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Article

Open Access

The Impact of Bantu Languages on English Pronunciation

Author(s)

Paulo Hadi E. Manuel

Full-Text PDF Download XML 790 Views

DOI:10.17265/2161-6248/2017.07.003

Affiliation(s)

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, United States

ABSTRACT

Bantu languages are dialects spoken in the central and southern Africa. These languages have some prosodic features different from English, not widely discussed in the literature. When speakers of these languages come to learn English, they confront pronunciation difficulties which might hinder their intelligibility. Sounds, such as the bilabial fricative /β/ and the alveolar affricate /ts/ are some Bantu language segments that may interfere with English speech intelligibility. The epenthetic phenomenon (vowel insertion) in several Bantu languages is also an issue English as a second language (ESL) instructors need to be cognizant. In addition, English segments, such as the interdental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ and vowel sound distinctions constitute a puzzle to Bantu language speakers. This paper examines the literature on Bantu language phonology in order to identify prominent discrepancy sounds from English, and proposes some pronunciation activities to be used with learners from Bantu language backgrounds.

KEYWORDS

Bantu languages, pronunciation, metathesis, epenthesis

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