We noticed that the ‘a’ in shaba, and the ‘u’ in ‘hub’ are both pronounced ‘ah’ (whose formal notation is the symbol ‘ä’), whereas the ‘u’ in hubu is pronounced ‘oo’ (as in ‘hoot’). Yet, ‘hub’ and hubu mean the same thing: ‘of greater size/ prominence’ and, semantically, therefore, also shifting to mean ‘of more importance [than that which surrounds it]’. And that is also why, I explained, shaba as meaning ‘share’ (thus ‘trade’), addresses – again with a semantic shift – the dominant activity when people gather at a hub or ‘prominent place’: to share or trade! (When a number of people meet, their sharing or trading does not have to be goods only; gossip and ideas are also shared and traded.) Such an act is indeed se-hubu (‘hub-like’) and, semantically, the term shifted from an adjective or noun to become a verb (an action or ‘doing’ word). Yes, all that is fine, but are there other words where the vowel ‘u’ tends to shift back and forth from ‘ah’ to ‘oo’?
Now, if the vowel ‘u’ tended to mutate only in Kalanga or Setswana, then it would be a Bantu predilection, ‘Bantu’ being the greater language family comprising most of Africa’s language groups. But that is not the case. Even the Indo-European language family is replete with such internal sound-shifts. Before giving examples of where ‘ah’ (ä) shifts to ‘ooh’, let me first emphasise that there a many straightforward cases whereby ‘ah’ remains ‘ah’. A good example is mekalo/ ‘megalo’ (both meaning ‘of considerable size’). But there are examples of an ‘intra’ variation in the pronunciation of ‘u’, i.e. where there is that sound-change in a given proto-term within a language, as in shaba (se-huba, as explained) and huba, and in ‘hub’ and ‘hubris’ (‘hubris’ means ‘excessive pride’ i.e. where one feels prominent [over those around him] – exactly as in ‘hub’…and we can even relate it to the Setswana phrase “go ntsha sehuba”: “to stick out one’s huba, that is, ‘chest’ – which is what a proud person typically does; which chest in most very fit people sticks out (‘hubs’) anyway. Other ‘intra’ words comprise English terms ‘lull’ and ‘lullaby’ – where the ‘u’ is ‘ah’ – versus ‘loll’ (‘recline or lean in a relaxed or indolent manner’), and in Setswana/Kalanga, lala versus lulama – all these words being premised on the proto-term lala (‘lie [down], ease off’).
