Nilo-Saharan Research Articles

The Fulani in Nigeria and their Herding System: Is it an Agro-Business or a Culture?

The Fulani ethnic group is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken over a large area of westAfrican countries (Nigeria, Guinea Bissau, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Cameroon and Senegal). The Fulani have long history of herding and in Nigeria; the practice is enmeshed in their culture. This study seeks to investigate the Fulani culture and their herding system; is it an agrobusiness or a culture? The study being a nonexperimental research adopted survey research design. Data were elicited from array of documentary facts drawn from both published and unpublished materials. The study revealed that herding is supposed to be subsumed as an agro-business but it has been enmeshed in the culture of the Fulani’s herders in Nigeria. The study also found that the policies of Nigeria government on herding seem to treats the Fulani herding system as more of a culture and most of the policies of the state on herding are not properly planned and do not augur well with other users of land resources. The study recommends among others the need to introduce modern herding practices among the Fulani herders and they should be educated to embrace modern realities of the 21 centuries (urbanization, population outburst, intense increase on land resources, climate change, etc.) modern practices of herding (Ranching, Cow colony, Fattening, etc.).

Nativazation of Hausa Loanwords in Kanuri through Deglottalization and Sonorization

The paper attempts to identify and study those linguistic items borrowed from Hausa to Kanuri language with special attentions to the deglottalization and sonorization processes employed in incorporating the loanwords. Borrowing is a phenomenon which is as old as human social, economic, and administrative contact. When a contact is established between two or more different linguistic communities, there is the tendency for linguistic borrowing to take place. Therefore, despite the fact that Hausa belongs to Chadic family and Kanuri belongs to Nilo-Sahara, there exists linguistic borrowing between them. The paper focuses on the deglottalization and sonorization in nativazation of the borrowed words. The research sought data from two sources. These sources are primary and secondary. The primary source includes unobtrusive observation when discourse is taking place in Kanuri language. Similarly, the researcher’s intuition plays significant role in identifying the loanwords being a native speaker of the language. On the other hand, the secondary sources include written records, such as journal articles, dissertations, thesis, dictionaries etc. The paper concludes that Kanuri, a Nilo-Saharan language uses deglottalization and sonorization in nativazation of some Hausa borrowed lexical items. This resulted in making the loanwords to behave like the native words of the target language (Kanuri).

Nuer

Nuer (ISO 6393: nus/Glottocode: nuer1246) is a Nilo-Saharan language (Nilo-Saharan, Eastern Sudanic, Nilotic, Western, Dinka-Nuer). The sound system of Nuer is of particular interest because the language has a rich inventory of vocalic and suprasegmental distinctions, including a large number of vowel phonemes, a voice quality contrast (modal versus breathy), three levels of vowel length, and a tonal inventory that interacts with the voice quality contrast.

Contrastive Analysis of Adjectives of Quality of English and Fur Languages

The research aims to compare and contrast adjectives of quality of English and Fur languages to find out the similarities and differences between them. The researchers have adopted contrastive methodology to do this research. They compared and contrasted adjectives of quality of in English and Fur languages. The results of the research revealed that the two languages almost share the same adjectives of quality. English and Fur adjectives of quality modify the nouns. Moreover, the both languages use their adjectives of quality attributively and predicatively. The two languages use the intensifiers to strengthen the adjectives of quality. On the other hand, the both languages belong to different language families. English is from an Indo-European language family, whereas, Fur belongs to Nilo-Saharan language family. It is very obvious that English attributive adjectives go before the nouns which they describe whereas, Fur attributive use of adjectives (boorô, mandin , toy, dɨwwô, fattâ , dɨkkô ) come after the nouns which they modify. English predicative use of adjectives slightly differs from the Fur language, because in English language they come after the verb (be) however, in Fur language they go before the verb (ii=be). In addition to the position of intensifiers in Fur language differs from English ones. The English intensifiers go before the adjectives whereas; the Fur ones go after the adjectives. The differences in adjectives of quality between the two languages result in problems encountered by the Fur learners in learning English language and vice versa.

Phonological description of Naba

Naba, also known as Bilala, is a Nilo-Saharan (Sara-Bagirmi) language of Chad with about 410,000 speakers from three ethnic groups. This paper gives a basic description of the Naba phonological system, using segmental phonology and lexical phonology approaches. Topics covered include the phonemic inventory, syllable structure and phonotactic restrictions, the tone system and its interaction with other phonological processes, and the main lexical and post-lexical processes. A special focus is given to the important role of sonority hierarchy in Naba phonological structure and processes. This hierarchy groups affricates and non-sibilant fricatives with stops in a single obstruent category, while nasals, liquids, and approximants comprise the sonorant category. The distinction is key for syllable structure, phonotactic restrictions, tone sandhi, and a number of both lexical and post-lexical processes. It is proposed that the two sibilant fricatives /s/ and /z/ exist as a separate sonority level in between obstruent and sonorant, and evidence is given as to why they cannot be classed with either group.

A Study of Vowel Adaptation in Kanuri Loanwords in Pabər/Bura

Abstract: The paper focuses on identifying and studying those linguistic items borrowed from the Kanuri to Pabǝr/Bura language with special attention to the modifications made to the vowels of the source language (Kanuri) before incorporating the loanwords into the target language (Pabǝr/Bura). It is believed that in as much as two or more communities with different linguistic backgrounds came in contact with one another; there is a tendency that linguistic borrowing will take place. Therefore, even though the languages under study belong to different language phyla, there exists linguistic borrowing between them. Because of this, the paper specifically focuses its attention on the adaptation of vowels in borrowed words. The research can establish that the target language (Pabǝr/Bura) employed various phonological processes in incorporating the loan words. More so vowel substitution is found to be the major technique used by the target language in incorporating the borrowed words. However, there are also cases of vowel deletion and insertion. The research employed two distinct sources as methods of data collection. These sources are primary and secondary. The primary source includes unobtrusive observation when discourse is taking place in Pabǝr/Bura language and listening to Pabǝr/Bura radio program broadcast by Yobe Broadcasting Corporation, Damaturu. Similarly, the researchers’ intuition plays a significant role in identifying the loanwords. On the other hand, secondary sources include written records, such as journal articles, dissertations, theses, dictionaries, etc. The paper concludes that Pabǝr/Bura borrowed a good number of lexical items from Kanuri, a Nilo-Saharan language.

Possessive Construction in Mursi

This paper deals with possessive construction in Mursi, a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by a small group of people located in southwestern, Ethiopia. Mursi has a fairly rich syntactic system for the expression of possession or ownership. A plausible reason for acquiring such a rich expression of syntactic construction ofpossession is that it has both a head and dependent marking system. As a head-dependent marking language, both the head and the dependent are marked by appropriate dependency relation marking morphological elements. The head can be marked with two different morphologies, modification markers restrictive/nonrestrictive) and pertensive. When it is converted to possessive construction, the head is always the possessed noun (D) and the dependent/modifier is the possessor (R). The various syntactic constructions and possibilities of indicating possession/ownership should follow the syntactic frame of ‘NP-internal possessive construction’. What makes possessive construction in Mursi interesting is that the R can be an ‘intermediate possessor' or an‘intermediate modifier’, and can be explained through the notion of Construct Form (CF). Therefore, this paper aims to explore the morphology, syntax, and semantics of the NP-internal possessive constructions.

О ПРОИСХОЖДЕНИИ ГЛАГОЛА «ПИСАТЬ» В ЧАДСКИХ ЯЗЫКАХ

Chadic, Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Kushitic and Omotic languages comprise the Afroasiatic (Hamito-­Semitic) macro-family. The paper is aimed to clarify the origin of the verb ‘to write’ in different Chadic languages. Two main sources: semantic shifts and borrowings will be in the focus of the study. The phonological diversity of corresponding lexical forms is also of special interest. Numerous examples allow us to trace a long chain of semantic shifts ending in the verb ‘to write’. In almost all cases verbs ‘to cut’ or ‘to scratch’ have been identified as the first units of these semantic transformations. A ‘one-step’ semantic shift: ‘to put’ > ‘to write’ was active only in a few Central Chadic languages. Loans from Arabic and Fulfulde (Niger-Congo family) into different Chadic languages are listed. Of special interest is the derived noun ‘writing’, borrowed form from Kanuri (Nilo-Saharan family) into Chadic. J. Greenberg’s arguments, indicating Kanuri as the donor-language [Greenberg 1960, p. 209–210] and supporting evidence are under discussion. Typological parallels to the above-mentioned semantic shifts can be traced outside the Afroasiatic family, namely, in Indo-European and Nilo-Saharan languages. The whole amount of Chadic data and external parallels prove the independent origin of the verb ‘to write’ in different Chadic languages. Only in a few cases the verb ‘to write’ can be identified on a sub-group level.

Phonetic and phonological properties of the advanced tongue root feature in African languages

The paper presents an overview of the ATR (advanced tongue root) feature, which is fairly widespread among the Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages of the Macro-Sudan Belt. The phonetic section provides a description of the articulatory and acoustic correlates of the feature. The review of the articulatory basis of the feature is presented in a historical perspective, from the fi rst cineradiographic studies of the 1960s till the laryngoscopic studies of the recent years. The paper shows how the introduction of new methods shifted attention from the tongue root movement, which had been given primacy in production of the contrast, to aryepiglotto-epiglottal constriction and a synergistic system of laryngeal articulations. The paper provides a description of several acoustic measures that have been found to correlate with the ATR feature: the frequency of the fi rst formant, the fi rst formant bandwidth, the spectral center of gravity, the relative intensity of the fi rst to the second formant. Similarities and differences between ATR, height and tenseness, which have been largely discussed in the literature, are also described in the paper. The phonological section provides an overview of ATR harmony systems. The main attention is paid to the strong crosslinguistic tendency for [+ATR] to function as the dominant value in languages with ATR contrast among high vowels, but for [−ATR] to be dominant in languages in which ATR is only contrastive for non-high vowels. The paper describes diff erent manifestations of ATR dominance (assimilatory, allophonic, and coalescent dominance) among two major types of underlying vowel inventories.

Clause-internal antitopics in Berta, a Nilo-Saharan verb-second language

This article deals with clausal constituent order and dislocation constructions in Berta, a Nilo-Saharan language with indicative clauses being verb-second. The preverbal slot is occupied by either an unmarked NP which may have any or no grammatical relation to the verb, a focus constituent, or a particular function word. This slot may be empty, but in that case it implies a zero third person referent. In addition to left-dislocated NPs, which are clause-external and which are resumed pronominally clause-internally, in some cases by zero, Berta also has a construction in which an NP is right-dislocated but remains inside the clause. This “antitopic” is marked by a preposition, and it has a clause-internal pronominal antecedent which may be zero and which is either a subject, an object or an adverbial. The clause-internal status of the antitopic is evidenced by the fact that it may be followed by certain other clause-internal constituents.

Morphology of argument marking in Zaghawa-Wagi

This paper presents an analysis of the system of argument marking on the verb in Zaghawa. Zaghawa, also called Beria in the literature, is a Saharan language of the Nilo-Saharan language phylum spoken in the border region of Sudan and Chad. Like other Saharan languages, it has complex verbal morphology including person indexing. The primary aim of the study is descriptive in that it presents linguistic data of the underdescribed Wagi dialect which is mainly spoken in Sudan. First, the paradigm of bound verbal affixes and their morphology is described. Secondly, one of the functions of the final morpheme of the verb which has not yet been described in detail in previous studies on Zaghawa is analysed. This final morpheme interacts with the person indexes to mark plural participants, and it is exploited to mark a morphological category not yet recognized in the other dialects of Zaghawa: the exclusive/inclusive distinction in the 1st person plural. Therefore, the study provides new data on the Zaghawa verb system and contributes a further detail to our knowledge of the Nilo-Saharan language family.

Number-based noun classification

Nilo-Saharan languages are well-known for their complicated system of nominal number marking, which features a variety of singulative and plural affixes (Dimmendaal 2000). Even though these systems have received some attention in the typological literature, there has been limited theoretical work on their implications for the morphosyntax of number cross-linguistically. The goal of this paper is to fill this gap, by providing an analysis of nominal number morphology in Kipsigis (Nilotic, Kenya), based on data from original fieldwork. First, I show that singulatives in Kipsigis are true allomorphs of singular number, unlike singulatives with a classifier function in languages like Ojibwe (Mathieu 2012). The descriptive term ‘singulative’ is therefore misleading, as it corresponds to two very different types of morphemes. Second, I claim that the tripartite system of number marking of Kipsigis and other Nilo-Saharan languages is due to the classification of nouns into morphosyntactic classes defined by the presence of inherent number features on little n; the interaction of these features with interpretable number features on the functional projection Num (Ritter 1991 a.o.) in the post-syntactic component gives rise to the exponence pattern that we observe. Finally, my analysis corroborates the existence of noun classification based on number, which has only been argued for Kiowa-Tanoan before (Harbour 2007). The existence of three number classes in Kipsigis can only be explained by reference to bivalent number features; number-based noun classification systems thus strongly support the view that number features are bivalent and not privative, which is also argued by Harbour (2007, 2011) for Kiowa.

The Incorporation of the Kiswahili Names of Cereals and Tubers in the Non-Bantu Languages in Tanzania

Abstract I articulate the mechanisms for the incorporation of Kiswahili names of the New World cereals and tubers in the Afro-asiatic, Khoisan and Nilo-Saharan languages spoken in Tanzania. The penetration of pastoral-terms from non-Bantu societies into Bantu communities is extensively documented. But research on the impact of Kiswahili on non-Bantu languages has not been given prominence except in a few studies. Thus, specific investigation of the names of cereals and tubers into non-Bantu languages is incomplete. With regard to transference of the nomenclature of the farm-related products, I show that the major donor languages in this study include Iraqw and Kiswahili. This result illuminates the fact that agro-pastoral communities (e.g. Iraqw) influence the lexicon of languages spoken by pastoralists (e.g. Datooga) and foraging communities (e.g. Hadza). I show that Kiswahili is the main agent of names of agriculture in non-Bantu communities. Moreover, I highlight that the names of crops are integrated through assignment of gender-number markers primarily in Hadza, Iraqw and Maasai. In Datooga, I show that the number suffixes dominate as the strategy to incorporate Kiswahili words in the language.

Definiteness in the Zarma determiner phrase

Adjectives in definite Determiner Phrases of Zarma, a Nilo-Saharan language trigger an additional (suffixed/base-merged) lexical determiner; in the event of adjectives modifying nouns, definite determiners can occur with either the nouns or the adjectives or both. In all of these cases, no different readings obtain. Structured interviews were conducted with Zarma native speakers to collect the data for this study. I analyse the phenomenon as a case of definite determiner doubling which does not bear on any form of agreement relations. I further suggest that definite determiner and its subsets – numeral, demonstrative, and quantifier do not overlap. However, each of these can occur alongside adjectives within the DP. Consequently, I consider the adjective as an exponent of the adjunct category. Based on Abney’s DP-Hypothesis and the restrictive theory of the Minimalist Program, the paper argues that the asymmetry in the surface realizations of elements/constituents within the Zarma DP is the effect of movement.

Searching for Boko Haram: A History of Violence in Central Africa, by Scott MacEachern

In this original and timely book, archaeologist Scott MacEachern brings a (very) longue durée perspective to bear on the study of the Boko Haram insurgency in the southern Lake Chad basin, a region with which he has been intimately acquainted for more than three decades. Frequently presented in the Western media as a modern Islamist uprising in a hostile and remote part of the world, Boko Haram, MacEachern contends, can also be understood as the latest product of frontier dynamics which date back to at least the early second millennium CE and the slave trade across the central Sahara. The current spread of religious intolerance and militant Islamist beliefs is certainly important, but it is by no means the only lens through which to make sense of an insurgency which speaks to much deeper social fractures and patterns of conflict as well. This persuasive argument is developed in five substantive chapters organised along progressively shorter timescales. Following an introductory first chapter, Chapters Two and Three stretch over several millennia, tracing the peopling of the edges of a shrinking Lake Chad by agro-pastoralist speakers of ancestral Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages; the coming of iron technology and the growth of socio-political complexity from c.500 BCE; and the rise of expansive, slave-raiding Islamic states to the south of the lake from c.1000. The latter development (as Chapter Four shows) radically transformed the human geography of the area, as it sundered its earlier ‘common Iron Age inheritance’ and brought into being unprecedented ‘dichotomies of place’ (p. 55). In the new cultural landscape ushered in by the arrival of Islam and its trans-Saharan trading connections, the hitherto unpopulated, or underpopulated, Mandara Mountains along the present-day border between northern Cameroon and Nigeria (as well as other, more marginal, environments) were increasingly recast as internal frontiers between plain-based state systems, such as Borno, Wandala and Baghirmi. These zones functioned simultaneously as the targets of, and as safe havens from, raids by mounted Muslim aristocracies who depended on frontier warfare and the enslavement of non-Muslim populations for their economic and cultural reproduction. As MacEachern poignantly reminds us, the victims of Boko Haram’s depredations are only too aware of the historical parallel between their present plight and these earlier experiences of violence and exploitation.

The Dats’in: historical experience and cultural identity of an undocumented indigenous group of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland

ABSTRACTThe Dats’in are an indigenous minority group living on the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland. They passed unnoticed to researchers, administrators and the wider world until 2013, when the authors of this paper met them in the lowlands of Qwara (NW Ethiopia). They speak an undocumented Nilo-Saharan language, related to Gumuz, and share important cultural and social traits with other indigenous communities in the area, while at the same time remaining clearly distinct. Dats’in history, which is related to that of the so-called Hamej peoples – the blanket name by which they are known to other groups – can be traced back several centuries through oral traditions, texts and archaeology. The Hamej, in fact, played a crucial role during the Funj Sultanate (1504–1821) and probably before. The present article is based on three field seasons carried out in the lowlands of Qwara (Ethiopia), one of the areas where they live today, and intends to offer some insights into their history and culture. They exemplify well the multifaceted relations between small-scale and State societies that have characterized the last millennium in the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland.

Subject Clitics: New Evidence from Old Nubian

This article treats a set of subject cross-referencing morphemes in the medieval Nilo-Saharan language Old Nubian, traditionally called “personal endings.” Based on an analysis of their syntactic distribution and morphology, I argue that this set can be best described as a set of subject clitics, originally deriving from phonologically reduced pronominals. This set of subject clitics interacts with both topic and focus makers in the clause. Finally, by inspecting the historical development of Old Nubian subject clitics into full-fledged agreement suffixes modern Nile Nubian languages Nobiin and Mattokki (Kenzi) I argue that a purely syntactical approach to this development is impracticable, but that any morpho-phonological approach should be able to account for the diachronic data.

Borrowings But No Diffusion: A Case of Language Contact in the Lake Chad Basin

Makary Kotoko, a Chadic language spoken in the flood plain directly south of Lake Chad in Cameroon, has an estimated 16,000 speakers. An analysis of a lexical database for the language shows that of the 3000 or so distinct lexical entries in the database, almost 1/3 (916 items) have been identified as borrowed from other languages in the region. The majority of the borrowings come from Kanuri, a Nilo-Saharan language of Nigeria, with an estimated number of speakers ranging from 1 to 4 million. In this article I first present the number of borrowings specifically from Kanuri relative to the total number of borrowed items in Makary Kotoko, and the lexical/grammatical categories in Makary Kotoko that have incorporated Kanuri borrowings. I follow this by presenting the linguistic evidence which not only suggests a possible time frame for when the borrowings from Kanuri came into Makary Kotoko, but also supports the idea that this is essentially a case of completed language contact. After discussing the lexical and grammatical borrowings from Kanuri into Makary Kotoko in detail, I explore the limited evidence in Makary Kotoko for lexical and grammatical ‘calquing’ from Kanuri, resulting in almost no structural diffusion from Kanuri into Makary Kotoko. I finish with a few proposals as to why this is the case in this instance of language contact in the Lake Chad basin.

Pluractional marking in Bunia Swahili (Ituri Kingwana)

AbstractThe concept of pluractionality is less common in Bantu languages than in other language families, such as Chadic (Afro-Asiatic) and various Nilo-Saharan languages. Yet many Bantu languages reveal patterns of habituals, combinations of verbal extensions and reduplication patterns that can function in pluractional-like ways in order to mark “plurality or multiplicity of the verb’s action” (Nurse 2008,Tense and aspect in Bantu. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 314). Bunia Swahili, an un(der)documented variety of Swahili spoken in Eastern DR Congo, has undergone contact-induced change that can be traced back to Central Sudanic languages, and has developed fluid registers of socially motivated realization. It contains different habitual markers expressing deviating semantic concepts, while habitual markers can also be combined in order to express evidentiality. Reduplication patterns as markers for pluractionality and their co-occurrence with habituals as gradual semantic continua are both taken into account in this preliminary overview. It is therefore proposed that ‘semantic aspect’ plays a predominant role in pluractional constructions in Bunia Swahili.

Gojjam(Ethiopia): peopling, Christianization, and identity

Gojjam is the home of Cushitic, Nilo-Saharan, Semtic and Omotic peoples and languages. The present pattern of settlements and religion is the result of a long socio-economic and political process and developments that mainly happened between thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. The coming and settlement of Christian Amhara in particular had reconfigured the settlement pattern of the former settlers: the Gummuz and the Agew. The process of incorporation of Gojjam was preceded and coincided with the settlement of monks. During the sixteenth century, a new wave of migration and settlement had radically changed the composition and number of the population. During this period, Damot, Gafat and Oromo had made important settlements. The cumulative effect of the process has made Gojjam to look like small Ethiopia. This paper, based on published and unpublished sources, attempted to fill this gap as it has tried to identify the basic patterns of habitation, evangelization, interaction, integration and a variety of institutional features and linkages focusing on the period between fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Further, the essay has tried to discuss and show how Christianization and settlement of migrants speaking many different languages from different areas had transformed Gojjam into a distinctively Christian region.