Journal of Culture, Society and Development www.iiste.

org
ISSN 2422-8400 An International Peer-reviewed Journal
Vol.17, 2016

A Look into the Concept of Diphthongisation in Bantu: A Case of

Shona
Isaac Mhute
Faculty of Arts and Education, Department of Language and Media studies, Zimbabwe Open University,
Masvingo Regional Campus

Abstract
This is a qualitative analysis of the traditional position in theoretical linguistics that Bantu languages have only
monophthong vowels. It assesses the pronunciation of some of the typical Shona syllables involving vowels that
do not qualify to be treated as monophthongs by some Shona speakers in Harare and Masvingo provinces where
Zezuru and Karanga varieties of the language are traditionally spoken. It argues that vowels used in such
environments are similar to their counterparts that are treated as diphthongs in certain English environments. The
overall position is that the general resolution that has been made long ago (that Bantu languages do not have
diphthongs and triphthongs) qualifies to be treated as one of the implicational universals that have been made on
the languages which need to be dismissed right away. The paper observes that in the beginning such vowels
might have been pronounced as chains of vowels but not anymore probably due to the language’s constant
contact with Romance languages like English. The research recommends the carrying out of more researches to
determine the position of such implicational universal resolutions on Bantu languages
Keywords: Diphthongs, Monophthongs, triphthongs, Bantu language

Introduction
Crystal (1997) describes vowels or vocoids as speech sounds made without closure of the vocal tract or audible
friction. In other words, during their production, the fixed part of the tongue and the roof of the mouth are
positioned in such a way that air passes through without any disturbance. Air moves out freely unlike with
consonants or contoids where the space in between articulators is constricted such that air may be temporarily
stopped, redirected or made to pass through but producing some hissing sound. Vowels are, therefore, produced
by comparatively open configuration of the vocal tract. Hence, Kangira and Mudzingwa’s (2003) assertion that
vowels are made with an open approximation of the articulators involved. This makes them less tangible than
consonants (Abercrombie, 1967) as one can hardly locate the actions of the articulators involved.
During speech production, a vowel functions as the centre of a syllable. Examples are [e], [i], [a], [u]
and[o]. A syllable is an element of speech that acts as a unit of rhythm. It may also be explained using the chest-
pulse theory as the biggest fraction of speech that a person may produce during the time between two heart beats
(Kangira and Mudzingwa, 2003). In a syllable, the vowel plays the role of a nucleus. Nucleus is the most
sonorous sound unit, that is, the one that produces the most noise and it is the only compulsory element in a
syllable. Thus, vowels must always be present in all syllables in every language though there are few instances in
some languages where semi-vowels like [j] and [w] may assume the role of nucleus as well. The other
components of a syllable are onsets and codas and these roles are always assumed by consonants in all languages.
Onsets come before the nucleus whilst codas come after the nucleus. Languages differ on these with some taking
only an onset and nucleus. Such are called open syllables as they have no coda or surrounding consonants. This
is the situation in Bantu languages. Others take closed syllables or both and English is a good example. However,
all languages could have syllables with the nucleus only at some point. This demonstrates how important vowels
are in speech as far as all natural languages are concerned.
As demonstrated below, depending on the language, vowels may be of three types, that is,
monophthongs, diphthongs and triphthongs.

Monophthongs
Monophthongs are vowels of constant quality and are sometimes called pure vowels (Kangira and Mudzingwa,
2011). Crystal (1997) further describes a monophthong as a vowel with no detectable change in quality during a
syllable, for example, the vowel in ‘car’. In this case, during the production of the vowel, the back part of the
tongue would maintain the low position through out. This ensures the same vowel quality throughout the syllable.
There are many of these monophthongs, for instance:
[i] as in beat, peel, dean, seem
[e] as in pale, dane, same
[E] as in bet, den]
[u] as in boot, pool
[o] as in boat, pole, both
[a] as in car, bath

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Journal of Culture, Society and Development www.iiste.org
ISSN 2422-8400 An International Peer-reviewed Journal
Vol.17, 2016

There is constant unchanging quality in all of these vowels. Bantu languages like Shona are generally believed to
have a total of five monophthongs, that is, [a],[e],[i],[o],[u] whilst others like English have up to around sixteen
of them. Whether such universal claims still stand for all Bantu languages still needs to be found out by other
researches as this one focuses solely on diphthongisation in Shona.

Diphthongs
Unlike monophthongs, diphthongs are vowels in which there is perceptible change in quality during a syllable.
They are vowels of changing quality (Kangira and Mudzingwa, 2011) and Crystal (1991) calls them gliding
vowels. This is because during their production, the active articulator (back or front parts of the tongue) moves
from one vowel position to another. This is the reason they are represented on the vowel trapezium in the form of
arrows joining two vowel points. As such two vowel sounds are perceived during the production of a single
syllable. There are a number of such vowels in English some of whose examples are presented below:
[ai] from unrounded low front vowel position to unrounded high front vowel position e.g. bite, like,
dine, time, pile
[au] from unrounded low front vowel position to rounded high back vowel position e.g. out, down, cow,
foul
[ie] from unrounded high front vowel position to unrounded mid low front position e.g. beard, fierce,
weird
[ei] unrounded mid high front position to unrounded high front vowel position
e.g. table, bake, fail
[oi] from rounded mid high back vowel position to an unrounded high front vowel position e.g. toy, boy,
boil
During pronunciation of the involved syllables, a close track of the movement of the involved active articulator
would make one feel its movement from one vowel position to another. This generates the perceived change in
vowel quality. The current research focuses on finding out if such changes in vowel quality are really absent in
Bantu languages as initially claimed.

Diphthongisation in Shona
The general claim in texts like Abercrombie (1967) and Katamba (1994) is that diphthongisation is typical of
language families like Romance and unheard of in families like Bantu. After listening closely to the Shona
language in its typical use, the researcher identified the examples presented above in use in the following words:
[ai] e.g. ‘tainda’ (we went), ‘aidya’ (she ate it), ‘faira’ (file), ‘aiba (she stole it)’
[au] e.g. ‘taura’ (talk), ‘auya’ (she came), ‘audzwa’ (she was told).
[ie] e.g. ‘tiende’ (can we go), ‘aiedza’ (she was trying),
[ei] e.g. ‘veino imba’ (of this house), ‘tipei’ (give us),
[oi] e.g. ‘toinda’ (we are going), ‘oida’ (she now want it)
A close attention would demonstrate the absence of any difference between the pronunciation of these vowels
and their English counterparts presented earlier. For instance, no fluent Shona speaker would pronounce all the
above examples as consisting of three syllables. They are rather made up of two syllables. Shona speakers do not
pronounce the vowel in question as two separate ones.

Discussion
The writer made an attempt at pronouncing each of the vowels above as two separate ones to Shona speakers at
the same time watching their responses carefully during his field work. The results demonstrated that it sounded
so marked to almost every one of the speakers involved yet they were never made aware of the research that was
being carried out. This demonstrated that in typical concrete Shona conversations, there are only two syllables in
all of the Shona examples presented above. It is not being claimed that there has never been the production of the
vowel in question as two separate ones. However, maintaining the position that such situations still involve two
vowels when in typical concrete situations they come out as a single vowel would not be a correct description of
the language. The paper argues that the generally accepted traditional resolution that there is no diphthongisation
in Shona and other Bantu languages must be treated as no longer holding water. This supports Cook’s (1988)
and Tarugarira’s (1996) observation that so far the majority of the conclusions in the literature have been largely
based upon implicational universals. Implicational universals are generalised conclusions based upon the
information from a fraction of the languages and can at any moment be discredited by the discovery of some
contradictory information (Mhute, 2011). The researcher is not claiming that there was never such a position as it
might have been there but vanished over time due to adoption and adaptation resulting from years of constant
contact between the languages. The researcher has also observed the potential of further researches uncovering
evidence of triphthongs in the language in the way words like ‘aienda’ (she was going) are now pronounced in
Shona. http://www.morewords.com/word/triphthong describes a triphthong as a combination of three vowel

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Journal of Culture, Society and Development www.iiste.org
ISSN 2422-8400 An International Peer-reviewed Journal
Vol.17, 2016

sounds in a single syllable, forming a simple or compound sound. It is, thus a union of three vowel characters,
representing together a single sound.

Conclusion
It has been found out that diphthongisation is a process that does not spare some of the Bantu languages like
Shona as traditionally believed. It is as pronounced as it is in Romance languages like English. The general
conclusion that used to hold water must, therefore, be treated as an implicational universal that must now been
dismissed following the coming up of such contradictory evidence from Shona. It is argued that this might have
been the position at some point but it has now become a part of the languages due to the languages’ constant
contact with English.

Recommendations
The research recommends the carrying out of more researches to determine the position of such implicational
universal resolutions on Bantu languages in the light of a lot of adoption and adaptation characterising the many
years that Bantu languages have spent in contact with the Romance languages like English.

References
Abercrombie, D. 1967. Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Cook, V. 1988. Parameters Syntax. New York: St. Martins Press.
Crystal, D. 1991. A Dictionary of Phonetics and Linguistics. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
Crystal, D. 1997. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language: Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Katamba, F. 1994. An Introduction to Phonology. London: Longman.
Mhute, I. 2011. The Shona Subject Relation. Unpub. DPhil Thesis. UNISA.
Tarugarira, J. 1996. “Subject Relation in Shona.” Unpub. Honours Dissertation.
http://www.morewords.com/word/triphthong Accessed on 21/01/2016.

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