Book reviews in JALL 42

Joseph Lovestrand has sent the following message:

The latest JALL has two reviews of works on Chadic languages:

• Allison, Sean. 2020. A grammar of Makary Kotoko. (Grammars and Sketches of the World’s Languages, Africa 12). Leiden/Boston: Brill. XVIII+502 pages. ISBN: 978-90-04-42251-3. EUR 149. (Reviewed by: Abdoulaye, Mahamane L.). In: Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 42(2). 279–285. https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2021-2022
• Newman, Paul & Roxana Ma Newman. 2020. Hausa Dictionary: Hausa-English/English-Hausa, Ƙamusun Hausa: Hausa-Ingilishi/Ingilishi-Hausa. Kano: Bayero University Press, Kano, Nigeria. (Reviewed by: Leben, William R.). In: Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 42(2). 287–290. https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2021-2023

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SOAS Blog Honoring Philip Jaggar on his 75th Birthday

Two celebratory blog posts have been published in honor of renowned scholar of Hausa linguistics Philip Jaggar, on the occasion of his 75^th Birthday in 2020. The blog, hosted by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), features a biography of Phil and tributes from colleagues and friends, with accompanying photographs:

• • Biography
  • Tributes

Submitted by Roxana Ma Newman (Indiana University) and Graham Furniss (SOAS)

New Publication: Topics in Chadic Linguistics X

Topics in Chadic Linguistics X – Papers from the 9th Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages, Villejuif, September 7-8, 2017, edited by Henry Tourneux and Yvonne Treis, has just appeared at Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

The following papers are contained:

Paul Newman:
Russell G. Schuh – An overview of his Chadic scholarship

Umma Aliyu Musa / Esther Morgenthal / Henning Schreiber:
Less commonly documented literacy practices – Secular Hausa Ajami as situated social literacy

Sergio Baldi / Rudolf Leger:
Animal names in Hausa and Kupto – Their specific characteristics mirrored in proverbs, epithets and sayings

Gian Claudio Batic:
Verb classes and TAM system in Kushi (Nigeria)

Roger Blench:
Current research on the A3 West Chadic languages

Philippe Cassuto / Victor Porkhomovsky:
Les stratégies de traduction de l’Ancien Testament dans les trois versions haoussa de la Bible – Un problème d’interprétation ?

Emma Kuipers:
Verb classification in Mogum (Eastern Chadic)

Joseph Lovestrand:
Ideophones in Barayin

Joseph McIntyre:
Patterns of organisation in the Hausa grade system

Nina Pawlak / Joseph McIntyre:
Semantic and pragmatic motivations of gender assignment in Hausa

James Roberts / Albert Camus Soulokadi:
On ideophones in Musey

Olga Stolbova:
Lexical links between Chadic, Cushitic and Omotic languages

Henry Tourneux:
Le syntagme nominal dans le parler « kotoko » de Kousseri

Melanie Viljoen:
Gavar verb morphology

Biblio Update in Progress

Our colleague Paul Newman has sent us the following notice:

The Comprehensive Chadic/Hausa Bibliography (version 3 [2015]) is available open access at IUScholarWorks http://hdl.handle.net/2022/20576.  I am currently working on a new, updated and corrected version, hopefully to appear in early 2018.  If any of you have new items that you would like to include, or if you notice errors in the current version, I would be grateful if you could provide me with the appropriate information. I am particularly interested in book reviews you have written or reviews of your works that have been reviewed by others since this information often slips by unnoticed. My email address is pnxxpn at indiana.edu.

Don’t worry about formatting: however you do things is fine with me as long as the information is full and accurate. I would, however, like to make two requests:

(1) In citing names of authors or editors, please spell out the first names rather than using initials.

(2) If titles are in languages other than English, French, or German (e.g., Polish, Italian, or Hausa) please provide an English translation.

Finally, I should mention that this is the final version of the biblio that I shall be doing. Once this version is out, I shall be putting this work aside. Whether future updates appear or not depends on whether anyone else is willing to step up and take on the task. The work is not onerous, but it is not trivial: it does require a serious commitment on someone’s part. Essential qualifications include proficiency in English, good reading knowledge of French and German, access to a good library and internet resources, familiarity with (or willingness to learn) biblio database management, and a real interest in bibliography work. If any individuals (or teams) wish to discuss the possibility of assuming this task, please drop me a note.

Paul Newman
pnxxpn at indiana.edu

Neil Skinner (1921–2015)

A. Neil Skinner, Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, passed away on March 7, 2015 at the age of 93. Neil was a prolific contributor to Hausa language and literature, a dedicated and generous teacher, and a good friend to many of us. A biographical sketch can be found at  http://african.wisc.edu/content/remembering-professor-emeritus-neil-skinner.

Our colleague Paul Newman has prepared a list of Neil Skinner’s publications which he allowed us to post here.

Download Skinner Publication List (PDF)

Hausa data in the World Loanword Database (WOLD)

(via World Loanword Database) The World Loanword Database (WOLD), edited by Martin Haspelmath and Uri Tadmor, is a scientific publication by the Max Planck Digital Library, Munich (2009).

It provides vocabularies (mini-dictionaries of about 1000-2000 entries) of 41 languages from around the world, with comprehensive information about the loanword status of each word. It allows users to find loanwords, source words and donor languages in each of the 41 languages, but also makes it easy to compare loanwords across languages.

In this database, there is also a list of 1668 Hausa words (with tone and vowel length marked), together with their meanings and explanations about their status as possible loanwords from Arabic, English, Kanuri and a few other donor languages. This information was contributed by Ari Awagana & H. Ekkehard Wolff with Doris Löhr.

Check it out at http://wold.livingsources.org

Topics in Chadic Linguistics V has appeared

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:

Herrmann Jungraithmayr on Muryar Jamus

Radio Deutsche Welle (Muryar Jamus)  has a report ( in Hausa) on Herrmann Jungraithmayr:

Farfesa Hermann Jungraithmayr ɗan ƙasar Jamus ya wallafa littattafan a harshen Tangale

You can listen to it here:

Broadcast about Herrmann Jungraithmayr on Muryar Jamus

4th BICCL: Conference report

The Fourth Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages BICCL has just taken place from 30th – 31st October 2007, at the University of Bayreuth. Here is a report on this event from a participant’s (my own) perspective.