Africa's Endangered Languages

Documentary and Theoretical Approaches
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-0-19-025634-0
Verlag: OXFORD UNIV PR

Buch, Englisch, 516 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 933 g

Relatively little is known about Africa's endangered languages. Unlike Australia, North Asia, and the Americas, where indigenous languages are predominantly threatened by colonizers, the most immediate and pressing threats to minority African languages are posed by other local languages. Therefore, the threat of language extinction is perceived as lower in Africa than in other parts of the globe. Consequently, in an era when linguists are racing against time to study and preserve the world's threatened languages before they go extinct, a disproportionate amount of research and funding are devoted to the study of endangered African languages when compared to any other linguistically threatened region in the world. There are approximately 308 highly endangered languages spoken in Africa (roughly 12% of all African languages) and at least 201 extinct African languages. This book puts some of Africa's many endangered languages in the spotlight in the hopes of challenging and reversing this trend. Both documentary and theoretical perspectives are taken with a view towards highlighting the symbiotic relationship between the two approaches, and its implications for the preservation of endangered languages, both in the African context and more broadly. The documentary-oriented articles deal with key issues in African language documentation including language preservation and revitalization, community activism, and data collection and dissemination methodologies, among others. The theoretically-oriented articles provide detailed descriptions and analyses of phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic phenomena, and connect them to current theoretical issues and debates. Africa's Endangered Languages provides thorough coverage of a continent's neglected languages that will spur linguists and Africanists alike to work to protect them.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kandybowicz, Jason

Torrence, Harold

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Afrikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Historische & Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- List of contributors

- Chapter 1 - Africa's Endangered Languages: An Overview

- Jason Kandybowicz and Harold Torrence

- Chapter 2 - The Challenge of Documenting Africa's Least Known Languages

- Bonny Sands

- Chapter 3 - The Nata Documentation Project: An Overview

- Joash J. Gambarage, Andrei Anghelescu, Strang Burton, Joel Dunham, Erin Guntly, Hermann Keupdjio, Zoe Wai-Man Lam, Adriana Osa-Gomez, Douglas Pulleyblank, Dayanqi Si, Yoshiko Yoshino and Rose-Marie Déchaine

- Chapter 4 - Tongue Root Harmony in Nata: An Allomorphy-based Account

- Joash J. Gambarage and Douglas Pulleyblank

- Chapter 5 - Nominal and Verbal Tone in Nata: An Allomorphy-based Account

- Andrei Anghelescu, Joash J. Gambarage, Zoe Wai-Man Lam and Douglas Pulleyblank

- Chapter 6 - Nata Deverbal Nominalizations

- Rose-Marie Déchaine, Dayanqi Si and Joash J. Gambarage

- Chapter 7 - Busy Intersections: A Framework for Revitalization

- G. Tucker Childs

- Chapter 8 - Documenting Ekegusii: How 'Empowering' Research Fulfills Community and Academic Goals

- Carlos M Nash

- Chapter 9 - The Role of Theory in Documentation: Intervention Effects and Missing Gaps in the Krachi Documentary Record

- Jason Kandybowicz and Harold Torrence

- Chapter 10 - Documenting Raising and Control in Moro

- Peter Jenks and Sharon Rose

- Chapter 11 - The Linker in the Khoisan Languages

- Chris Collins

- Chapter 12 - Theory and Description: Understanding the Syntax of Eegimaa Verb Stem Morphology

- Mamadou Bassene and Ken Safir

- Chapter 13 - On (Ir)realis in Seenku (Mande, Burkina Faso)

- Laura McPherson

- Chapter 14 - Contributions of Micro-comparative Research to Language Documentation: Two Bantu Case Studies

- Michael R. Marlo

- Chapter 15 - Sebirwa in Contact with Setswana: A Natural Experiment in Learning an

- Unnatural Alternation

- Elizabeth C. Zsiga and One Tlale Boyer

- Chapter 16 - Three Analyses of Underlying Plosives in Caning, A Nilo Saharan Language of Sudan

- Timothy M. Stirtz

- Chapter 17 - Exceptions to Hiatus Resolution in Mushunguli (Somali Chizigula)

- Katherine Hout

- Chapter 18 - Acoustic and Aerodynamic Data on Somali Chizigula Stops

- Michal Temkin Martinez and Vanessa Rosenbaum

- Chapter 19 - Unmasking the Bantu Orthographic Vowels: The Challenge for Language Documentation and Description

- Joash J. Gambarage

Über Autor(innen)

Jason Kandybowicz is Associate Professor of Linguistics at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of The Grammar of Repetition: Nupe Grammar at the Syntax-Phonology Interfacethe syntax-phonology interface, field linguistics and language documentation, and African linguistics (particularly, the languages of West Africa).