Hausa dictionary available

Paul Newman has sent the following message:

Zuwa ga abokai masana Hausa,

     We are pleased to inform you that the Hausa-English / English-Hausa dictionary that we published with Bayero University Press in Kano is now available outside of Nigeria. If you are interested in obtaining a copy for yourselves, or if you would like for your library to acquire a copy, the book can be purchased from African Books Collective in Oxford, see https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/hausa-dictionary-for-everyday-use.

     This new printing is essentially the same as the Kano edition, however we were fortunate in being able to correct a few typos and other small errors that were found in the original.

Best,

Paul & Roxana

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Early invitation for CALL workshop presentations

Joseph Lovestrand has sent the following message:

An online workshop on the theme “Words in Chadic languages: Phonology and morphosyntax” is being organized for August 29, 2022 in conjunction with the Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics 2022.

Anyone who would like to contribute a presentation can express interest by emailing Joseph Lovestrand: jl119@soas.ac.uk

Planned participants include:

Théodore Bebey (University of Maroua)
Adam Mahmat (University of Maroua)
Hamidou Bappa (University of Maroua)
Ousmanou (University of Yaounde 1)
Mélanie Viljoen (SIL)
Joseph Lovestrand (SOAS University of London)
Ndokobai Dadak (SIL)
H. Ekkehard Wolff (Leipzig University)
Shannon Yee (SIL)
Sakine Ramat (FAPLN)

Words in Chadic languages: phonology and morphosyntax

Chadic languages have long been of interest to phonologists, in particular in regard to word prosodies: cases of vowel and consonant harmony in which phonological features are spread across an entire word (Lionnet & Hyman 2018: 633–646; Wolff 2021: 55–61). The most extreme cases of word prosodies are found in Central Chadic languages, while less extreme examples of phonological feature sharing are common throughout the language family (Pearce & Lovestrand forthcoming). Chadic languages also tend to have complex morphology, in particular in the verbal system where pronominal markers and other verbal morphemes (often called “extensions”) may have ambiguous status in regard to whether they are part of the verb (i.e., suffixes) or not (i.e., particles) (Jungraithmayr & Tourneux 1987). Since Chadic languages have both complex morphology and phonological processes that extend across a domain associated with wordhood, they are likely to exhibit patterns of conflicting criteria for wordhood of the type that has raised questions about the theoretical validity of wordhood and the morphology-syntax divide more generally (Tallman 2020). Of particular interest are cases where the domain of prosody or harmony does not match morphosyntactic criteria for wordhood, however, presentations on aspects of the phonology or morphology of Chadic languages will also be included in the workshop.

• Jungraithmayr, Herrmann & Henry Tourneux (eds.). 1987. Etudes tchadiques, Classes et extensions verbales. Paris: Geuthner.
• Lionnet, Florian & Larry M Hyman. 2018. Current issues in African phonology. In Tom Güldemann (ed.), The languages and linguistics of Africa, 602–708. De Gruyter Mouton.
• Pearce, Mary & Joseph Lovestrand. forthcoming. Vowel harmony in Chadic languages. In Harry van der Hulst & Nancy Ritter (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Vowel Harmony. Oxford University Press.
• Tallman, Adam J. R. 2020. Beyond grammatical and phonological words. Language and Linguistics Compass 14(2).
• Wolff, H. Ekkehard. 2021. Historical phonology of Central Chadic: Prosodies and lexical reconstruction. Cambridge Univ Press.

Now online: Bibliography of Chadic and Hausa Linguistics, 5th edition (2022)

The 5th edition of Paul Newman‘s Comprehensive Bibliography of Chadic and Hausa Linguistics has been posted and is now available online:

Newman, Paul. 2022. Comprehensive Bibliography of Chadic and Hausa Linguistics, 5th edition. Bloomington: IUScholarWorks. 

URL:   https://hdl.handle.net/2022/27402

DOI:    https://doi.org/10.5967/5q3g-t220

It includes approximately 3,500 linguistic works written on Chadic languages, of which about 2,000 are on Hausa, by far the largest and most widely spoken member of the family. The entries date from 1790 to the present. The bibliography contains published books and articles as well as unpublished Ph.D. dissertations and master’s theses.

11th Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages (BICCL) – CALL FOR PAPERS

The following invitation / call for papers has been distributed via a new BICCL Google group (biccl@googlegroups.com).

11th Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages (BICCL)
11-12 November 2022, at Universität Wien, Austria 

CALL FOR PAPERS

(Version française ci-dessous)

Registration and abstract submission till: 30 June 2022

Notification of acceptance till: 31 July 2022

Dear colleagues,

after an intermission in 2021 due to the ‘Corona-Pandemic’ we will restart with the next BICCL meeting at the Department of African Studies (University of Vienna), 11-12 November 2022. 

The colloquium will be held in presence; however, colleagues who cannot come to Vienna due to travel restriction can be given the opportunity to present their talk via video conferencing.

Note that you have to fulfil the valid entry regulations for Austria. Currently (27th December 2021) to enter Austria, the so called “2-G” rule (proof of vaccination/recovery) is in place. In addition, you need a negative PCR test or proof of booster jab.

We invite all Chadic scholars to hand in their papers covering the following topics:

– Descriptive linguistics of individual Chadic languages
– Comparative linguistics of Chadic languages
– Typology of Chadic languages
– Hausa linguistics
– The position of Chadic within Afroasiatic
– Contact between Chadic and non-Chadic languages
– Oral literature in Chadic languages

Abstracts should be written in English, French, or German, and not exceed 500 words (excluding references). Talks will be allocated 20 minutes for presentation with a 10 minute question and answer period. There will be a conference fee of 50€ (including conference dinner).

Registrations and abstracts are to be submitted electronically in pdf and word format to the following email address with subject “BICCL 2022”: georg.ziegelmeyer@univie.ac.at

Registration for the meeting should also contain the following information: name and affiliation; planned date of arrival (suggested Thursday, 10th November), and departure (suggested Sunday, 13th of November).

Details concerning participants, program, accommodation and organizational matters will be communicated in further circulars.

We are looking forward to see you!

The organizers (Yvonne Treis, Henning Schreiber, Georg Ziegelmeyer)

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11e Colloque International Bisannuel sur les Langues Tchadiques (BICCL 11)

11-12 novembre 2022
Universität Wien, Autriche

APPEL À COMMUNICATIONS

Date limite pour la soumission des résumés : 30 juin 2022

Envoi de la notification d’acceptation : 31 juillet 2022

Chères et chers collègues,

Après l’annulation du colloque en raison de la pandémie en 2021, nous prévoyons d’organiser le prochain rencontre BICCL au Département d’études africaines de l’université de Vienne les 11-12 novembre 2022. 

Le colloque aura lieu en présentiel, mais les collègues qui ne peuvent pas venir à Vienne en raison de restrictions de voyage auront la possibilité de présenter à distance par visioconférence. Merci de prendre note des mesures sanitaires en vigueur sur le territoire autrichien. Actuellement (27 décembre 2021), la règle dite “2-G” est appliquée lors de l’entrée en Autriche : vous devez donc présenter une preuve de vaccination complète ou un certificat de rétablissement du Covid. De plus, vous êtes tenu de présenter un test PCR négatif ou une preuve de vaccination de rappel.

Nous invitons tous les chercheurs travaillant sur les langues tchadiques à soumettre leur résumé sur les sujets suivants :

– Description linguistique des différentes langues tchadiques
– Linguistique comparative/diachronique des langues tchadiques
– Typologie des langues tchadiques
– Linguistique haoussa
– Position de la branche tchadique au sein du phylum Afroasiatique
– Contact entre les langues tchadiques et non-tchadiques
– Littérature orale en langues tchadiques

 Les résumés doivent être rédigés en anglais, français ou allemand et ne pas dépasser 500 mots (références exclues). Les intervenants disposeront de 20 minutes pour leur présentation et suivies de 10 minutes de questions et discussion.

Les résumés doivent être soumis en format pdf et word à l’adresse mail suivante georg.ziegelmeyer@univie.ac.at (merci de mettre « BICCL 2022 » dans le sujet).

Veuillez également nous envoyer les informations suivantes : 

–   nom, affiliation et adresse
–   date d’arrivée prévue (idéalement le jeudi 10 novembre)
–   date de départ prévue (suggérée le dimanche 13 novembre).

Les frais d’inscription sont de 50 € (y compris le dîner du colloque).

Tous les détails concernant les participants, le programme, l’hébergement et les questions d’organisation seront communiqués dans des circulaires ultérieures.

Nous nous réjouissons de vous accueillir à Vienne en novembre !

Les organisateurs (Yvonne Treis, Henning Schreiber, Georg Ziegelmeyer)

Bibliography of Chadic and Hausa Linguistics, 5th edition (2022)

Paul Newman has sent the following announcement:

I am planning on doing one final (5th) edition of the online, open access Chadic  biblio. (The 4th, which appeared in 2018, is available at http://hdl.handle.net/2022/22181).

      If any of you have Hausa or Chadic books, articles, book reviews, etc. that you would like to see included in the biblio, I would be grateful if you could send me the info in the next two or three weeks at pnxxpn(at)indiana.edu. Please send the info either as text in the body of the email itself or as a WORD attachment.

In addition to things that you yourself have written, if you are aware of other bibliographic information that you feel would be useful, please let me know. Finally, if it is not clear from the title of the publication what Chadic languages are treated, please indicate this in a note so that I can include the relevant info in the Keyword section.

Skype talk on “Pattern borrowing and hybridisation in Mubi”

Joseph Lovestrand has sent the following invitation to another Skype Talk:

The Chadic Languages & Cultures group, run by Cameroonian linguists, is meeting online Saturday 20 November, 9 AM, Cameroon time (UTC+1). All are welcome to join the discussion (in French and English)!

Chadic Languages & Cultures
Saturday, 20 November, 2021
9 AM (Cameroon time, UTC+1)
Join via Skype: https://join.skype.com/YTdz8ale1BIF

Pattern borrowing and hybridisation in Mubi
Lameen Souag (CNRS)

The plural system of Mubi (East Chadic, Afroasiatic) stands out cross-linguistically within Chadic and worldwide for its extensive use of pattern morphology, fixing the output’s vowel qualities and shape while preserving the input’s consonants. This paper demonstrates that some elements of this system are reconstructible at least for East Chadic B and probably go back to earlier stages of Afroasiatic, while others reflect the influence of Chadian Arabic, the regional lingua franca. The process of influence, however, turns out to involve not just straightforward pattern morpheme borrowing (exemplified here by the iambic pattern BaCaaDiFe), but also the reshaping of inherited patterns. The most frequent quadriliteral plural pattern, BuCooDuF, reflects Arabic influence in its shape – mediated by a change in mapping directionality – but Chadic inheritance in its distribution. This result supports the hypothesis that pattern morphology is more easily transferred between related languages.

New Paper on South Bauchi languages

Roger Blench has uploaded a new paper titled “The South Bauchi languages: Nigeria’s largest group of (almost) unknown languages” on Academia.edu.

The South Bauchi languages are West Chadic languages spoken around Bauchi town. Although there are some forty languages, few have been studied by linguists and even fewer have any language development. The best-known languages are Zaar, Boghom, Geri and Zul. The talk reviews what is known and presents the results of fresh fieldwork undertaken in 2019. We found that some languages are down to the last few speakers and urgent research is required to document these languages before they disappear. South Bauchi languages are known for their complex phonologies, and as a consequence, there are many problems in developing effective writing systems. The presentation offers some suggestions for the priority research agenda.

Read the paper at Academia.edu

Skype talk on “Sentence-final particles in Barayin”

Joseph Lovestrand has sent the following invitation to another Skype Talk:

The Chadic Languages & Cultures group, run by Cameroonian linguists, is meeting online Saturday 28 August, 9 AM, Cameroon time (UTC+1). All are welcome to join the discussion (in French and English)!

Chadic Languages & Cultures
Saturday, 28 August, 2021
9 AM (Cameroon time, UTC+1)
Join via Skype: https://join.skype.com/YTdz8ale1BIF

Sentence-final particles in Barayin
Joseph Lovestrand
SOAS University of London

This presentation is a first exploration of the distribution and functions of seven sentence-final particles in Barayin based on the analysis of a 25,000-word corpus, primarily of transcribed monologues (Lovestrand 2017). The first two types of particles are widespread in Chadic languages: the negation marker /do/ and the interrogative marker /saŋ/. These markers only occur in a sentence-final position and appear to be monofunctional. These markers are closely related to the next two. The conjunction /sane/ ‘or’ can act as a conjunction presenting alternatives, but in a sentence-final position it is an interrogative marker with essentially the same function as /saŋ/. The sentence-final particle /kudi/ always follows the negation marker /do/. Its precise function is not clear, but it is assumed to intensify the negator in a similar sense to the expression “not at all” in English or “pas du tout” in French. The particle /atti/ seems to have a general affirmative function. It is used on its own to express agreement in dialogues. As a sentence-final particle in monologues, its function is less clear, but it could be interpreted as an intensifier analogous to “really” in English.

The other two sentence-final particles in the corpus are words from Chadian Arabic. The word /kalas/ or /halas/ is from Chadian Arabic ‘finished’. It is the 11th most frequent word in the corpus. In addition to occurring at the end of sentences, it is sometimes found transcribed in a sentence-initial position or on its own, suggesting it can appear as an interjection without being part of an adjacent clause. There are cases where /kalas/ or /halas/ is followed by the background marker /ná/ (Lovestrand 2018) thus verifying its integration in the syntax. The other Arabic-origin sentence-final particle is /bas/ ‘only’. This word is sometimes used to simply mean ‘only’, and in this function it can also occur in a non-final position. As a sentence-final particle, /bas/ can take on pragmatic functions of emphasis and downplaying in a manner analogous to some uses of “just” in English. Note that /bas/ in Chadian Arabic is not a sentence-final particle.

Lovestrand, Joseph. 2012. The linguistic structure of Baraïn (Chadic). Dallas, TX: Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics MA thesis. https://www.diu.edu/documents/theses/Lovestrand_Joseph-thesis.pdf (2 December, 2020).

Lovestrand, Joseph. 2017. Recording and archiving Barayin (Jalkiya) language data. London, SOAS: Endangered Languages Archive. https://elar.soas.ac.uk/Collection/MPI1035101 (2 December, 2012).

Lovestrand, Joseph. 2018. The background marker na in Barayin. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 39(1). 1–39.

Skype talk on “The grammaticalization of TAM markers in Mafa “

Joseph Lovestrand has sent the following invitation to another Skype Talk:

The Chadic Languages & Cultures group, run by Cameroonian linguists, is meeting online Saturday 7 August, 9 AM, Cameroon time (UTC+1). All are welcome to join the discussion (in French and English)!

Chadic Languages & Cultures
Saturday, 29 May, 2021
9 AM (Cameroon time, UTC+1)
Join via Skype: https://join.skype.com/YTdz8ale1BIF

Séraphine Dougophe
Université de Yaoundé 1

The grammaticalization of TAM markers in Mafa

English
The presentation considers the grammaticalization of tense, aspect and mood markers in Mafa with a focus on markers whose origin could be traced back and provides valuable information on the state of evolution of grammatical categories in the language. Most Mafa TAM markers (future, completive, intentional, habitual, subjunctive) derive from movement verbs, but there are others who originated from preposition (pp-periphrasis for the progressive) and adverb (iterative). While some grams are still in the early stage of grammaticalization marked by formal similarity to their source and their orientation with regard to speech participants (speaker-oriented versus agent-oriented), others are in an advanced stage of grammaticalization as illustrated by the phonological and morphological reduction they seemingly underwent.

Français
La présentation examine la grammaticalisation des marqueurs de temps, d’aspect et de mode en Mafa en mettant l’accent sur les marqueurs dont l’origine a pu être retracée et fournit des informations précieuses sur l’état d’évolution des catégories grammaticales dans la langue. La plupart des marqueurs de TAM en Mafa (futur, complétif, intentionnel, habituel, subjonctif) dérivent des verbes de mouvement, mais il y en a d’autres qui ont pour origine une préposition (périphrase du syntagme prépositionnel pour le progressif) et l’adverbe (itératif). Alors que certaines grams sont encore au stade précoce de la grammaticalisation marquée par la similarité formelle avec leur source et leur orientation par rapport aux participants au discours (orienté vers le locuteur ou vers l’agent), d’autres sont à un stade avancé de la grammaticalisation comme l’illustre la réduction phonologique et morphologique qu’elles ont apparemment subie.

Obituary for Professor Ahmad Tela Baba, PhD.

Our colleague and friend Ahmad Tela Baba sadly departed this world unexpectedly on October 12, 2020. Ahmad left behind his wife, children, and grandchildren.

I first got to know Ahmad, who was born on February 2, 1960, in 1989 when I was on my first research trip in northeastern Nigeria. While we were together at the University of Maiduguri where he was working as a junior lecturer at the Department of Languages and Linguistics, he invited me to visit him and his family in his hometown of Shira in Bauchi State. This was the beginning of a long joint research that led, among other things, to Ahmad’s PhD dissertation, two books written together, and to something much more valuable: a friendship that stood the test of time despite the fact that we worked and lived in different places and had no chance to meet in person after 2010.

Ahmad Tela Baba built an academic career at the University of Maiduguri after his dissertation “The morphophonological alternations in the Hausa verbal form (1998)” at Bayero University Kano. He worked as a senior lecturer and later professor at different universities in northern Nigeria, but his base always remained the University of Maiduguri where he taught until his last day.

As part of the academic exchange between the universities of Maiduguri and Frankfurt am Main within the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 268 “Cultural Development and Language History in the Natural Environment of the West African Savannah”, he visited Germany and worked with his colleagues Alhaji Maina Gimba, Dymitr Ibriszimow, and me on cultural vocabulary in Hausa and Bole (both Chadic languages spoken in Nigeria). Later he worked on L2 variants in the Nigerian Middle-Belt and at the eastern fringe of the Hausa language area.

From 2003 to 2005 he worked at the University of Bayreuth as a Hausa lecturer. He was extensively engaged in the academic sphere and was highly respected by his students, who greatly appreciated his style of teaching. All his colleagues admired Ahmad and his friendly character; he was a friend and partner who was always ready to discuss and collaborate.

None of us at the University of Bayreuth who knew Ahmad will ever forget him!

This obituary was written by Michael Broß and first appeared on the website of the University of Bayreuth