The "19. Afrikanistentag" will be held from 08.-10. April 2010 in Mainz, Germany.

There is no overall theme for the conference. Papers should focus on African languages, dealing with any of the various aspects of their manifestation and representation.

Registration deadline is December 10, 2009.

More information can be found on the conference website

(via SIL) Linguists representing 16 African languages are attending a workshop this month conducted by SIL Cameroon in Yaoundé to produce sketch grammars suitable to introduce bilingual or trilingual dictionaries. The UK Kay Williamson Educational Fund (KWEF) will eventually publish several of the dictionaries in which these sketch grammars appear. (continue reading at SIL website)

From today, August 17 to Friday 21, 2009, the 6th World Congress of African Linguistics (WOCAL6) is held in Cologne, Germany.  Dozens of papers on topics relating to all aspects of the study of African languages (including African sign languages) will be presented.

There are not many papers on Chadic languages, but there are quite a few on other Afroasiatic families, including Berber, Cushitic and Semitic.

Find out more at www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/afrikanistik/wocal/schedule

The Fifth Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages (BICCL) has taken place in Leipzig from June 10 to 14, 2009. Here is a short report.

Most of the participants arrived on Wednesday 10th. In the evening, we had an informal get-together at “Café Kowalski“, a restaurant close to Villa Tillmans, the University Guest House where the conference took place and where most of us stayed.

The conference started on Thursday 11th at 8.30 in the morning, with about 30 participants. Many of them had  come for the first time. In his opening remarks Ekkehard Wolff gave a special welcome to Paul Newman and Roxana Ma-Newman from Bloomington, Indiana and to Hak-Soo Kim, who had come all the way from Hankuk, Korea. There were also two young colleagues from Scandinavia: Harald Hammarström from Gothenburg, Sweden and Marit Lobben from Oslo, Norway.

A special greeting was given to Paul Newman and Roxana Ma Newman.

Ekkehard Wolff mentioned that it might be the last time for the conference to take place in Leipzig, as he was about to retire and the fate of African Studies in Leipzig was uncertain. But even though he would retire as the chair of the Department of African Languages, he would continue  his research: “Watch out for me!”

In the first paper of the morning and the conference, Norbert Cyffer talked about areal features of Chadic and Nilo-Saharan syntax: “What‘s Chadic? What‘s Saharan?”

This was followed by Victor Porkhomovsky’s paper on “Kinship terms in Chadic and Hamito-Semitic from a diachronic perspective”. He offered some fresh insights on kinship terms gained from the AAKTS database using the KinShIP computer programme.

The third paper was by Gábor Takács from Szekesfehervar, Hungary, on some “Chadic Lexical Roots” related to hunting and their Afro-Asiatic background.

After a short coffee break, Olga Stolbova in her paper “Chadic Lexical Database – a project in process” presented some reflexes with sibilants and sibilant affricates in the anlaut.

Next came Vaclav Blazek’s paper on “Chadic words for ‘brother’ and ’sister’ and Harald Hammarström’s paper on “Numerals in Chadic”.

After our lunch break we started the afternoon session, chaired by Sergio Baldi. First, Roger Blench gave us a short presentation on Baka,  a so far unreported Central Chadic language).  He also talked about some of his other work in progress.

This was followed by a paper by Georg Ziegelmeyer “On the adjective class in Bade” and one by Theda Schumann on “Postural Demonstratives in Masa“.

After the coffee break, we listened to three more papers. First, Birgit Hellwig talked about “Lexical aspect in Goemai (West Chadic) – a contact phenomenon?” Next was Roger Blench’s paper on “Plural verbs in Mwaghavul“. The final paper for the day was presented by Heike Andreas, who talked about “The marking of Tense-Aspect-Mood (TAM) in Nyam“.

In the evening, we had an informal gathering at the “Moritz Bastei“, a Student Club in a place which used to be part of the Leipzig city wall.

The second day’s morning session was all about Hausa. It started with a paper by Marit Lobben on “The agreement marker origin of Hausa causative and benefactive suffixes”. Next, Joe McIntyre proposed a description of the Hausa Verbal System without  ‘grades’. The third paper was by Phil Jaggar, who proposed to move Hausa “subordinating conjunctions” (‘after’) and “adverbs” (‘behind, at the back’) into the preposition category.

After the coffee break, the topic was “lexicography”. First,  Paul Newman presented a linguistic detective story: “Why /j/ is the last letter in Mischlich’s Hausa Dictionary.” Next, Henri Tourneux talked about Heinrich Barth’s contribution to Kotoko lexicography and Doris Löhr presented some insights on “Idiomatic expressions in Malgwa“. Finally, Ari Awagana gave a paper on Buduma lexicography.

Henri Tourneux talks about Heinrich Barth's contribution to Kotoko lexicography

After the lunch break, we heard three papers on different aspects of  Central Chadic languages.  First, Hak-Soo Kim talked about the “Some aspects of the Guduf verbal system”. Next came Mohammed Muazu’s paper on “Kilba morphological processes”, followed by Jonathan Owens‘ paper on “Glavda verbal morphology”.

After the coffee break, two more papers were presented: Richard Gravina talked about “The Internal Classification of Chadic Biu-Mandara” and Sergio Baldi presented some aspects of Bole-Tangale nouns and pronouns.

In the evening, we had Italian food in town and afterwards some of us met again at Villa Tillmanns, where we spent a nice evening singing oldies. Besides Joe McIntyre, Richard Gravina proved himself to be a skilled musician and singer.

Joe McIntyre and Richard Gravina singing some "oldies"

On Saturday morning, we heard two papers on Oral Literature. First, Ekkehard Wolff presented some interesting facts about “Constructional “Rhymes” in Lamang Verbal Art”. Next, Adam Mahamat talked about Topics in Makary Kotoko oral literature. Another paper (“Anthroponymie et histoire des Moundang Za-sin (Nord-Cameroun)”) that had been scheduled wasn’t presented, because Alain D. Taino Kari couldn’t  get to the conference in time.

“Focus” was the topic of the two papers after the coffee break. First, Andreas Haida and Katharina Hartmann talked about “Focus asymmetries in Central Chadic languages”. Next, Peggy Jacob compared “Optional Focus Marking in Tar B’arma, Tangale and Bura“.

After the lunch break, the remaining papers all had to do with semantics. First, Baba Mai Bello talked about “Metaphors and euphemisms in the discourse of HIV/AIDS in Hausa“. Next, Maria Schubert presented “The concept of VEHICLE in Hausa for L1- and L2-speakers”. The last paper of the day and the conference was presented byDymitr Ibriszimow and Balarabe Zulyadaini, who talked about “Deep love, mutual visits or quarrel: Hausa ‘relationship’, ‘family’ and women from a cognitive semantic point of view”.

After Ekkehard Wolff’s closing remarks, the conference went on with a surprise for him: Paul Newman, Phil Jaggar, Henri Tourneux, Victor Porkhomovsky, Larry Hyman (who had come as a surprise visitor), Norbert Cyffer and Ari Awagana each delivered a short speech, as a farewell to Ekkehard Wolff and in order to express their appreciation.

Ekkehard was presented with some gifts, including a book where the conference participants had also left some personal notes to him. During the following Farewell Reception in the Garden of Villa Tillmanns, Joe McIntyre played and sang some more, to everyone’s enjoyment.

Altogether, this was a great conference. “Thank you!” to the organizers.  I  look forward to the next BICCL, which will be in Paris in 2011.

If you want to see more of the pictures I took during the conference, visit www.flickr.com/photos/hausaonline. There, you can still find some pictures of the last BICCL in Bayreuth 2007, too. Roger Blench, too, has some conference pictures on his website.

Very little has been published so far on Kilba, a Chadic language spoken in Adamawa State of Nigeria, the closest relative of which is Margi. Soon, a  publication on Kilba will appear at LINCOM Europe. Here are some details which the author of the book, Dr. Mohammed Aminu Mu’azu, has sent me:

SAL 76: A Grammar of the Kilba Language

ISBN 9783895866654. LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 76. 198 pp. 2009. Price: EUR 63,00
Mohammed Aminu Mu’azu
University of Bayreuth
The book describes some linguistic aspects of Kilba. As a preliminary to the main discussion, the geographical location of Kilba land, the culture and dialects of the Language are highlighted. The book then describes the Phonology, Morphology and Syntax of the Language. On phonology, the book treats the sound system, phonological processes and the tonal system of the language.

The section on Morphology treats, in part, nominal and verbal morphology of the language. On the nominal, the book treats nouns, adjectives, pronouns and adverbs, while the verbal morphology discusses the derivational and inflectional aspects of the verbs. Finally, concerning syntax, the book treats the various constituents that make up the two phrases: nominal and verbal. The book reveals the nature and restrictions that occur in the usage of the lexical items in the two phrases. Each of the items that occur in both the phrases are spelt out and phrase structure tree diagrams of some of the sentences are drawn and phrase structure rules are also established in order to show how the constituents are hierarchically related.

Mohammed Aminu Mu’azu holds a PhD in General Linguistics from the University of Maiduguri, where he is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Languages and Linguistics. The book was written during his tenure as lecturer in the Department of African Studies (Afrikanistik II), University of Bayreuth, Germany (2008 – 2010). He has also published articles on various linguistic aspects of the Kilba language in international journals of languages and linguistics.

Currently, the Fifth Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages (BICCL) is taking place in Leipzig. Yesterday, Rüdiger Köppe (left) arrived and brought a box containing the conference volume of BICCL 4, which has just appeared. Eva Rothmaler (right) has edited this publication. Here is more information about the book:

Eva Rothmaler (ed): Topics in Chadic Linguistics V (Chadic Languages Volume 6) 2009, 185 pages, 1 map, 7 screenshots, numerous tables and charts.  ISBN 978-3-89645-525-3.

Content:

Preface

S. Allison
Derivation of the PAM System of Makary Kotoko

H. Andreas, R. Leger & U. Zoch
The Nyam Language – First Steps toward a Grammatical Description

A. Awagana & D. Löhr
Loanwords in Hausa: Results from the Loanword Typology Project

G.C. Batic
Imaginative Dimension and Experiential Constructions in Hausa and Bole

V. Blažek
All Chadic Lakes

R. Blench & A. Ndamsai
An Introduction to Kirya-Konzəl, a Central Chadic Language of Eastern Nigeria

D. Ibriszimow, V. Porkhomovsky & V. Sheshin
AAKTS Database and KinShIP Computer Programme for Processing Afroasiatic Kinship Terms and Systems

D. Ibriszimow & B. Zulyadaini
I Think what You Think. An Evaluation of L1 and L2 Hausa Cognitive Structures

B. Mai Bello
Hausa Language and the Perception of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria

J.N. Philip
Tone on Lagwan Verbs: The Conflict between Perceptual Prominence and Lexical Contrast

J.S. Roberts
Palatalization and Labialization in Mawa (Eastern Chadic)

O. Stolbova
Plurality in Chadic: Some Active and Frozen Models.

H. Tourneux & A. Mahamat
Les marqueurs relatifs dans les langues dites « kotoko »

H.E. Wolff
Another Look at “Internal a” in Chadic

G. Ziegelmeyer
Between Hausa and Kanuri: On the Linguistic Influence of Hausa and Kanuri on Bade and Ngizim

Ordering the book from Koeppe

The Fifth Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages (BICCL) will take place in Leipzig from June 10th to 14th 2009.

The conference continues the series of Leipzig (2001), Prague (2003), Villejuif/Paris (2005), and Bayreuth (2007), 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 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 and
• Chadic languages in contact with non-Chadic languages.

You can download the colloquium’s programme here.

Friendfeed is another web 2.0 style online service which enables you to keep up-to-date on web pages, photos, videos and music that others  are sharing. You can also enter or create public rooms where you can discover and discuss information among friends.

Today, using Friendfeed, I have created a public room called “Chadic Languages” where I collect information related to Chadic languages which I consider worth sharing. I know that some of you may find social software just a big hype. Anyway, have a look and if you like (or dislike) it or have questions about it, let me know. Tell your students about it, since they are much more into this type of things.

On LINGUIST List, Issue 20.1386, our colleague Roger Blench asks: “Do any other linguists out there sense a worrying gap between the rhetoric concerning documentation in relation to endangered languages and the reality?” Roger reminds us that “out there, languages seem to be disappearing at an alarming rate with a complete lack of basic documentation, even where something can be achieved in a couple of days.”

Is that observation true for Chadic languages, too? Which are the most severely endangered Chadic languages?

The provisional programme for the 6th World Congress of African Linguistics (WOCAL6) in Cologne, Germany from August 17 to 21, 2009 is now online.

Dozens of interesting papers will be presented, including some on Chadic and other Afroasiatic languages. Find out more at www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/afrikanistik/wocal/schedule