for languages to either construe participants or to find ways to do without them. This contribution seeks to describe the strategies …
Linguistics (15 works) · Sociology (11 works) · History (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Tanzania (10 works) · Ethnology (8 works) · Geography (8 works) · Anthropology (7 works) · Bantu languages (7 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (7 works)