Los textos tehuelches de Robert Lehmann  Nitsche (1905)

Ana Fernandez Garay
Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, Argentina & CONICET

Este libro presenta una serie de textos recogidos por Robert Lehmann-Nitsche de boca de dos indígenas tehuelches en el Museo de La Plata (Argentina), cuando ambos regresaban de un viaje a Norteamérica a comienzos del siglo XX, adonde fueron llevados para ser exhibidos en la Exposición Internacional de Saint Louis, realizada en dicho país en 1904. Concientes de que - ante la situación de extinción en que se encuentra el tehuelche o aonek’o ?a?jen - es necesario recuperar todo aquello que ha sido documentado con anterioridad, la autora ha tomado en sus manos la tarea que se le presentó cuando la Dra. Marisa Malvestitti la notificó sobre la existencia, en el Instituto Iberoamericano de Berlín, de una serie de textos recogidos por el mencionado investigador alemán. La escasa documentación existente sobre esta lengua la llevó a transcribir y analizar estos textos con el objeto de comparar dichos materiales con los registrados a lo largo del mismo siglo, a fin de estudiar los cambios operados en esta lengua.

En este libro, la investigadora, además de toda información necesaria relativa al propio autor de la recopilación, los informantes y las condiciones de recolección de los datos, agrega un bosquejo fonológico y gramatical de la lengua que facilita la comprensión de los textos. Ofrece, además, una segmentación de las oraciones tehuelches en unidades significativas y una traducción de las mismas, a la luz de su propio conocimiento de la lengua. En el fondo, se trata de una verdadera reconstrucción de los textos, acompañada de una serie de notas esclarecedoras, tanto sobre aspectos lingüísticos, como pragmáticos, que hacen posible su lectura al estudioso. Estamos así frente a un riguroso trabajo filológico no tan fácil de encontrar en este campo de estudios.

ISBN 9783929075816. Languages of the World/Text Collections 31. 144pp. 2009.

Darai Texts

Dubi Nanda Dhakal
Tribhuvan University, Nepal

Darai is an Indo-Aryan language of Indo-European language family spoken by 11677 native speakers as reported in the recent census. Darai is characterized by some morphosyntactic features, such as pronominal possessive suffixes and indefinite suffixes attaching to nouns, and some agreement features evidenced in verbs. Darai encodes the information such as subject, and object in a ditransitive verb.

This book is organized in five chapters. An introduction to Darai people and their culture including kinship terms is given in the first chapter. This is followed by a brief typological sketch in chapter two. These two chapters highlight the grammatical features found in Darai.

The third chapter presents the interlinearized texts. A total of eight texts have been presented in this volume. Four narratives, one procedural text, two texts related to rituals and a conversation have been included. It is hoped that this collection will provide rich and varied data for illustrating a number of features found in Darai. The fourth chapter discusses some discourse features. In addition, some proverbs and riddles in Darai have been presented and discussed.

ISBN 9783862884681. Languages of the World/Text Collections 32. 141pp. 2013.

Marokkanisch arabische Texte

Utz Maas & Abderrahmane Assini (Hrsg.)
unter Mitarbeit von Sandra Ziagos
Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

Der Band enthält eine Textauswahl aus einem größeren Corpus von überwiegend spontanen Gesprächsaufzeichnungen in Marokko seit 1990. In der vorgelegten Auswahl wird der Prozeß greifbar, mit dem sich in Marokko eine überregionale Verkehrssprache (Koiné, mar. arab. darija) etabliert. Im Vordergrund stehen einerseits Aufnahmen aus den großen urbanen Zentren (Casablanca, Fas), andererseits aus dem ländlichen Raum (bes. dem Mittleren Atlas) mit Sprechern mit einer berberischen Familiensprache, die diesen Koinéisierungs-Prozeß prägen. Dokumentiert werden spontane Gespräche in informellen Kontexten (Nachbarschaftsbesuche, Treffen an der Straßenecke …) neben narrativen und expositorischen Texten (autobiographische Erzählungen, Darstellungen der handwerklichen Arbeit u.dgl.). Repräsentiert sind sowohl Sprecher aus der städtischen Bildungsschicht wie analphabete Sprecher(innen) vom Land. In einigen Beispielen werden auch dialektale Sprachformen dokumentiert, die weiterhin außerhalb dieses Prozesses der Konéisierung praktiziert werden.

Die Texte werden in einer breiten phonetischen Umschrift präsentiert, mit einer interlinearen Übersetzung und sprachwissenschaftlichen Glossierung. Dialektale Züge der Sprecher werden in exemplarischen Auszügen mit einer engeren phonetischen Umschrift verdeutlicht. Umschrift und Glossierung entsprechen der Analyse in Maas, Marokkanisches Arabisch (Lincom 2011), die sich auf dieses Corpus stützt. Die vorliegende Textauswahl erlaubt es, die dort genutzten Sprachbeispiele in ihrem Kontext zu kontrollieren.

The volume extracts a choice from a large corpus of recordings made in Marokko since 1990. The texts capture aspects of the process by which a supraregional koiné (Mar. Arab. darija) is about to be established. Included are recordings from the urban centres (Casablanca, Fas) as well as from the rural countryside (esp. from the Middle Atlas region) with speakers who have a Berber family language. Documented are spontaneous conversations (visit of neighbours, meeting at the street corner …) as well as narrative and expository texts (autobiographic stories, reports of work in different trades etc.). Speakers are from different classes: cultivated urban speakers as well as rural illiterates. In addition, examples of dialect varieties outside of the koinéization are included as well.

Texts are given in a broad transcription with translation and linguistic glosses. To illustrate the dialectal varieties, extracts of every text are given in a more narrow transcription. Transcription and glosses correspond to Maas, Marokkanisches Arabisch (Lincom 2011), that is based on this corpus. This text edition makes it possible to control the examples in the grammar within their context.

ISBN 9783862885152. Languages of the World/Text Collections 33. 269 S. 2013.

Analyzed Texts in Magar Kaike

Ambika Regmi
Tribhuvan University, Nepal

This book presents sixteen analyzed texts in Magar Kaike, a seriously endangered Tibeto- Burman language spoken by around 1000 ethnic Magar Kaike mainly in four villages, namely, Sahartara, Tupatara, Tarakot and Belawa/Lingdu within Sahartara Village Development Committee of Dolpa District, Midwestern Development Region of Nepal. These texts are related to the culture, traditions, folk tales, legends, daily activities and different aspects of life in the Magar Kaike speech community. Such texts, in this book, first, are transcribed phonetically. Secondly, each word in the texts is broken into morphemes. Thirdly, each morpheme is provided interlinear morpheme translations (glosses). Fourthly, each example or text is provided free translation in English. Apart from such texts, the book also provides some basic sociolinguistic information about the language.

This book, which is intended to be used by both the linguists and sociologists, is organized into three chapters. Chapter 1 presents background sociolinguistic information about the language. Chapter 2 presents the analyzed texts in the language. Chapter 3 presents summary and conclusion.

The author, PhD in linguistics, is researcher in Linguistic Survey of Nepal (LinSuN), Central Department of Linguistics, Tribhuvan University, Nepal. She has specialized in Tibeto-Burman linguistics, language documentation and sociolinguistic survey of the languages of Nepal.

ISBN 9783862885817. Languages of the World/Text Collection 34. 93pp. 2014.

Interlinearized Texts in Bhujel

Dan Raj Regmi
Tribhuvan University, Nepal

This book presents thirty-three interlinearized oral texts in Bhujel, a seriously endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken by 21,715 (i.e. 18.30%) of the 1,18,650 ethnic Bhujel. This language is primarily spoken in some villages of Tanahun, Gorkha, Nawalparasi and Chitwan districts in Western Development Region of Nepal.

These texts represent different dimensions of the life of the Bhujel speech community: origin, history, culture, traditions, profession, folk tales, legends and daily activities. Such texts, in this book, first, are transcribed phonetically. Secondly, each word in the texts is broken into morphemes. Thirdly, each morpheme is provided interlinear morpheme translations (glosses).

Fourthly, each example or text is provided free translation in English. Apart from such texts, the book also provides some basic information about the language and the speech community. This book is intended to be used by the linguists as well as ethnolinguists wishing to study the language in relation to the culture and traditions.

This book is organized into three chapters. Chapter 1 provides some background information about the language and the people. Chapter 2 presents the interlinearized texts in the language. Chapter 3 presents summary and conclusion.

The author, Dr. Dan Raj Regmi, is Professor and Head of Central Department of Linguistics, Tribhuvan University, Nepal and has specialized in Tibeto-Burman linguistics, linguistic typology, sociolinguistic survey and documentation of the languages of Nepal.

ISBN 9783862885862. Languages of the World/Text Collection 35. 119pp. 2014.

Analyzed Texts in Rana Tharu

with a Grammatical Sketch

Dubi Nanda Dhakal
Tribhuvan University, Nepal

This volume is the first grammatical sketch and analyzed texts in Rana Tharu (ISO thr). This volume consists of three main sections. The first section presents the preliminary information about the Rana Tharu people and their language. Rana Tharu belongs to Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European language family. It is spoken in the Kailali and Kanchanpur districts of far western Nepal, and also in the bordering districts in India. It comprises a total of seven texts, viz. four narratives, two procedural texts and a conversation. The analyzed texts have been given in chapter three.

In addition to the analyzed texts, this volume also presents a brief grammatical sketch of Rana Tharu. The grammatical features reveal that the language is closer to Hindi than some eastern Indo-Aryan languages. Rana Tharu has 33 consonants and 6 vowels. Like in other Tharu varieties, such as Chitonia Tharu, aspiration is evidenced not only in plosives and affricates, but also in lateral, nasals, and trill. Consonant cluster is permitted both in word-initial and word-final position. Rana Tharu is predominantly a suffixing language with nominative-accusative case marking pattern. Noun formation processes are rich. One of the interesting features in verb agreement is that the transitive verbs are marked distinctly only if the subjects are the third person pronouns or noun phrases. The language is predominantly SOV in terms of its word order correlations. There is an extensive use of verb participles for adjectival and adverbial uses. The appendices include the paradigm of verb inflections, and an index of grammatical morphemes.

ISBN 9783862886142. Languages of the World/Text Collection 36. 142pp. 2015.