Scottish Gaelic

William Lamb
University of Edinburgh and Colaisde Bheinn na Faoghla

Scottish Gaelic (ScG), along with Irish and Manx, is a member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic family of Indo-European languages. At its peak of influence around 1000AD, it was undoubtedly the national language of Scotland, but ever since, its fate has been one of gradual decline. Today, the Gaidhealtachd or Gaelic-speaking region is confined to the islands off the west coast of the country, aside from small pockets dotted throughout the northern and western Highlands. Although now spoken by only slightly more than 1% (65,978) of the country's population, it has had a rich influence on Scotland's history, toponymy, art, literature and national folklore.

Scottish Gaelic has received much prior linguistic attention for its complex phonology (one dialect distinguishing at least 5 different lateral approximates), its system of consonant mutations, and its rich dialectal variation. However, relatively little has been published on its syntax. It is a dependent-marking, nominative-accusative VSO language . The verbal system tends to be agglutinating while the nominal system is somewhat fusional. Pronominal forms are especially notable in this regard, with a large proliferation of 'prepositional-pronouns' evincing different forms according to person, number, and gender. There are two genders (M&F), three numbers (Sing., Pl., and dual) and four cases extant in the language. Stem modification and suppletion are common morphological processes. Distinctions of mood, aspect, and voice tend to be made periphrastically, employing a combination of verbal particles, auxiliaries and 'verbal-nouns' that can function differently depending upon their syntactic status.

Finally, the grammar ends with sections on discourse phenomena, interjections and exclamations, the influence of English, and a full oral folktale with interlinear translation.

This new grammar is the most up-to-date one available on the language. It includes many topics that have never, or only rarely, been dealt with in the available literature, for example information structure, complex clause formation, and descriptions of various types of discourse-related constructions. It has been informed by an ongoing corpus-based study of register variation in the language, highlighting some of the initial differences that have been found in this data set. It is fully-referenced throughout for further information on Gaelic grammar and sociolinguistics. Useful for the language learner, it also includes a glossary of the Gaelic words in the text and a statistically-derived list of the 100 most frequent words in the language with definitions.

ISBN 9783895867279. Languages of the World/Materials 401. 118pp. 2003.

The Bisu Language

Xu Shixuan; Cecilia Brassett (trans.)
Institute of Nationality Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

A transnational language, Bisu is spoken in the border areas of China, Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos. It was first described in Thailand in the 1960s, and is an important member of the Bisoid branch of the Burmese-Yipho group within the Tibeto-Burman language family. Other members of this branch include Phunoi, Sangkong, Mpi, and Pyen. This is an English translation of a linguistic description of the Bisu spoken in Yunnan Province in southwestern China. The original Chinese text was written by Xu Shixuan of the Institute of Nationality Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as part of the series Newly-Discovered Languages in China.

The volume analyses and describes Bisu in terms of its structure, its relationship to other languages in the same family, and its socio-cultural background, presenting a comprehensive and systematic overview of the language. There are extensive discussions of the origins and forms of loan words in Bisu, a detailed description of its dialects, as well as numerous charts of Burmese-Yipho cognates. The two appendices include a lexicon of over 2,000 words and three Bisu odes. This thorough description of one of the lesser-known minority languages of China provides an excellent record of a language whose speaker numbers are declining. In addition, the distinctive features of Bisu and the effects of contact with other languages such as Thai and Dai can offer new perspectives in the investigation of Tibeto-Burman languages.

ISBN 9783895863462. Languages of the World/Materials 411. 296pp. 2001.

Rotuman

Marit Vamarasi
Northeastern Illinois University

The Rotuman language is spoken by residents of the island of Rotuma, which lies 465 kilometers northwest of Viti Levu, Fiji, by Rotumans who live on Fiji's main islands, as well as by Rotumans who reside overseas. There are approximately 9,000 speakers in all.

Rotuman is not closely related to any other language. It is classified as a member of the Central-Eastern Oceanic subgroup, along with Fijian and the Polynesian languages, within the Austronesian language family. Rotuman has some unique features. The most notable is the fact that all lexical words have two forms, called "complete" and "incomplete" or "long" and "short", which are used in certain syntactico-semantic contexts. The incomplete is derived from the complete by one of four processes: metathesis, umlauting, vowel deletion, and diphthongization.

These processes all serve to shorten a word by one mora, and, in most cases, cause the word to end in a consonant, a feature which is unusual for an Oceanic language. These processes also produce several vowels in addition to the usual five of other Oceanic languages.

Most of the significant work on the Rotuman language was done by Maxwell Churchward in the 1930's. This is the first comprehensive study of the language to be done in 60 years.

ISBN 9783895863035. Languages of the World/Materials 415. 64pp. 2002.

 Ndebele

Claire Bowern and Victoria Lotridge (eds.)
Harvard University

This grammar is a sketch of the essential features of Ndebele grammar. Ndebele is spoken by approximately 1.5 million people in Zimbabwe and up to another half million in the Transvaal district of the Republic of South Africa. It is a member of the Nguni subgroup of Bantu, along with Xhosa, Zulu and Swati. Data from this sketch were collected from a speaker of Ndebele during Harvard University's linguistic field methods course in Spring 2000, taught by Dr Lisa Lavoie. The dialect described is Zimbabwe Ndebele.

The class wrote the sketch jointly, based on final research papers for the course. The sketch was then edited into a manuscript and checked for consistency. Those contributing to the sketch were (besides the main editors): Emily Alling, Gorm Amand, Luce Aubrey, Gülsat Aygen, Dominika Baran, Maryanne Cockerill, Ju-Eun Lee, Bekezela Ncube, Balkiz Öztürk and Pawel Nowak. The sketch covers the basics of phonology, morphology of nouns and verbs, concord and noun class membership, the tense/aspect/mood system and basic syntax, including subordination and questions. There is a fully glossed text which illustrates many of the points made in the sketch.

At the time of writing the authors and editors were undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard University.

ISBN 9783895864650. Languages of the World/Materials 416. 96pp. 2002.

Kazak

Dávid Somfai Kara
Eoetvoes Lorand University, Budapest

Kazak is a Turkic language, it is spoken by some 11 million people in Kazakstan and its neighboring countries (Russia, Mongolia, China, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan). It is spoken on a huge territory between Tibet and the Volga River, Siberia and the Kara-Kum desert. Kazak belongs to the Kypchak group of Turkic Languages, which was once the "Lingua Franca” of the western part of the Mongol Empire. For this reason Kazak have strong ties with other Turkic languages of Inner and Central Asia, Kyrgyz, Kazan-Tatar (Volga-Bulgar), Uzbek etc.

This present Material of the Kazak language is an up-to-date grammar, based on the author's ten-year research among the Kazaks of Kazakstan and other neighboring countries. During that time the author himself mastered the language and paid special attention to colloquial Kazak and the usage of the changing language. In this present work he summarized up his observation, especially about TAM (Tense-Mood-Aspect) Categories of the Kazak Verb Morphology and Auxiliary Verb Formations, which are the basic aspects of understanding colloquial Kazak, as well as Kazak literature. The author also gives numerous examples to illustrate the usage of these morphological aspects. The phonology part explains some phonetic changes that can be observed only in spoken Kazak, but writing does not indicate them.

ISBN 9783895864704. Languages of the World/Materials 417. 60pp. 2002.

Written Oirat

Attila Rákos
ELTE University Budapest

The Written Oirat language and the Oirat script were created in 1648 by the Oirat Zaya Pandita, Oqtor?uyin Dalai. On the basis of the traditional Uigur-Mongolian script he prepared a new writing system (Oir. todorxoi üzüq 'Clear Script'), which has eliminated the deficiencies of that (ambiguity of some letters, lack of long vowels, etc.) using diacritical marks and new letters, so the new script was suitable to accurately indicate the vocalic system of the contemporary spoken Mongolian. Beside the new script Zaya Pandita created a new literary language with new orthography, and he intended it for a common Mongolian literary language, however it could spread only among the Oirats (Western Mongols). Although this literary language was close to the spoken language in some aspects, it had many features inherited from Written Mongolian. It had strict rules in its original form and was used mostly for Buddhist texts, but shortly spread in wider range (codes, documents, historical works, folk-religious texts, etc.), and became under the strong influence of the spoken language.

Up to the 20th century Written Oirat was the literary language of the Oirats of Western Mongolia and Eastern Turkestan, as well as of the Kalmyks. Later on the Oirats of Xinjiang used it only, but few years ago they partly replaced it with Uigur-Mongolian script.

ISBN 9783895864711. Languages of the World/Materials 418. 60pp. 2002.

Darkhat

Csaba Gáspár
ELTE University (Budapest), Department of Inner Asian Studies

Darkhats live in Khöwsgöl, the northernmost county of Mongolia, in the districts of Rinchenlkhümbe, Ulaan uul, Bayandzürkh. Their origin has not been cleared so far, it is not even to be easily decided whether they are descendants of Turks or Mongols, it seems very likely by all means that they were living together with tribes of Turkic origin: this can be inferred from several linguistic phenomena. Since they have been nomadising quite isolated in the high mountains far from the centre, traditional culture and shamanism could survive among them.

Darkhat is considered as a dialect of the Khalkha, but bears the features of the Oirat, Buryat and Khalkha, as well. It resembles Oirat for the labial attraction, both the Oirat and Buryat concerning the affixation and verbal inflexions, and its vocabulary contains numerous typical Oirat words, too. G. Sanzheyev, one of the few linguists, who has given an outline of Darkhats’ language, said, “[…] Darkhat can be regarded as a modern form of Oirat.”

Peculiar distinguishing feature of the Darkhat is its peculiar intonation, tune, some phonetic and morphological properties, and its special vocabulary.

The author's object is to give a comprehensive description of Darkhat dialect, using the results of earlier researches as well as the newest materials collected on the expeditions of the Inner Asian Department of ELTE University Budapest since 1991 up to now.

ISBN 9783895866968. Languages of the World/Materials 419. 60pp. 2005.

Low German

Yaron Matras and Gertrud Reershemius University of Manchester
& Gertrud Reershemius, Aston University, Birmingham

Low German is a direct descendant of Old Saxon, and as such part of the West Germanic dialect continuum. It a was once a major language of trade and administration around the North Sea and Baltic coasts. Its gradual decline began around the fifteenth century, and it has been retreating ever since, giving way to High German. Low German dialects continued nonetheless to be the dominant vernaculars in rural communities of northern Germany until a generation ago. The decline in the importance of agriculture and local, family-based economies has since weakened the language yet further. Low German is now an endangered language, with few fluent speakers among the younger generations, and only very rare cases of children acquiring it as a first language.
        The description is based on the dialect of the Krummhörn community, a cluster of rural settlements in Germany's northwestern district of East Frisia on the north sea coast. East Frisian Low German has a number of unique features which distinguish it from the better documented varieties of Westphalia or Schleswig-Holstein.It is characterised by a series of isoglosses in lexicon, verb morphology, and especially phonology, which features extensive diphthongisation. The book takes an historical perspective, outlining the major developments in phonology and morphology.
The chapters on syntactic typology and the tense system take a discourse-oriented approach, drawing on a corpus of recorded conversation and narratives. A sociolinguistic introduction surveys the present-day state and status of the language.

ISBN 9783895868450. Languages of the World/ Materials 421. 70pp. 2003.

Kyrgyz

Dávid Somfai Kara
Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest)


Kyrgyz is a Turkic language, it is spoken by some 3,5 million people in Kyrgyzstan and its neighbouring countries (Uzbekistan, China, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kazakstan). It is spoken in the valleys and plateaus of the Tianshan and Pamir-Alai Mountain Ranges (e.g. Chüi Valley, Talas Valley, Kara-Tegin). The Kyrgyz language belongs to the Kypchak group, although genetically related to South Siberian Turkic languages. During the Mongol Era, the Kyrgyz became the language of the nomad groups in the Chagatai Empire. It was strongly influenced by the Kazak and Uzbek languages. This present material of the Kyrgyz language is an up-to-date grammar based on the author’s five-year research with the Kyrgyz of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (where the disappearing South dialect is still alive). In this book he tried to summarize up his observations, just as he did it in his first book about the Kazak language. There are useful information about the TAM (Tense-Mood-Aspect) categories of verb morphology, auxiliary verb formations and numerous examples to illustrate them. These aspects help to understand Kyrgyz literature and colloquial speech as well. The phonology part explains the main phonetic rules that can be observed only in spoken Kyrgyz. 

ISBN 9783895868436. Languages of the World/Materials 423. 60pp. 2003.

A Grammar of Chingoni

Deo Ngonyani
Michigan State University

Chingoni, or Ngoni of Tanzania, is a Bantu language (Guthrie’s N.12) spoken in Southern Tanzania by approximately 200,000 people. It is considered part of the Rufiji language group. This study is a grammatical sketch of the language spoken around Peramiho.

The study is divided into four chapters. Chapter One provides introductory remarks including sociolinguistic facts about the language and a brief history of the speech community. It explains why in spite of its South African Nguni name, the language is genetically an Eastern African language. Chapter Two presents the phonological system, describing the sounds, tones, phonotactics and some phonological processes including hiatus resolution, vowel harmony, imbrication and reduplication. The third chapter deals with the morphological structure of Chingoni words. It describes the morphology of nouns, verbs, adjectives, quantifiers and other nominal modifiers, adverbs, pronouns, and ideophones. Bantu features such as noun classes, agreement affixes, tense and aspect marking, and verbal extensions are discussed in this chapter. The syntax of Chingoni is sketched in the fourth chapter. It discusses word order and clause structure, and describes various syntactic phenomena such as agreement, negation, and question formation. Following this description, there is a sample text with interlinear translation and a short Chingoni-English word list appears at the end.

ISBN 9783895868467. Languages of the World/Materials 425. 120pp. 2003.