1. Lexicostatistics is the methodology by which phonetic, morphological, and morphophonological features are correlated across a number of presumably genetically related languages. Higher frequencies than random clusters of correlated features are held to demonstrate genetic or historic commonality. The Swadesh list of 100 lexical items, common to all known world languages, has also been used in this research on Bantu languages. [BACK]

2. The most significant continuation of Guthrie's work has been carried on by the Tervuren lexicostatistical project, initiated by André Coupez, Alfred Meeussen, and Jan Vansina in the 1950s and headed today by Yvonne Bastin of

the Linguistic Department of the Musée Royal de I'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium. Additional research work in the Bantu paradigm is being conducted by the Centre International des Civilisations Bantoues, of Libreville, Gabon, including some coastal archaeological research to establish the lower threshold of the Iron Age in the Western Bantu expansion. [BACK]

3. Obenga's chapter "Tradi-pratique et santé chez les Bantou" (1985:195-217) concentrates on a comparative reconstruction of Mbochi and Mbulu and related languages of Western Equatorial Africa, essentially Western Bantu, and does not benefit from the work of Guthrie. [BACK]