A classified vocabulary of the Icibemba language

More about the book

In Lexicology in Zambia (Kasonde, 1981), the author argued that quality and quantity of published works were a measure of the level of development in any given society. He lamented that poverty as such could not justify lack of literary creativity in Africa where, unlike the industrial world with modern libraries, oral traditions were the only valuable bibliographies available. The author now avails himself of the opportunity to offer a practical albeit limited response to the need for written lexicons which he then clearly identified. The present work is not the first lexicon of Icibemba language. Earlier lexicons include Bemba-English Dictionary (White Fathers, 1949), Bemba Pocket Dictionary (Hoch, 1960) and A Vocabulary of Icibemba (Mann, 1995). The original contribution of this particular lexicon lies in the application of the concept of vocabulary classification based on A Tentative Questionnaire for the words of Bantu Languages (Yukawa, 1979), also found in A Classified Vocabulary of the Luba Language (Yukawa, 1992). In writing this lexicon, the author knows that there is bound to be disagreement about the right meaning and spelling. The problem of dialectology notwithstanding, he has used the official orthography of Zambian languages (Chimuka, 1977).