Similarities Between Bantu Languages As Reflected In Online Excerpts About Words That Mean "See You Later" In Swahili, Zulu, Sotho, And Venda

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents an excerpt of the Wikipedia page on Bantu languages.

This post also quotes selected comments from an online discussion about the Swahili term "tutaonana baadaye" (English translation: "See you later") and quotes other comments from that discussion thread about  words that are similar to "tutaonana" in several other Bantu languages.

In addition, this pancocojams post quotes an entire 2013 blog post written by James Higby, a White American volunteering in South Africa. That post includes the Venda words "re do vhonana" which mean "See you later".

The content of this post is presented for linguistics and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

****
INFORMATION ABOUT BANTU LANGUAGES
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_languages
"The Bantu languages... are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu peoples throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

 The total number of Bantu languages ranges in the hundreds, depending on the definition of "language" versus "dialect", and is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages.[2] 

[...]

The total number of Bantu speakers is in the hundreds of millions, estimated around 350 million in the mid-2010s (roughly 30% of the total population of Africa or roughly 5% of world population).[4] Bantu languages are largely spoken southeast of Cameroon, throughout Central Africa, Southeast Africa and Southern Africa. About one-sixth of the Bantu speakers, and about one-third of Bantu languages, are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone (c. 60 million speakers as of 2015). See list of Bantu peoples. [given as a sidebar of that Wikipedia page.] 

The Bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is Swahili; however, the majority of its speakers use it as a second language (L1: c. 16 million, L2: 80 million, as of 2015).[5]

Other major Bantu languages include Zulu, with 27 million speakers (15.7 million L2) and Shona, with about 11 million speakers (if Manyika and Ndau are included).[6][7] Ethnologue separates the largely mutually intelligible Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, which, if grouped together, have 20 million speakers.

[...]

Name

The similarity among dispersed Bantu languages had been observed as early as the 17th century.[9] The term Bantu as a name for the group was coined (as Bâ-ntu) by Wilhelm Bleek in 1857 or 1858, and popularised in his Comparative Grammar of 1862.[10] He coined the term to represent the word for 'people' in loosely reconstructed Proto-Bantu, from the plural noun class prefix *ba- categorizing 'people', and the root *ntʊ̀- 'some (entity), any' (e.g. Zulu 'uumuntu 'person', abantu 'people').

There is no indigenous term for the group, as Bantu-speaking populations refer to themselves by their endonyms, but did not have a concept for the larger ethno-linguistic phylum. Bleek's coinage was inspired by the anthropological observation of groups frequently self-identifying as 'people' or 'the true people' (as is the case, for example, with the term Khoekhoe, but this is a kare 'praise address' and not an ethnic name).[11]

[…]

The prefix ba- specifically refers to people. Endonymically, the term for cultural objects, including language, is formed with the ki- noun class (Nguni ísi-), as in Kiswahili, 'coast language and culture,' and isiZulu, 'Zulu language and culture'."...

****
ONLINE EXCERPTS ABOUT WORDS THAT MEAN "SEE YOU LATER" IN VARIOUS BANTU LANGUAGES
Excerpt #1
Google translate from Swahili to English:
"tutaonana baadaye - See you later"
-snip-
Googe translate indicates that "baadaye" is a Swahili adverb that means "later"; "after", or "thereafter". 

**
Excerpt #2
Google translate from Zulu to English
"sizobonana" = see you later
-snip-
Read about similar words in other Bantu languages in Excerpt #4, comment #7 and comment #8.

***
Excerpt #3
From https://www.pivotalplaces.org/learn-venda
Learn Venda
"Goodbye (“Go Well”)
● Other variations of goodbye   Vha tshimbila zwavudi

● Basali swavhuti

● Kabasali

See you tomorrow - Rido vhonana (see you) matshelo (tomorrow)"

****
Excerpt #4
From https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/23025409/Tutaonana-baadaye-Esther-na-Rashidi Tutaonana baadaye Esther na Rashidi"
Translation: See you later Esther and Rashidi

[Pancocojams Editor's Note: Here are selected comments from this discussion thread about this Swahili sentence. These comments are given in chronological order based on their publishing date with the oldest comments given first, except for replies. Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.]

1. Manderjoy,  Jun2 10, 2017
"We will see you later, Esther and Rashidi."

**
Reply
2. Aloeinc, June 10, 2017
"Shouldn't it be "see you both later" as opposed to "see each other later"?"

**
Reply
3. ElDoctr, August 16, 2017
"It is specifically "we will see each other later". The last -na in "tutaonana" makes it "each other".

**
Reply
4.  RowanM., Feb. 5, 2019 
"I take it "ta" is the future tense marker, like "na" is used for the present tense (and "ma" or "me" or something for the past tense)?"

**
Reply
5. Catriona, Feb. 5, 2019
“Yes, literally: "We will see each other later.
-snip-
The word "will" was written with bold font in that discussion thread, probably to highlight that word but not to emphasize it in the sentence. 

**
6. Pablopublico, April 1, 2018
"-onana" is the reciprocal form ("to see each other") of "-ona" ("to see").

**
Reply
7. Tswelo, Nov. 22, 2018
"Amazing. I've noticed so many similarities between Swahili and my home language South Sotho (Southern African). In my home language there's "retlabonana" which means "we'll see each other { ..}". If said alone, it could imply "we'll see each other some other time (in the near future)". Beautiful.

**
Reply
8. TiyoKakaza, December 4, 2019
Tu = Re = Si = Re , ta = tla = za/ zo = do , ona = bona = bona = vhona , -ana = -ana = -ana = -ana . tutaonana, sizobonana, sizabonana, retlabonana, re do vhonana... If it was not for the Arabic words Southern Africans could easily learn Swahili with its simpler grammar and familiar vocab. It is a pity we do not also have Duolingo from one our languages. Hopefully now that SADC has made Swahili an official language, we will have more people to create for example a duolingo course that is bantu-bantu for example been taught Swahili in Zulu as I think that makes the most sense.

-snip-
From various online sources:
"Tutaonana" is Swahili,  "sizobonana" is Zulu, "sizavonana" is ?; "retlabonana" is Sotho, and "re do vhonana" is Venda.

****
Excerpt #5
From https://higbysafrica.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/lost-in-translation/
James Higby’s South Africa, Nov. 11, 2013
Lost in Translation
"This is a bit about the local language, for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing.  The language is called TshiVenda, (pronounced “Chi-Ven-Da” meaning the language of Venda people.  Venda is a region in the Limpopo province of South Africa.  The place has high temperatures, beautiful mountains, delicious fruits and some interesting traditions which I’ll talk about later.  Venda people call themselves “VhaVenda” (plural) or “MuVenda” (Singular), and they call people like me “VhaKhuwa” or “MuKhuwa”.  So the word for English, or any other whitey language like German or Afrikaans is “TshiKhuwa”.  Tshivenda is a somewhat obscure and uncommonly known language.  There are many subtleties in pronunciation and every syllable ends with a vowel.  There are no gender nouns like with romantic languages, no gender specific pronouns even.  In fact, different pronouns confuse the living hell out of Venda students learning English, so they usually just pick one and go with it for everything.  Like “he”, for example: “James, my sister, he have got a problem with car.  He [the car] is not running because battery.  He [battery] is empty, so we must have cables.  Where is he? [the jumper cables].   This is typical, but if you’re laughing keep in mind that my Tshivenda must sound 100 times more messed up than that because I’m constantly missing subtle pronunciation syntax.  Now although the pronouns for “He” and “She” are the same in Tshivenda, men and women have different greetings.  When a man says hi, he says “Ndaa” when a woman says hi she says “Aa”.  There are also different ways of addressing someone, a respectful (formal) way which you should use when speaking to someone older than you, or the casual way which is used between friends of the same age.

Contrary to my severely analytical nature, I have stopped trying to translate Tshivenda literally in an attempt to understand it.  The reasons for this are as follows:  1) For me, it’s usually impossible.  2) The literal translation is usually ridiculous.  Take this basic conversation for example:  The Bold is Tshivenda, the Italics are the literal translation.  At the end I’ve recapped the conversation using non-literal, vernacular translation.

Ndaa, Ndou.
Hello, Elephant.

Ee Ndaa.
Yes hello.

Vho vuwa hani?
How are you waking up today?

Ndo vuwa zwavhudi.  Ndi vhudzisa ngeo?
I woke up nicely.  I am inquiring about you.

Na nne ndo vuwa.  Ndi khou humbela u vhudzisa?
And me I woke up.  I am politely asking to inquire.

Kha vha vhudzise.
You may inquire.

Madi ndi gaee?
Water is where?

Nga car wash [yes, they would actually say car wash with a slight accent]
At the car wash.

O Luga.  Ndo Livhuwa.
Divine.  I have thanked you.

Ndi zwone, tshimbila zwhavhudi.
You’re welcome, walk nicely.

Ndi zwone, re do vhonana.
Goodbye, we will see each other.

So that was really just: “Hello sir.” “Well hello.” “How’s it going?” “Pretty good, and yourself?” “Just fine.  Can I please ask you something?” “Sure, ask away” “Where can I find water?” “There’s some at the car wash” “Great.  Thank you.” “You’re welcome, go well.”  “OK bye, see you later”.

You may have noticed “Ndi Zwone” is a homonym, it means either “You’re welcome” or “Goodbye” depending on context.  It’s also interesting to note that although the literal translation sounds goofy, they were both using the polite and respectful form of addressing each other.  Make no mistake though, the informal is also goofy when translated literally.  And about that “Elephant” thing, men really do say that and it really does mean elephant.  The people of South Africa all have a different animal which designates their “clan” or something like that, and in the case of Venda it happens to be the elephant.  Even the big town in the Venda region, Thohoyandou, is literally Thoho (Head) ya (of) Ndou (Elephant).  So Thoho = head, which brings me to my next point: some words which are spelled the same have different meanings depending on pronunciation.  Thoho = head but if you give the “T” a little bit more of a plosive sound it becomes “monkey”.  Gezz!  Thoho ya mukhuwa hafta khou vhavha (This white man’s head/monkey hurts)."

****
Here are some comments from that blog's discussion thread, with numbers added for referencing purposes only:
1. thabang Says:
April 23, 2013 at 7:07 am
"Its very interesting a lot of the words which are used in venda are almost pronouced like zulu and pedi words"

**
2. Shudufhadzo Matumba Says:
September 17, 2013 at 1:51 pm
"Hi im Venda and ‘Madi ndi gaee?’ does not make sense, ‘Nga Car Wash ” too lol Its ‘Maḓi a ngafhi/ a wanala ngafhi’ then the respose should be ‘A car wash/A wanala car wash’.”…

**
Reply
3. higbysafrica Says:
October 2, 2013 at 7:28 pm
"Yes, I wrote that post with less than 1 month of practical Tshivenda speaking experience. Thanks for the corrections!"

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.