The verb usage includes issues linked to the gamut of meanings, combinations with prepositions, choice of clauses, combinations with modals and pronominal subjects as well as objects illustrated with examples and their translations into English. A few useful expressions and proverbs close the page. The book concludes with a table with imperatives, gerunds and participles as well as a glossary of more than 400 verbs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ISBN 9783862902026 (e-book, pdf).

 

 

 

ISBN 9783862902033 (e-book, pdf).

 

 

 

ISBN 9783862902040 (e-book, pdf).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roger Brand
Université de Tour

L'existence d'une littérature orale chez les Wéménou est importante et a permis une approche de la mentalité des habitants de la vallée de l'Ouémé au sud Bénin et des Cultes Vodun, vodoun. Vingt-neuf textes oraux sont proposés. Ce sont des mythes qui symbolisent les croyances d'une communauté. Ils témoignent des coutumes, des idées, des mentalités d'un groupe donné. Ils énoncent la vie de tous les jours. Ils ont aussi une fonction d'intégration de l'individu au groupe. Et ils sont une tentative d'explication du monde et montrent l'organisation sociale ainsi que tous les problèmes sociaux. Ils deviennent règles de conduite et des préceptes moraux.

L’étude présente ces textes oraux concernant les cultes Vodoun pratiqués par une population appelée Wéménou. L'histoire des Wéménou est liée aux migrations de groupes multifamiliaux Yoruba, Aïzo, Adja-Fon et Tofinou.

Ces divers textes expliquent en partie le fonctionnement de la société Wéménu et en particulier le système religieux traditionnel fondé sur les Cultes Vodoun. Ces récits ou mythes racontent les diverses installations du Vodoun sur la terre ainsi que le rôle des divinités auprès des hommes. Les textes présentés situent les Wéménu en relation avec le divin, l'inconnaissable à travers cinq groupes de Vodoun.

 

Languages of the World/Text Collections 19. 100pp. 2000.

 

Ngessimo Mutaka; with the collaboration of Pius Ngwa Tamanji
University of Yaoundé

An Introduction to African Linguistics is a book which deals with the main features of languages as found mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and more particularly in Bantu languages.

As mentioned by one of the authors, "one motivation for writing the book is that, during my graduate studies, I always wished I had access to an introductory book of this nature. Very often, Doug Pulleyblank or Larry Hyman would refer me to certain phonological processes found in some African languages, and I thought it would be helpful if students of African linguistics could have easier access to such examples in an introductory book on African Linguistics. My hope is that this book will prove interesting not only for most linguistics students but also for any linguist or any linguistic sympathizer who will find in this book precious information scattered in various published and unpublished materials not easily accessible.”

Maybe, what renders the book most unique is the three chapters on Phonology: chapter 3: non tonal phonological processes, chapter 4: tonological processes, chapter 5: exercises on phonological processes. These chapters basically encapsulate the richness of African phonology made available in one single introductory volume. Other chapters are equally interesting. Thus chapter 8, "Notes on the historical linguistics of African languages,” provides background material on African languages; chapter 7, "the Syntax of African languages,” provides an easy-to-understand explanation of syntactic terms and their illustrations through various African languages. This chapter is a contribution of Pius N. Tamanji together with the sections on "lexical expansion” in chapter 10, "verbal extensions,”and "tense, aspect and mood” in chapter 6.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Classification of African languages
1.0 Preliminaries: two types of classification - typological or structural classification - genealogical classification
1.1 Guthrie's classification
1.2 Greenberg's classification
1.2.1 Westermann's eastern and western sudanic languages
1.2.2 Greenberg's classification
1.2.3 Notes on Niger-Kordofanian
1.2.4 Greenberg's methodology
1.2.5 Why is Bantu part of Niger-Kongo?
1.3 Earlier classifications
1.4 Some recent proposals of classifications
1.5 Classifications of Cameroonian languages in ALCAM
1.6 About genetic classifications

Chapter 2: Sound systems of African languages: phonetics
2.1 Vowel characteristics of African languages
2.1.0 Vowel chart
2.1.1 Symmetrical vowel systems
2.1.2 Allophonic variation
2.1.3 Vowel length
2.1.4 Phoneme nasalization
2.1.5 Vowel harmony
2.1.6 Vowel elision
2.1.7 Vowel coalescence
2.2 Consonant characteristics of African languages
2.2.0 Consonant chart of African languages
2.2.1 Doubly-articulated stops
2.2.2 Aspirated consonants
2.2.3 Palatal release
2.2.4 Implosives
2.25 Glottal stops
2.2.6 Clicks
2.2.7 Nasal + consonant sequences
2.2.8 Geminates in Luganda
2.3 Further characteristics of Bantu languages
Exercises

Chapter 3: Non tonal phonological processes
3.1 Vowel harmony
3.2 Nasalization
3.3 Reduplication
3.4 Compensatory lengthening
3.5 Penultimate lengthening
3.6 Syllabification
3.7 Segment deletion/insertion
3.8 Vowel coalescence
3.9 Gliding
3.10 Assimilation
3.11 Dahl's law
3.12 Vowel height transfer
3.13 Voicing
3.14 Aspiration
3.15 Implosion
3.16 Glottalization
3.17 Palatalization
3.18 Velarization/labialization
3.19 Floating non tonal features
3.20 Imbrication
3.21 The mora as a prosodic unit

Chapter 4: Tonological processes
4.1 Tone groups
4.2 Floating tones
4.4 V2 linking
4.5 Meeussen's rule
4.6 Stevick's rule
4.7 Downstep
4.8 Upstep
4.9 Latent High tone
4.10 Tone retraction
4.11 Effect of depressor consonants
4.12 Some tonological processes in phrasal phonology
4.13 Edge-in association

Chapter 5: Exercises on phonological processes

Chapter 6: Morphology
6.1 The structure of the Bantu noun
6.2 The structure of the verb
6.3 Verbal extensions
6.4 Tense, aspect and mood

Chapter 7: The Syntax of African Languages
7.1 Syntactic categories.
7.2 Phrases, trees and rules.
7.3 Transformations and derived structures.
7.4 Agreement in sentence structure.
7.5 Summary and Conclusion

Chapter 8: Notes on historical linguistics
8.1 Notes on the history of work on African languages
8.2 Language reconstructions
8.3 Sound changes from Proto-Bantu

Chapter 9: Trade languages, pidgins, and creoles
9.1 Definitions and exemplifications - Trade language - Pidgin - Creole
9.2 Pidgin English of Cameroon (PEC)

Chapter 10: Further issues in African linguistics
10.1 Lexical expansion in African languages
10.2 Glottochronology (or lexicostatistics)
10.3 Dialectometry
10.4 Linguistic geography

LINCOM Handbooks in Linguistics 16. 323pp. 2000.

ISBN 9783862889693 (e-book, pdf)

 

Xavier Luffin
Université Libre de Bruxelles

The Kinubi is an Arabic-based Creole, spoken today in some parts of East Africa: Kenya, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo. Formerly, it was spoken in Tanzania and in Somalia.

This language is closely related to Juba Arabic, spoken in Southern Sudan. It is the language of a Muslim community – the Nubi. Their ancestors were soldiers who left Southern Sudan in the late 19th century, due to the Mahdist rebellion. They went to Uganda, where they enrolled in the British colonial army.

The target language of Kinubi is mainly Sudanese Arabic (actually, various Sudanese dialects). Many features distinguish Kinubi from Dialectal Arabic: phonemic changes, the loss of gender, the loss of the article al-, the loss of the Arabic verbal morphology and the use of TMA markers. This language is also highly influenced by English and Swahili.

The texts which are presented in this book have been collected in Bombo (Uganda), Kibera (Nairobi, Kenya) and Mombasa (Kenya). They deal with the history of the Nubi community: their origins in Sudan, their arrival in Uganda, their settling in other countries of East Africa, their participation in the First and Second World Wars. They also cover the post-Independance period.

 

Languages of the World/Text Collections 21. 172pp. 2005.
ISBN 9783895868351 (print)

 

Petr Zima & Vladimír Tax (eds.)
Charles University

This is a collection of papers prepared within the framework of the research project Communications, Contacts and Barriers in Different Cultures and Regions of Europe and Africa (IFSC / IZV, Charles University, Prague, Grant Agency of the Czech Republic Project No 403/96/0787). The major part of the papers published within this volume was presented either at the international workshop Language and its Stratification in Space and Time held in Prague in 1996, or at various disciplinary (linguistic) and multidisciplinary (sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic) round-tables organized in 1996 and 1997 by this research group in cooperation with the Charles University and the Prague Linguistic Circle. The multidisciplinary character of the project offered even outlooks in philosophical and cognitive aspects of the linguistic expression of existence and its location in space and time.

That is why the present volume was prepared in cooperation with a philosopher and a participant from the Max Planck Institute for Sociolinguistics. In spite of the fact that language data and situations dealt with by these papers involve different language types, families and areas deserving different cultures in several regions of two continents, the original versions of certain papers were subject to discussions, and a sort of coordination and homogenisation was attempted. As several authors of the present team are also members of the Groupement de Recherche Européen No 1172 of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris) "Diffusion Lexicale" (Caron, Cyffer, Jungraithmayr, Nicolaï, Zima), the main focus of most papers was on languages of the Sahel-Sahara region of Africa. However, contrasting with data from languages of other regions both in Africa (Bantu) and in Europe (Indo-European in general, and Romance or Baltic languages in particular) proved very useful and offered opportunities for attempting more universal conclusions.

Papers presented by Eleonore Adwiraah, Thomas Bearth, Siegmund Brauner, Cecile Canut, Bernard Caron, Norbert Cyffer, Nella Vladimirovna Gromova, Tomás Hoskovec, Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Robert Nicolaï, Eric Pederson, Zdenek Pinc, Jan Sabrsula, Petr Zima.

LINCOM Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 07. 200 pp. 1998.