Download: The sign language of the Mofu-Gudur

(via Blog Méga-Tchad) The following PhD thesis by Liliane Sorin-Barreteau is available for download at www.mandaras.info:

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 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.

BICCL 6 — Poster and Programme

The 6th Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages (BICCL) will be hosted at the LLACAN (Langage, langues et cultures d’Afrique noire, UMR 8135 INALCO-CNRS) at Villejuif (near Paris) from September 22 to September 23, 2011. Here is a Poster and the Programme:

WOCAL 7 – Invitation and call for papers

The 7th World Congress of African Linguistics (WOCAL 7) 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. The organisers have just sent us an invitation and call for papers:

Studies in African Linguistics online

Studies in African Linguistics is one of the journals where a number of articles on Chadic languages and linguistics have appeared. It is now possible to read these articles online and download them. Here is what can be found:

• 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

Special Symposium: Half a Century of Comparative Chadic and Historical Hausa Studies

This month, a special symposium on “Half a Century of Comparative Chadic and Historical Hausa Studies” will take place  at the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS).

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.

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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

Mega-Chad: new website and blog

Mega-Chad is an international network concerned with multidisciplinary research on the history and evolution of societies in the Lake Chad basin. The network name “Mega-Chad” evokes the maximal extension of Lake Chad several millennia ago. The network has as its aims the encouragement and support of multidisciplinary research on the societies and environments past and present of the Lake Chad basin, and the dissemination of research results.

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.

 

BICCL 6 — Call for Papers

The “ Permanent  Committee  of  the  International  Colloquium  on  the  Chadic  Languages ” is pleased to announce that the 6th Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages (BICCL) will be hosted at the LLACAN (Langage, langues et cultures d’Afrique noire, UMR 8135 INALCO-CNRS) at Villejuif (near Paris) from September 22 to September 23, 2011.

This  Colloquium  takes  place  after  those  of  Leipzig  (2001),  Prague  (2003),  Villejuif (2005),  Bayreuth  (2007),  Leipzig  (2009) taking  up  two  discontinued  traditions  (the series  of  Leiden  1976,  Hamburg  1981,  Boulder  1987)  and  the  Franco-German meetings  in  Paris  (Groupe  d’Etudes  tchadiques,  1980  –  1997).  It  is  devoted  to  all aspects of Chadic languages and linguistics, in particular:

• Descriptive linguistics of individual Chadic languages
• Comparative linguistics of Chadic languages
• Typology of Chadic languages
• Hausa linguistics
• The position of Chadic within Afroasiatic
• Chadic languages in contact with non-Chadic languages
• Oral literature in Chadic languages

Registration for the Villejuif meeting should contain:

• NAME AND ADDRESS (preferably e-mail AND snail mail),
• TITLE OF PAPER AND ABSTRACT (1 page),
• PLANNED DATES OF ARRIVAL (suggested: Wednesday, 21 st  September)
  AND DEPARTURE (suggested: Saturday, 24 th  September),
• INDICATION OF PREFERRED ACCOMMODATION (single/double; hotel category or price).

Registrations should be addressed exclusively by e-mail to:

biccl2011@orange.fr
Subject : BICCL 2011

Deadline for submitting title and abstract: May 31, 2011.

Further details will be found in a second circular.

The  “ Permanent  Committee  of  the  International  Colloquium  on  the  Chadic  Languages ”  is presently  represented  by  Prof.  Dr  D. IBRISZIMOW (Lehrstuhl  Afrikanistik  II,  University  of Bayreuth),  Dr  H.  TOURNEUX (LLACAN  –  CNRS  /  INALCO  –  Villejuif  /  Paris),  and  Professor (emeritus) Dr phil. habil. E. H. WOLFF (Lehrstuhl Afrikanistik, University of Leipzig).

Download this Announcement (PDF)

Glavda in Rural and Urban Contexts

Jonathan Owens has been working on documenting Glavda (Central Chadic) over the past 2 years, under an ELDP grant. He is now in the process of putting up the results at a website (link) :

• transcribed and morphologically segmented texts
• complete free translations of each
• about 20% of 10 texts with interlinear glosses
• accompanying audio files for each text

The texts are based on interviews conducted by consultants, mostly in the Ngoshe area, a few from Maiduguri. A certain degree of demographic and geographical diversity is represented in the sample, young (under 30) and old (over 50), men and women, three villages (Ngoshe, Agapalawa, Arboko).

Topics are broad: history, daily life, farming, cooking, current politics, the future of Glavda, teasing and bantering (often the interviewer knew the interviewee well), so that the texts have more than a linguistic interest, even if that is their primary focus.

Thus far 11 texts are available, the goal being 16 or 17. The entire corpus should be about 90,000 words.

More on Glavda

31st German Conference of Oriental Studies in Marburg

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The 31st German Conference of Oriental Studies (Deutscher Orientalistentag) will take place in Marburg, September 20-24, 2010, after a 60-year break since the last “Orientalistentag” in this town. The decision to hold the most important congress of German Oriental Studies in Marburg has been prompted by the recent establishment of the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies.

More details can be found on the conference website.