Universität zu Köln

Fleming, Luke, Mitchell, Alice and Ribot, Isabelle (2019). In the name of the father-in-law: Pastoralism, patriarchy and the sociolinguistic prehistory of eastern and southern Africa. Socioling. Stud., 13 (2-4). S. 171 - 193. SHEFFIELD: EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD. ISSN 1750-8657

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Abstract

In a range of eastern and southern African language communities, stretching from Ethiopia to the Cape, married women are enjoined to avoid the names of members of their husband's family as well as (near-)homophones of those names, and to replace tabooed vocabulary with substitute words. Although in-law name avoidance is a global phenomenon, the daughter-in-law speech registers thus constituted are unusual in their linguistic elaboration: they involve avoidance not only of names and true homophones of names but also an array of words whose only relation to tabooed names is phonological similarity. We provide an overview of the distribution and convergent social and linguistic characteristics of these registers and then examine one register more closely, namely, that of Datooga of Tanzania. To tease apart the layers of causality that converge upon this particular sociolinguistic pattern, we consider archaeological, ethnological, sociolinguistic and genetic lines of evidence. We propose that any partial diffusion of in-law avoidance practices has been complemented by a complex of sociocultural factors motivating the emergence of this pattern at different times and places across the African continent. These factors include pastoralism, patrilineal descent ideologies and norms of patrilocal post-marital residence paired with cattle-based bridewealth exchange.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Fleming, Luke UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Mitchell, Alice UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Ribot, Isabelle UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-159874
DOI:	10.1558/sols.37860
Journal or Publication Title:	Socioling. Stud.
Volume:	13
Number:	2-4
Page Range:	S. 171 - 193
Date:	2019
Publisher:	EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD
Place of Publication:	SHEFFIELD
ISSN:	1750-8657
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language TABOOS; CATTLE Multiple languages Linguistics Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/15987