| West Nyanza | |
|---|---|
| Nyoro-Ganda | |
| Geographic distribution | Uganda, Tanzania, the DRC and Rwanda |
| Linguistic classification | Niger–Congo? |
| Proto-language | Proto-West Nyanza |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | west2841 |
The West Nyanza languages are a subgroup of the Great Lakes Bantu languages spoken in Uganda, Tanzania and the DRC.
History
People first spoke proto-West Nyanza in the year 100AD in the Kagera Region, and their descendants eventually formed two speech communities, one speaking Proto-Rutara and the other Proto-North Nyanza. North Nyanza began to be spoken as a language on the northwestern shore of Lake Victoria in the sixth century CE while Proto-Rutara was developed by the people who stayed behind in the Kagera Region. Many of the northern Rutara peoples (whose descendants founded Kitara) migrating northwestwards into the drier and more open woody savanna grasslands of western Uganda developed a political economy based mostly on intensive Cattle keeping and cereal growing (especially of finger millet) while the North Nyanza peoples (whose descendants founded Buganda and Busoga) created a land-intensive political economy around their banana and plantain groves and fishing near the very well-watered shores of Lake Victoria. Some Rutarans who stayed behind in Kagera near Lake Victoria like the Haya also built their food system around the Banana garden. The Zinza people migrated to southern Kagera and the southeastern shores of Lake Victoria while the Kerewe people migrated further eastwards to their present territory on the southeastern side of Lake Victoria.
References
- Wrigley, Christopher (16 May 2002). Kingship and State: The Buganda Dynasty. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521894357.
- Schoenbrun, David Lee (1998). A Green Place, a Good Place: Agrarian Change, Gender, and Social Identity in the Great Lakes Region to the 15th Century. Boydell & Brewer, Limited. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-85255-681-8.
- Stephens, Rhiannon (2 September 2013). A History of African Motherhood: The Case of Uganda, 700-1900. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107030800.
- Schoenbrun, David L. (1993). "Cattle herds and banana gardens: The historical geography of the western Great Lakes region,ca AD 800?1500". The African Archaeological Review. 11–11: 39–72. doi:10.1007/BF01118142. S2CID 161913402.
- Schoenbrun, David L. (1993). "We Are What We Eat: Ancient Agriculture between the Great Lakes". The Journal of African History. 34 (1): 1–31. doi:10.1017/S0021853700032989. JSTOR 183030.