Languages Of Africa Research Articles

Can formal language planning link to grassroots cultural initiatives? An informal investigation

Formal language planning is inevitably a top-down, highly technical process. Success for such planning would seem to depend on engaging productively with existing or readily developed social motivation within the society. This article reports on an informal investigation into how ordinary language practitioners and cultural workers in South Africa view the possibilities of contributing to the country's emerging language dispensation, what they regard as their most useful possible contributions, and what they expect from the language planners and 'government' in support of South Africa's Language Policy and Plan.

Practice of Historical Linguistics and Language Codification in Africa

AbstractThe sheer number of languages in Africa is remarkable; more than 2000 languages are believed to be alive in the continent. Today one can read a newspaper in Swahili, a novel in Gikuyu, or surf the Web in Yoruba. This article offers a diachronic perspective on the scholarly activities that have contributed to the codification, documentation, classification, and description of African languages. It discusses the ideology and methods underlying the practice of historical linguistics in Africa prior to the 1960s when modern scientific linguistics began. It contrasts the methods and works of the early practitioners of historical linguistics with the works of modern language scholars. It provides a sample of contemporary linguistic works implicated in language description and codification.

Missionary Linguistics / Lingüística misionera: Selected Papers from the First International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Oslo, 13-16 March 2003 (review)

Reviewed by: Missionary Linguistics/Lingüística Misionera: Selected papers from the first International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Oslo, 13–16 March 2003 ed. by Otto Zwartjes and Even Hovdhaugen Peter T. Daniels Missionary Linguistics/Lingüística Misionera: Selected papers from the first International Conference on Missionary Linguistics, Oslo, 13–16 March 2003. Ed. by Otto Zwartjes and Even Hovdhaugen. (Studies in the history of the language sciences 106.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004. Pp. vi, 288. ISBN 158811581X. $138 (Hb). This commendably prompt publication comprises seven articles in Spanish with English summary and five in English without Spanish summaries, grouped areally. The editors’ introduction (1–5) lists over a dozen recent volumes and collections on missionary linguistics, without noting that every one of them deals only with missionaries to America. Klaus Zimmermann, in ‘La construcción del objeto de la historiografía de la lingüística misionera’ (7–32), offers detailed prolegomena to the study of this field. Nicholas Ostler’s ‘The social roots of missionary linguistics’ (33–46) ranges the world to discover why, of the four waves of missionary activity in human history (Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Christian again), only the last resulted in the linguistic description of proselytes’ languages. His answer: only with printed books did the clergy become accustomed to learning a language from a book, and ‘the administrative mechanism of the religious orders … could see the benefit in investing in the publication of language text books for the future training needs of their ministry’ (45). E. F. K. Koerner’s ‘Notes on missionary linguistics in North America’ (47–80) is, as the headnote admits, a disjointed selection from the history of Americanist linguistics; poorly proofread and not well edited, it deals with the French orders in Canada (including a three-page history of the Jesuit order) and the English Puritans farther south, then strays from the topic to talk about the linguistic work of Thomas Jefferson and his circle and their successors, leaving the impression that there was little evangelization of Native Americans beyond New England. He ignores nineteenth-century American missionary linguistics in the Near East and Oceania, claiming that ‘in terms of organized effort, … it began in earnest’ (72) with the Summer Institute of Linguistics in 1936. Hans-Josef Niederehe, in ‘Los misioneros españoles y el estudio de las lenguas mayas’ (81–91), lays the foundation for the study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century grammars of Huastec, Quiché, Cakchikel, and Yucatec. Julio Calvo Pérez, in ‘Las perífrasis verbales en la gramática quechua de Diego González Holguín (1607)’ (93–111), describes the tension between the Latin paradigmatic model available to González Holguín and the periphrastic construction of verbal voice in Quechua, concluding that he did quite well notwithstanding. Rachael Gilmour’s ‘Colonization and linguistic representation: British Methodist grammarians’ approaches to Xhosa (1834–1850)’ (113–40) details the Methodist impulse to evangelization and historical, social, and political relations between the English and the Xhosa, followed by a discussion of the grammars of William B. Boyce and John W. Appleyard. Gilmour claims that they both follow ‘the Greco-Roman model’ (120) and describe the language in its own terms, Boyce having been the first to accurately describe the noun-class system of any Bantu language (he called it ‘euphonic or alliteral concord’ (127)). Gilmour does not say how they handled clicks. Toru Maruyama, in ‘Linguistic studies by Portuguese Jesuits in sixteenth and seventeenth century Japan’ (141–60), describes the thirty works produced between 1591 and 1620, contrasting the contemporaneous Jesuit output on languages of Africa, Brazil, and India, finding that the Japanese works are superior because interpreters did not exist. Eun Mi Bae (writing from Oslo in Spanish on Japanese) considers the category of ‘pronominal adverb’ in a 1738 grammar (161–77). Emilio Ridruejo (179–200) and Joaquín García Medall (201–32) discuss Philippine topics in Spanish, respectively early work on Kapampangan (based on a prior study of Tagalog), and Visayan lexicography (1637). Mara Fuertes Gutiérrez (233–52) considers the methods...

Focus in an active/agentive alignment system: the case of Beria (Saharan)

Beria, a member of the Saharan language family, is one of the rare languages in Africa exhibiting both an ergative and an active/agentive alignment system of grammatical relations.1 While the active/agentive pattern is shown by the participant reference markers, the ergative pattern is attested both in the constituent order and in the focus markers on the core constituents. In the pragmatically unmarked constituent order, the Agent constituent precedes the Patient constituent. An unmarked single constituent immediately preceding the verb may represent a Patient or a Subject argument. In this position, the Agent constituent requires the clitic GU. The focused Patient and Subject constituents are both either marked by the clitic DI or by a cleft construction.

Integrating Culture and Second Language Teaching through Yoruba Personal Names

Using Yoruba as a case study, this article demonstrates the fact that the languages of Africa and the cultures of its peoples are inseparable. Therefore, the study advocates that appropriate aspects of these cultures should form an integral part of African language teaching. This article discusses specifically how language teachers can transmit the cultural practices of the Yoruba people to students in the beginning foreign language classroom by teaching Yoruba personal names and the naming traditions of their culture. In other words, this study looks at the role that personal names play in understanding the culture of the Yoruba people. It argues that teaching Yoruba personal names should go beyond mere explanation of their meanings to include an exposition of the link between the names and their cultural content. Consequently, the study categorizes Yoruba personal names functionally, revealing the rules that govern the structure of these names and examining the cultural traits that are embedded in them. The article also recommends that teachers of beginning Yoruba explore the use of the tonal patterns in Yoruba personal names in order to introduce their students to the three tonal levels of the language.

LANGUAGE, EDUCATION AND THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA

ABSTRACTIssues of language and education are central to the process of nation building in the new South Africa. In this paper, I examine the rhetoric and the practice of the intersections of South Africa's language and education policies. While early education policy documents are predicated on the need to reassert the importance of African languages in relation to English and Afrikaans, the official languages during apartheid, these discourses of language equality are now being replaced with discourses of utility. I examine this change at the level of national policy, and also in practice in the province of Mpumalanga, where English is increasingly coming to dominate the spaces of education, and Afrikaans and African languages are becoming more marginalised. I argue that this policy shift and related practices fundamentally undermine broader claims to racial and ethnic equality in the new South Africa.

Pre-emigration reflections: Afrikaans speakers moving to New Zealand

This article reports on the pre-emigration reflections of 15 Afrikaans speakers, all of whom were in the final stages of preparing to emigrate to New Zealand. The study explores the linguistic histories of the participants, their attitudes to their mother tongue (Afrikaans) and to English, and their views on South Africa's language policy and how it has influenced their decisions to leave the country. The paper also offers a view on possible long-term linguistic outcomes for these families.

The Safeguarding and Transmission of Sacred Languages in Africa: Issues and Outlooks

The Safeguarding and Transmission of Sacred Languages in Africa: Issues and Outlooks

African Voices: An Introduction to the Languages and Linguistics of Africa

Language as a problem in Africa, Vic Webb and Kembo-Sure the languages of Africa, Vic Webb and Kembo-Sure linguistics - an overview, Vic Webb and Kembo-Sure languages in contact in Africa, Nkonko Kamwamgamulu languages in competition, Vic Webb and Kembo-Sure the sounds of Africa, Herman Batibo system in the sounds of Africa, Herman Batibo building techniques in African languages, D. Okoth Okombo the lexicons of Africa, Danie Prinsloo, Albina R. Chuwa and Elsabe Taljard discourse - language in context, Hilton Hubbard cross-cultural communication in Africa, Oswald Ndoleriire language learning in Africa, Jane Kembo.

The Hausa Language: An Encyclopedic Reference Grammar

This book is a comprehensive grammar of Hausa, one of the largest and most important languages of Africa. Hausa is spoken by some 35 million people as a first language and approximately 15 million more as a second language. Paul Newman, a world authority on the Hausa language, draws on two centuries of Hausa linguistic scholarship to provide the most authoritative and detailed grammar of the language ever written. Unlike other grammars, this book is organised alphabetically. Readers will appreciate the ease with which they can find the specific individual topics that interest them. The grammar covers such expected topics as tonology, noun plurals, and verbal tense/aspect as well as often neglected topics, including verbal idioms, proper names, and language games. Newman also incorporates historical linguistic notes that explain and explicate current Hausa phenomena, especially puzzling anomalies, in terms of their Chadic and Afroasiatic origins.

On the Interface of Philosophy and Language in Africa: Some Practical and Theoretical Considerations

Le rapport entre la philosophie et la langue en Afrique semble favoriser les langues d'expression ecrite au detriment des langues d'expression or(aur)ale. Concretement, mis a part l'usage de l'Arabe et des langues europeennes, cela implique l'hypothese selon laquelle la philosophie ne serait possible que par, en et a travers les langues ecrites. L'A. soutient que, en depit de leur retard, les langues africaines devraient jouer leur role adequat dans le cadre des etudes philosophiques en Afrique. En d'autres termes, le veritable probleme n'est pas tellement celui de determiner la compatibilite ou l'incompatibilite de la langue avec la philosophie, ou vice versa, que celui de savoir discerner le role que les langues africaines doivent jouer dans les philosophies en Afrique. Car, si l'experience coloniale a oblige les Africains a faire face a ce probleme, sans reussir, l'A. soutient qu'on ne doit pas continuer indefinitivement a perpetuer l'usage des langues europeennes dans les philosophies en Afrique, comme si les langues africaines etaient incapables de jouer les memes roles. En plus, aujourd'hui plus qu'auparavant, les traditons ecrites et or(aur)ales invitent tous les Africains a bâtir et a pratiquer les politiques de l'auto-suffisance dans ces affaires.

(M)other tongue: a selected annotated bibliography of world “Englishes”

The cultures and languages of Africa and Asia have had an immense impact on the use of English language there. Awareness of this impact led to a recognition of new, indigenized varieties known collectively as world “Englishes”. They display a number of linguistic and pragmatic patterns different from native varieties, and these have been the subject of much scholarly activity over the last 30 years. This selected bibliography attempts to introduce the literature to librarians, other than English, linguistics, or education selectors. Interdisciplinary in nature, the study of world “Englishes” has implications for research in the history, culture, sociology, and politics of these regions. Selectors in these subjects and general reference librarians should therefore know more about world “Englishes” to provide more useful assistance to patrons.

A Grammar of Koyroboro (Koroboro) Senni (review)

Reviewed by: A grammar of Koyraboro (Koroboro) Senni by Jeffrey Heath Edward J. Vajda A grammar of Koyraboro (Koroboro) Senni. By Jeffrey Heath. (Westafrikanische Studien 19.) Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 1999. Pp. xvi, 402. This book is but one of the products from the author’s ongoing research on the Songhay family, a group of closely related languages (often referred to as dialects) spoken predominantly along or near the great bend of the Niger River in Mali. Other recent monographs by Jeffrey Heath include A grammar of Koyra Chiini: The Songhai of Timbuktu (Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998); Texts in Koroboro Senni (Köln: Köppe Verlag, 1998); and Texts in Koyra Chiini (Köln: Köppe Verlag, 1998). All of these publications are significant, as little detailed information on the synchronic structure of Songhay languages was formerly available in print. H’s extensive descriptions, all based on recent fieldwork with native speakers, will be particularly valuable as databases for future explorations into the family’s external genetic relations or for the study of local processes of language mixing (the genesis of certain [End Page 183] Songhay languages may have included interesting creolization processes involving neighboring Afroasiatic languages). Clearly unrelated to the other language families of western Africa, Songhay has been included in the Nilo-Saharan phylum (Joseph Greenberg, Languages of Africa, 2nd edn., The Hague: Mouton, 1966), but H and most Songhay specialists remain sceptical that such a connection will ultimately be confirmed. The book begins with a map showing the modern distribution of Songhay languages (xv) and an introduction (Ch. 1) with basic historical and dialectal data on the family. This discussion is continued in three appendices at the end of the book which describe in detail the structural features that distinguish local varieties of Koyraboro Senni: riverine dialects east of Gao (366–72), riverine dialects west of Gao (373–80), and the Fulan Kirya dialect of the Gourma (381–89). Examples from all of these varieties appear in the discussion. The book’s remaining chapters provide a highly structured description (without theory-specific formalisms) of the variety of Koyraboro Senni spoken in and around the city of Gao: typological overview (Ch. 2); phonology (Ch. 3); nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation (Ch. 4); nominal inflection and NP syntax (Ch. 5); verbal voice and verb derivation (Ch. 6); VP structure (Ch. 7); discourse-related constructions (Ch. 8); sentence-level syntax and semantics (Ch. 9); and a final chapter entitled ‘Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech’ (Ch. 10). Some of the many interesting typological highlights include a basic SOV word order, with certain verbs (mainly those having a less tangible relationship between subject and object, such as ‘see’, ‘believe’, etc.) requiring SVO; also, there is a series of mood-aspect-negation particles which follow the subject NP but precede both the object and the verb itself. The book finishes with a brief bibliography (390), a morpheme list (391–98), and a subject index (399–402). As is true of H’s other monographs (see above), this book is now the authoritative reference for the varieties of Songhay it describes. One can only anticipate more such excellent descriptions of modern West African languages. Edward J. Vajda Western Washington University Copyright © 2001 Linguistic Society of America

Hearing the Wonders of God in our own Languages: Functional Equivalent Bible Translation in Southern Africa with special reference to Xhosa

There is at least one translation of the complete Bible in 10 of the 11 official languages of South Africa. Originally missionaries from different countries made formal equivalent translations into the languages of the people among whom they ministered. Resulting from a conference at Turfloop in July 1967, mother-tongue speakers have made new functional equivalent translations in a number of Southern Africa languages. This article explains some of the features of functional equivalent translations, illustrated mainly from the Xhosa translation published in 1996.

Endangered Languages in Africa

Endangered Languages in Africa

Queerly phrased: Language, gender, and sexuality Ed. by Anna Livia and Kira Hall (review)

444LANGUAGE, VOLUME 76, NUMBER 2 (2000) REFERENCES Anttila, Raimo. 1972. Historical and comparative linguistics. New York: Macmillan. Bender, Marvin L. 1974. Omotic: A new Afro-Asiatic language family. (Southern Illinois University Museum Series 3.) Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Bendor-Samuel, John (ed.) 1989. The Niger-Congo languages. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Bennett, Patrick R., and Jan P. Sterk. 1977. South Central Niger-Congo: A reclassification. Studies in African Linguistics 8.241-73. Bimson, Kent. 1978. Comparative reconstruction of proto-Northern-Western Mande. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms. Crowley, Terry. 1996. Introduction to historical linguistics. London: Oxford University Press. Dwyer, David. 1973. The comparative tonology of Southwestern Mande nomináis. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms. ------. 1974. The historical development of Southwestern Mande consonants. Studies in African Linguistics 5.59-94. ------. 1989. Mande. In Bendor-Samuel, 44-55. Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. The languages of Africa. The Hague: Mouton. Gudschinsky, Sarah. 1956. The ABC's of lexicostatistics (glottochronology). Word 12.175-210. Lehmann, Winfred P. 1962. Historical linguistics: An introduction. New York: Holt. Meinhof, Carl. 1906. Grundztlge einer vergleichenden Grammatik der Bantusprachen. Berlin. 2nd edn. Hamburg: Reimer, 1948. Welmers, William E. 1970. Language change and language relationships in Africa. Language Sciences 12.1-8. Westermann, Diedrich. 1927. Die westlichen Sudansprachen und ihre Beziehungen zum Bantu. Berlin: de Gruyter. Department of English Ball State University Muncie, IN 47306 [hstahlke@bsu.edu] Queerly phrased: Language, gender, and sexuality. Ed. by Anna Livia and Kira Hall. (Oxford studies in sociolinguistics.) New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. 460. Reviewed by Sara Trechter, California State University, Chico Anna Livia and Kira Hall present 25 diverse articles concerning gay and lesbian expression that are a significant contribution to the growing field of queer language studies. Like most collections in language, gender, and sexuality, there is variety in the analytic approaches of the articles. They draw on literary theory, discourse analysis, phonology, semantics, and anthropology and include data from AAVE, ASL, French, Hausa, Hindi, and Japanese. Individual authors focus on a broad range of linguistic and queer concerns. For example, Tina Neumann describes the parallel discourse structures emergent in the double identity of a deaf lesbian's ASL comingout narrative. Elizabeth Morrish draws on critical discourse analysis to tease apart the presuppositions , themes, and intertextual connections of mainstream British newspapers as they stereotypically construct homosexuals. Bruce Bagemihl offers an extended analogy for understanding the same-sex desire of transsexuals by comparing transsexual queers to languages which express sounds through surrogate phonologies, using lutes, drums, etc. Given L & H's purposeful inclusion of such diverse material, their introduction provides a theoretical link connecting the articles to linguistic performativity and performativity to queer theory. The problem they see for the investigation of queer language is that past analyses relied on either linguistic determinism or social constructionism, the former leading researchers to dismiss the existence of gay culture unless it was encoded and the latter to eschew cross-cultural generalizations because discourse is specific to time and place (10). To solve the conundrum of an essentialist definition of gay vs. the inability to make any statement about liminal language REVIEWS445 at all, L & H locate their book at the crossroads of Butler's (1990) queer theory adaptations of performativity and its linguistic roots in Austin (1975). A focus on 'what people do with words' potentially offers analyses abstract enough to accommodate disparate cultures and historical change (13). Its success depends on the extent to which individual researchers succeed in defining performative commonalities for queering language without returning to identity as definition, e.g., 'Queering language is what queers do with language'. The book divides into three sections: (1) 'Liminal lexicality'—items denoting alternative sexual identities; (2) 'Queerspeak'—discourse strategies that might be taken as gay; and (3) 'Linguistic gender-bending'—the transformation of gendered linguistic systems. Several common themes arise out of this consideration of language of the periphery. These include a tension between resistance as secrecy/silence and performed opposition with uptake of intentional irony, the linguistic restrictions on ludic responses, and adequate definitions of the object of analysis when the goal of queering is resistance to hegemonic definition. An introduction to each of the three major sections would have helped...

English and the pace of endangerment in Nigeria

This paper examines oral questionnaire data in order to assess the tenability of the prevailing hypothesis that Africa's language endangerment situation is characterized by the replacement of minority vernaculars with indigenous majority languages. Questionnaire items attended to evaluation accorded minority vernacular as well as language choice in home and non‐home settings. Data were obtained from adults, teenagers and children in the Emai‐speaking region of rural southern Nigeria. The resulting language‐use profiles show that across age groups, evaluation of vernacular mother tongue is positive. Remaining elements of the profile, however, reveal variation according to age. Adult profiles reflect an explicit multi‐language preference for vernacular and for English varieties. Teenagers exhibit a shift toward single‐language usage of the vernacular in the home and of English in non‐home settings. While maintaining this general trend, children evince a strong preference for English with siblings and show an emerging preference for English in speaking to mother and father. The onset of this intergenerational shift in home‐language use argues that in rural areas of southern Nigeria, English is propelling the abandonment of indigenous, minority languages.

Overcoming violence in language in Africa

A traditional way to look at violence in language is to examine the structure and style of language and identify the elements that may be responsible for precipitating violence. But that will not tell the whole story or answer all the possible questions. Or, we can look at language as it acts alone or in conjunction with other concepts to precipitate violence. We can simply focus on its content and, therefore, the message that comes from it. Generally, however, the extent to which language guides our lives as members of a social system is not fully appreciated. It is not just a medium of communication for sending and receiving messages. Language is also the message itself, assuming a power of its own, providing authority for some of its users. Language structures the environment for us, creating niches for us to fall into. In doing this, language can create a kind of politic that may provide a basis for conflict and violence. It is within this context that inter‐ethnic communication, language, discourse management and non‐verbal behavior are frequently misunderstood, misinterpreted or used to reinforce negative stereotypes arising out of ethnically determined attitudes. There is a politics of language that has evolved in many parts of the African continent which renders language a vulnerable variable for exploitation by those who stand to gain from the resultant violence. What is the relationship between language and ethnicity within the politics of language in Africa? How can meaning unite with that politic to precipitate violence? And are there ways to overcome such violence?

Martin Pütz (ed.), Discrimination through language in Africa? Perspectives on the Namibian experience. (Contributions to the sociology of language, 69.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995. Pp. ix, 338. Hb DM 178.00.

Martin Pütz (ed.), Discrimination through language in Africa? Perspectives on the Namibian experience. (Contributions to the sociology of language, 69.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995. Pp. ix, 338. Hb DM 178.00.

MARTIN PüTZ (ed.), Discrimination through language in Africa? Perspectives on the Namibian experience. (Contributions to the sociology of language, 69.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995. Pp. ix, 338. Hb DM 178.00.

MARTIN PüTZ (ed.), Discrimination through language in Africa? Perspectives on the Namibian experience. (Contributions to the sociology of language, 69.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995. Pp. ix, 338. Hb DM 178.00.