OBSERVATIONS ON KUNAMA TONE * (Barka Dialect)

Kunama has been reported by different scholars as having two or three tones, downstep (or not), contrastive length of both consonants and vowels, and lexical stress. Despite this range of reported phenomena, little in-depth research into the prosodic system of Kunama has been undertaken. The aim of the present study is to report such a detailed investigation and to establish on a solid footing basic aspects of the tonal system of Kunama. The work reported is preliminary in the sense that its scope is limited: we present phonological and phonetic evidence for the existence of three level tones, which can combine to form a number of contour tones. This is followed by discussion of tonal phenomena in the noun phrase. No evidence for lexical stress is found

African Linguistics in Central and Eastern Europe, and in the Nordic Countries

Non peer reviewe

Language endangerment and language documentation in Africa

Non peer reviewe

Kunama

The Kunama are a people of western Eritrea. Kunama (/ku1naa23ma2/) is their selfname, and they call their language /ku1naa23ma1 au23ra2/ or /ki1naa23ma1 ɲeel23a2/ but this is usually referred to by Western scholars simply as ‘Kunama’. It is a language of the Nilo-Saharan phylum, though its family affiliations within that phylum are still a matter of debate; cf. Bender 1989; Ehret 1989. Overall, Kunama has approximately 100,000 speakers. It comprises seven lects (John Abraha Ashkaba 1999), the most widely known of which are Barka (/ba2ka2/) and Marda (/mar2da32/). The present work is based on the latter, though the differences between these two lects is not very great.</jats:p

Observations on Kunama Tone

Njerep is a language on the edge of extinction. It is no longer spoken on a regular basis, nor is it even known well by anyone speaker. There are now, in fact, only five people who remember the language well enough to produce fragments of speech or who remember songs in the language. Our aim in this paper is to document the language to the extent possible. We have collected a wordlist of the language, a number of songs and other bits of text which, fragmentary though they are, permit some insights into the structure of the language, its genetic affiliation and its former importance in the region. Since we view language as a cultural artifact intimately connected to both the culture and the history of its speakers, the paper begins with a brief discussion of Njerep ethnography and history. We then look at evidence for the genetic affiliation of Njerep, and follow this with a description of its structural characteristics. Appendices are included which contain the Njerep wordlist, transcriptions of songs and, finally, genealogical information on the remaining speakers, which gives some insight into the sociological aspect of language contraction.</jats:p

Observations on Kunama Tone

Njerep is a language on the edge of extinction. It is no longer spoken on a regular basis, nor is it even known well by anyone speaker. There are now, in fact, only five people who remember the language well enough to produce fragments of speech or who remember songs in the language. Our aim in this paper is to document the language to the extent possible. We have collected a wordlist of the language, a number of songs and other bits of text which, fragmentary though they are, permit some insights into the structure of the language, its genetic affiliation and its former importance in the region. Since we view language as a cultural artifact intimately connected to both the culture and the history of its speakers, the paper begins with a brief discussion of Njerep ethnography and history. We then look at evidence for the genetic affiliation of Njerep, and follow this with a description of its structural characteristics. Appendices are included which contain the Njerep wordlist, transcriptions of songs and, finally, genealogical information on the remaining speakers, which gives some insight into the sociological aspect of language contraction

African Linguistics in Asia and Australia

Asian and Australian institutions with a research focus on African languages are of fairly recent vintage. Japan has a strong academic infrastructure devoted to African linguistics, based in several universities and research centres. China looks back more than 50 years of interest in teaching Swahili and other major African languages, recently broadening the scope to encompass other issues of linguistic interest. In South Korea, teaching Swahili was also the precursor of more general African linguistics, allowing for regional specializations of researchers. In Australia, academic interest emerges with the increasing presence of experts on African languages and linguistics in the country