The present issue includes lexical material of some more languages (as compared to issue III): Marba, Ham, Lew, Musey (CCh, masa gr.), Buwal (CCh, dabagr.), Baka (CCh, mafagr), dialects of Barain (ECh, sokoro gr.).

“Chadic Lexical Database”  is a project run by Olga Stolbova at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow. The main goal of the project is to arrange the greater part of Chadic lexical data so far collected in kind of preliminary etymological entries. The project was presented in Prague, 2003.

Three more issues are available:

• Chadic  Lexical Database Issue I: Letters L, N, NY, R. Moscow-Kaluga 2005
• Chadic  Lexical Database Issue II: Lateral fricatives. Moscow-Kaluga 2007
• Chadic  Lexical Database Issue III: Sibilants and sibilant affricates, 2009.

 Roger Blench

A workshop was held in Jos, 20-21^st April, 2012, to bring together speakers of West Chadic languages, especially those concerned with either developed or potential orthographies. In practice, most of the languages represented were A3 languages. Speakers of the following languages attended;

• Ngas
• Mwaghavul
• Mupun
• Takas
• Chakfem
• Mushere
• Goemai
• Ywom
• Geji

As well as a survey team from Language Development Facilitators, staff of TCNN and a deputation from the Department of Linguistics, Nassarawa State University were also in attendance. More details of the programme are on the attached pdf. The workshop was used as an opportunity to record basic sociolinguistic and lexical data for lesser-known languages, including Ywom, Takas, Mushere and Cakfem. Video interviews with speakers were also recorded to introduce the languages and to make a plea for outside assistance with language development. These will be posted on Roger Blench’s YouTube page shortly.

Broadly speaking, the following important points emerged;

1. Even languages with long established written traditions, such as Ngas and Goemai, are having problems with reading. Brief descriptions of their orthographies make it clear why this should be so; orthographic conventions are over-complex and difficult to teach. A newly-written language such as Mushere has no consistent orthography at all.

2. Mwaghavul is gradually adapting its written conventions to take into account modern insights into its phonology and morphology.

3. No languages currently mark tone, despite the abundance of homophones and homographs, and this is becoming an increasing problem for readers. Only ad hoc solutions are being adopted at present, including the really bad one of using unnatural forms to make sentences unambiguous.

4. The literature, such as it is, has been really unclear on the linguistic status of languages such as Mupun and Takas, but they tend to be treated as Mwaghavul dialects. However, it turns out that all the early evangelism in this area was conducted in Mwaghavul, and it was thus learnt by an older generation. So reports of inter-intelligibility may well have been exaggerated. Once the data has been transcribed, it will be made available on the internet to begin resolving these questions.

5. Mushere turns out to be highly complex. There are at least two sharply distinct dialects, and Kadim, which although previously listed as a dialect, is completely incomprehensible and may not even be a Chadic language. Survey work on Kadim will try and resolve this issue.

6. The distinctiveness of Ywom may well be the result of long-term interaction with Tarok,  and that underlyingly it is a well-behaved A3 language. A Reading and Writing book was published for Ywom late 2011, indicating the presence of labial velars, gb and kp, as well as three central vowels.

7. Mwaghavul is reported to have a ritual language for speaking about the njii, spirits, now known only to a small group of elders. Further work is in hand to document this; similar parallel languages may exist for other A3 languages.

The way forward

It was generally agreed that much more work is required on linguistic analysis and the development of orthographies that are easier to read and more consistent. It is clear that literacy committees, which often have appointees present because of their status rather than their interest in literacy, can represent a block to language development. Speakers (I hope) went away with a new resolve to try and renew interest in developing practical systems of reading and writing. At the same time, it was clear that much more descriptive linguistics is required to analyse unusual sounds, and in particular to determine the status of individual languages.

A second West Chadic Languages Workshop is planned for two years hence, and we hope to invite speakers of barely documented languages such as Jorto, Pyapun and Tal, as well as reporting on progress in the present languages.

Sponsors

The Workshop was sponsored by Kay Williamson Educational Foundation, and assisted with facilities by Language Development Facilitators, Nigeria. The organisers were Roger Blench and Nathaniel Daapiya.

> West Chadic Language Workshop Programme April 2012 (PDF, 24 kB)

This initial Version 01 is presented in PDF format only. The goal in the future is to make the bibliography available in database format as well. Scholars using the bibliography will have the opportunity to contribute to its completeness and accuracy by submitting additions and corrections to be incorporated in subsequent editions.

Sorin-Barreteau, L., Le langage gestuel des mofu-gudur au Cameroun. Livre 1 : introduction et description; livre 2 : lexique gestuel A-G; livre 3 : lexique gestuel H-Z. Thèse du Doctorat, Université Paris V – René Descartes, 1996. Electronic ISBN publication, Mandaras Publishing, London 2011 (935 pages).  [10MB]

The sign language of the Mofu-Gudur is based on a general system of physical gestures which can be understood by every speaker of this language and not only by deaf people and sign language specialists, as this is the case with most modern sign languages. Liliane Sorin-Barreteau describes this in her extensive introduction (page 35/37) where she also gives an extensive description of the Mofu-Gudur way of thinking, drawn from their cultural knowledge system. The lexicon is covering a huge number of mainly verbs, accompanied by drawings of the relevant sign actions for each verb and represents a major source for any student of similar local sign languages as they have developed in other oral societies around the world.

Topics in Chadic Linguistics VI has appeared

Topics in Chadic Linguistics VI: Comparative and Descriptive Studies has appeared as volume 7 of the publication series Chadic Linguistics · Linguistique Tchadique · Tschadistik at Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. The volume was edited by Doris Löhr and Ari Awagana and contains papers from the 5th Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages (BICCL V) which took place in Leipzig, June 10–14, 2009. The preface informs us that:

The date of the conference and of the official retirement of Ekkehard Wolff almost coincided. Using this opportunity, scientists from the linguistic world outside Chadic turned up as well and contributed in one way or the other to this successful and delightful meeting, saying – and singing – farewell and paying tribute to a great linguist, longstanding colleague and friend.

International scholars presented 32 papers, arriving from Austria (Norbert Cyffer, Georg Ziegelmeyer), Cameroon (Richard Gravina, Adam Mahamat, A.D. Taino Kari), the Czech Republic (Václav Blažek), France (Henry Tourneux), Germany (Heike Andreas, Ari Awagana, Andreas Haida, Katharina Hartmann, Birgit Hellwig, Dymitr Ibriszimow, Peggy Jacob, Doris Löhr, Joe McIntyre, Jonathan Owens, Maria Schubert, Theda Schumann, Uwe Seibert, Henrike Stührung, Ekkehard Wolff), Hungary (Gábor Takács), Italy (Sergio Baldi), Korea (Hak Soo Kim), Nigeria (Baba Mai Bello, Muhammad Mwazu, Balarabe Zulyadaini), Norway (Harald Hammerström, Marit Lobben), Russia (Olga Stolbova, Victor Porkhomovsky), the United Kingdom (Roger Blench, Phillip Jaggar), and the USA (Roxana Ma Newman, Paul Newman).

This volume contains a selection of the given papers, reflecting current linguistic research on West Chadic (Hausa, Mwaghavul, Goemai, Bole-Tangale group), and Central Chadic (Buduma, Malgwa, Kotoko) languages from different angles. Topics concentrated on Chadic internal and external classification, lexicography, semantics, and oral literature.

Table of Contents:

Preface

Ari Awagana:
La lexicographie du buduma – une étude exploratoire

Sergio Baldi / Rudolf Leger:
Some diachronic obser­va­tions on gender and number in Bole-Tangale Languages

Václav Blažek:
Chadic “BROTHER” and “SISTER”

Roger Blench:
Mwaghavul pluractional verbs

Richard Gravina:
The internal classification of Chadic Biu-Mandara

Birgit Hellwig:
Lexical aspect classes in Goemai (West Chadic)

Dymitr Ibriszimow / Balarabe Zulyadaini:
Fighting friends with the scent of a bride – Wives, ‘family’ and ‘relatives’ in Hausa from a cognitive semantic point of view

Marit Lobben:
Agreement and relative topicality in the -aC causative / caused-motion and benefactive constructions in Hausa

Doris Löhr:
B∂lant∂ z∂la át∂ yáwe ‘sending an eagle up to water’ – Multiword expressions in Malgwa

Adam Mahamat:
Les differents types de contes dans la litterature orale des Kotoko de Makari

Maria Schubert:
Means of Transport – The concept of vehicle for L1 and L2 Hausa speakers

Gábor Takács:
The “Chadic Lexical Roots” and their Afro-Asiatic background II

Henry Tourneux:
La contribution de Heinrich Barth à la lexicographie du parler kotoko de Logone-Birni

The World Congress of African Linguistics will hold from the 20^th to the 24^th of August 2012 in the University of Buea, Cameroon. The theme of the congress is, Language description and documentation for development, education and the preservation of cultural heritage in Africa. Discussions will centre on the following six sub-themes:

1. Language in education

2. Language documentation

3. The social dimensions of language

4. ‘Contact languages’ in the growth and development of African states

5. Intercultural communication

6. Linguistic analyses (phonetics, phonology, morphology, lexicology, syntax, historical linguistics, language classification, etc.).

Abstracts of about 250-500 words will be received till October 30^th, 2011. Each abstract should be presented in two pages: the first page must contain the title of the paper, the name of the author, his/her affiliation and his/her full address (postal address, telephone number, fax and email) and the sub-theme within which the author will like to have his/her paper discussed; the second page must be left anonymous, with only the title of the paper and the text of the abstract.

Abstracts must be sent, preferably, as an email attachment to the following Local Organising Committee (LOC) address:

WOCAL7 Buea
PO Box 63, Buea
Buea, Cameroon

Email: wocalbuea@yahoo.fr

The abstracts will be peer-reviewed anonymously, and decision on their acceptance announced by the end of December 2011.

Researchers wishing to organize special workshops are requested to contact the congress chairperson (tamanjip@yahoo.fr) with their workshop themes and related modalities by February 28^th 2011 latest.

Details on practical matters such as travel to Cameroon and accommodation will be communicated later.

For more, please contact the WOCAL7 Local Organizing Committee at the above address, or visit the WOCAL website: http://www.wocal.rutgers.edu/

Prof Pius N Tamanji
Congress Chair

• Dauda Muhammad Bagari 1971. Lexical hypothesis and Hausa. PDF
• John Bryson Eulenberg 1971. A New Look at the Predicating Particles in Hausa. PDF
• Charles H. Kraft 1971. A note on lateral fricatives in Chadic.  PDF
• Paul Newman 1971. The Hausa negative markers.  PDF
• N. Pilszczikowa-Chodak 1972. Tone-vowel height correlation and tone assignment in the patterns of verb and noun plurals in Hausa. PDF
• Russell G. Schuh 1972. Rule Inversion in Chadic.  PDF
• Paul Newman 1973. Grades, vowel-tone classes and extensions in the Hausa verbal system.  PDF
• William R. Leben 1974. Rule inversion in Chadic: A reply. PDF
• William R. Leben, Dauda M. Bagari 1975. A note on the base form of the Hausa verb. PDF
• Paul Newman 1975. The non-correlation of tone and vowel height in Hausa. PDF
• Nina Pilszczikowa-Chodak 1975. On the correlation of tone and vowel height in Hausa.  PDF
• Zygmunt Frajzyngier 1976. Rule inversion in Chadic: an explanation.  PDF
• Linda Dresel 1977. Some phonological aspects of the aquisition of Hausa. PDF
• Karen H Ebert 1977. Some aspects of the Kera Verbal Structure. PDF
• Zygmunt Frajzyngier 1977. On the intransitive copy pronouns in Chadic. PDF
• Patrick McConvell 1977. Relativisation and the ordering of cross-reference rules in Hausa. PDF
• Paul Newman 1977. Chadic extensions and pre-dative verb forms in Hausa. PDF
• Philip Jaggar 1978. And what about…?’ – topicalization in Hausa. PDF
• Paul Newman 1979. Explaining Hausa feminines. PDF
• Zygmunt Frajzyngier 1980. The vowel system of Pero. PDF
• Linda Hunter 1980. Stress in Hausa: an experimental study. PDF
• Bello Ahmad Salim 1980. A note on the Hausa voiceless labials.  PDF
• Stephen C. Anderson, Jeanette Swackhamer 1981. From Consonants to downstep in Podoko. PDF
• Donald A. Burquest 1981. Evidence for object-verb ordering in Chadic. PDF
• Graham Furniss 1981. Hausa disyllabic verbs: comments on base forms and extensions. PDF 
• Donald G. Churma 1982. Rule inversion in Chadic: a closer look. PDF
• Russell G. Schuh 1983. Kilba equational sentences. PDF
• Paul Newman 1984. Ethonyms in Hausa. PDF
• Mona Lindau-Webb 1985. Hausa vowels and dipthongs. PDF
• Paul Newman 1986. Tone and affixation in Hausa. PDF
• Philip J Jaggar 1988. Restrictive vs non-restrictive relative clauses in Hausa: where morphosyntax and semantics meet. PDF
• Russell G. Schuh 1989. The reality of Hausa “low tone raising”; a response to Newman & Jaggar. PDF
• Donald A. Burquest 1989. A note on Hausa plurals. PDF
• Paul Newman, Philip J. Jaggar 1989. Low tone raising in Hausa: a critical assessment. PDF
• Linda Schwartz 1989. Thematic linking in Hausa assymetric coordination. PDF
• Paul Newman 1990. Internal evidence for final vowel lowering in Hausa. PDF
• Bernard Tranel 1994. Tone sandhi and vowel deletion in Margi. PDF
• William R Leben 1996. Tonal feet and the adaptation of English borrowing into Hausa. PDF
• Aaron Shryock 1997. The classification of the Masa group of languages.  PDF
• Russell G. Schuh 2002. Palatalization in West Chadic. PDF
• Mahaman B Attouman 2009. Emplois et valeurs des marqueurs wáy et mànà en hawsa. PDF

Over the past fifty years, Professors Herrmann Jungraithmayr and Paul Newman have been two of the foremost scholars in the area of Chadic and Hausa linguistics. In this symposium, these two scholars will give an overview of developments in these fields and offer their perspectives on unresolved questions and challenges. Jungraithmayr will present his thoughts on comparative Chadic, to be complemented by commentary and discussion by Professor Henry Tourneux of CNRS and INALCO (Langage, langues et cultures d’Afrique noire, LLACAN) in Paris. Newman will present his insights on Hausa historical linguistics, to be complemented by commentary and discussion by Professor Philip Jaggar of the School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS, in London. These two papers with commentary by leading experts will be followed by open discussion with the participation of members of the audience.

Date: Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Venue: 95445 Bayreuth, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 3 (Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies, BIGSAS, seminar rooms), S 17

Time: Begin 16 c.t.

Chair: Professor Roxana Ma Newman

Recently, their website has moved from Bayreuth (Afrikanistik) to London (SOAS). In addition, a new Mega-Chad blog has been launched to facilitate communicating news and discussion among the members of the Mega-Chad network.