Historical African Languages Database (HALD)

Search

Instructions: Type the characters that you want to search for in the Search Term box. Then, within the Search Field dropdown menu, specify whether to search on the headword, the definition, an example or its translation, a part-of-speech, notes about the entry, or the etymology of the headword. Next, within the How to Search dropdown menu, select whether that field should contain the characters, start with the characters, end with the characters, or be exactly the whole field. Finally, within the Search Dictionaries section, specify which dictionaries to search in (default is all dictionaries), and within the Search Maho Labels section, specify which Maho labels to search on (default is all labels).

Search Term Search Field How to Search

Search Dictionaries

All

English_Kikuyu_McGregor

English_Luganda_Pilkington

English_Maa_Erhardt

English_Sotho_Kruger

Luganda_English_Pilkington

Maa_English_Erhardt

Mijikenda_English_Krapf

Sotho_English_Kruger

Swahili_French_Sacleux

Yao_English_Maples

Search Maho Labels

All

E72/73

G40

JE15

P21/22

S32/33

Click for details about these labels

Maho labels come from an updated and expanded version of Malcolm Guthrie's standard list of Bantu languages from 1971. This list organizes the languages geographically. For example, IDs beginning with A are in western Central Africa, while those beginning with S are in Southern Africa. This is a handy way for comparing Bantu languages in the same general area. To include non-Bantu languages in the search, users would also need to select "NA" on the search page. Explore this page for more information on African language classification and a map of the different Maho label regions.