Pushing Back the Origin of Bantu Lexicography: The <i>Vocabularium Congense</i> of 1652, 1928, 2012

  • Jasper De Kind KongoKing Research Group, Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
  • Gilles-Maurice de Schryver KongoKing Research Group, Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; and Xhosa Department, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa
  • Koen Bostoen KongoKing Research Group, Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; and Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
DOI : https://doi.org/10.5788/22-1-1002

Résumé

In this article, the oldest Bantu dictionary hitherto known is explored, that is the Vocabularium Latinum, Hispanicum, e Congense, handed down to us through a manuscript from 1652 by the Flemish Capuchin Joris van Gheel, missionary in the Kongo (present-day north-western Angola and the southern part of the Lower Congo Province of the DRC). The manuscript was heavily reworked by the Belgian Jesuits Joseph van Wing and Constant Penders, and published in 1928. Both works are currently being digitized, linked and added to an interlingual and multimedia database that revolves around Kikongo and the early history of the Kongo kingdom. In Sections 1 and 2 the origins of Bantu lexicography in general and of Kikongo metalexicography in particular are revisited. Sections 3 and 4 are devoted to a study of Van Gheel's manuscript and an analysis of Van Wing and Penders' rework. In Sections 5 and 6 translation equivalence and lexicographical structure in both dictionaries are scrutinized and compared. In Section 7, finally, all the material is brought together. Keywords: kikongo, kongo kingdom, congo, angola, capuchins, jesuits, bantu, latin, spanish, french, flemish, authorship, compilation strategy, language, dialect, orthography, base letters, diacritics, phonetics, proto-bantu, translation equivalence, meaning extensions, paraphrases, loanwords, misnamings, retranslations, lexicographical structure, manuscript, database
Publié-e
2012-11-20
Comment citer
De Kind, J., de Schryver, G.-M., & Bostoen, K. (2012). Pushing Back the Origin of Bantu Lexicography: The <i>Vocabularium Congense</i&gt; of 1652, 1928, 2012. Lexikos, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.5788/22-1-1002
Numéro
Vol. 22 (2012)
Rubrique
Artikels/Articles

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