New publication on Mubi

Book Cover: Reimer

A new volume (in French) on Mubi has been published at Reimer Verlag:

Herrmann Jungraithmayr. La langue mubi (République du Tchad). Précis de Grammaire – Textes – Lexique (Sprache und Oralität in Afrika, Volume 27).  226 p. + 1 Ill.; 17 × 24 cm, ISBN 978-3-496-02852-9, Price: 69,00 € [D] | 88,80 SFR [CH]

The book comprises a  sketch of the grammar (80 pages), a text collection (50 pages) and a lexicon (60 pages).

The following short description can be found at the website of Reimer Verlag:

“Le mubi (moubi) ou Monjul est une langue tchadique parlée par environ 35000 locuteurs dans l’est de la République Tchad. Il s’agit d’un membre particulièrement innovateur de la famille tchadique et qui représente la branche tchadique la plus éloignée du sud-ouest du phylum hamito-sémitique. Parmi ses traits caractéristiques, il y a l’apophonie allant dans le lexique et la morphologie, surtout dans la formation du système aspectuel binaire. En ce qui concerne le lexique, l’influence de l’arabe est forte. Ceci n’est pas surprenant dans le sens où l’islam et les dialectes arabes jouent un grand rôle dans la société mubi. Cependant, cette expansion de l’arabe pourrait mettre en danger les langues locales.”

A table of contents can also be downloaded at the website of Reimer Verlag.

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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.

Chadic Lexical Database

“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.

Up to now three 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 (Download)
• Chadic  Lexical Database Issue III: Sibilants and sibilant affricates, 2009 (Download)

Here is a sample entry (taken from Issue II):

A second edition of Issue III (with addenda and corrigenda) appeared in January, 2010.

Olga Stolbova has allowed us to put a PDF version of Issue II and Issue III online for download (file size ~1 MB).

For more details on the project see: O. Stolbova 2006. “Chadic Lexical Data Base: a project”, in: D.Ibriszimow (ed.), Topics in Chadic Linguistics II,  Papers from the 2nd Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages, Prague, October 11-12, 2003. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, pp.85-104.

1. * V   `to cut (off, through), to slaughter’:    7 Sha î  `slaughter; shlachten’
(redupl.) [JgR]; C  2  Bura a  `cut up, into   pieces’ [Ann], Margi   ə `cut
(with  knife)’  [HfM:127];    3  Bana  a    `couper,  tailler,  trancher;  cut  (off,
through)’,  aa  `decouper,  depecer’  [GLBn],  FK  a    `cut,  trim’  [BlNd];  5
Podoko  a: `cut’   [JL]; 7  Mbuko  ā `cut’  Ould  — `couper’, -ar   `couper
pour qqn’ [KOu];   Gisiga -  `schneiden, schlachten; cut, slaughter’ [LkG];  9
Mulwi  i      `trancher,  couper;  cut  (off,  through)’,  Mbara  ii  `cut’  [TrMba,
Mlw];   Mnj  a `to cut’   [Mo a, p. 41] // Eg ʕ  `cut off a body-part of a person
/animal, fell trees, harvest, cut in pieces’  [EG: 415] (Pyr).
GCl *a `cut’.