Describing endangered languages
-
Frank Seidel
Abstract
The present contribution deals with documenting underdocumented and endangered languages in Africa. It focuses on the documentation of languages through PhD programs as most grammatical descriptions produced today stem from PhD theses. The focus lies on facets of the organization and conception of a PhD grammar project on the endangered Bantu language Yeyi. This project resulted in a published grammatical description in about 4 years. The article describes important aspects of the research program as they relate to the development of the grammatical description as well as the writing process of the grammatical description itself. In doing so the relationship between the creation of a comprehensive grammatical description and prior preparation for the fieldwork, e.g. survey work, developing cultural expertise, the team environment both in the field and at home, are elaborated against a backdrop of stateof- the-art theorizations about descriptive grammars. I situate the work on the Yeyi grammar in the context of the newly emerging documentary-linguistics discipline, and provide some suggestions for how PhD documentation projects should be carried out in the 21st century.
Abstract
The present contribution deals with documenting underdocumented and endangered languages in Africa. It focuses on the documentation of languages through PhD programs as most grammatical descriptions produced today stem from PhD theses. The focus lies on facets of the organization and conception of a PhD grammar project on the endangered Bantu language Yeyi. This project resulted in a published grammatical description in about 4 years. The article describes important aspects of the research program as they relate to the development of the grammatical description as well as the writing process of the grammatical description itself. In doing so the relationship between the creation of a comprehensive grammatical description and prior preparation for the fieldwork, e.g. survey work, developing cultural expertise, the team environment both in the field and at home, are elaborated against a backdrop of stateof- the-art theorizations about descriptive grammars. I situate the work on the Yeyi grammar in the context of the newly emerging documentary-linguistics discipline, and provide some suggestions for how PhD documentation projects should be carried out in the 21st century.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
Language endangerment and documentation
- Unintended consequences of methodological and practical responses to language endangerment in Africa 1
- Different cultures, different attitudes 37
- Ideologies and typologies of language endangerment in Africa 59
- The role of colonial languages in language endangerment in Africa 107
- Can a language endanger itself? 131
- “Is this my language?” 153
- Development, language revitalization, and culture 177
- Some challenges of language documentation in African multilingual settings 195
-
How to document particular domains or use documentary data to address specific issues
- Folk definitions in linguistic fieldwork 215
- Out of context 239
- Archaeological inspiration and historical inference 253
- Describing endangered languages 277
- Index 313
- Language index 317
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
Language endangerment and documentation
- Unintended consequences of methodological and practical responses to language endangerment in Africa 1
- Different cultures, different attitudes 37
- Ideologies and typologies of language endangerment in Africa 59
- The role of colonial languages in language endangerment in Africa 107
- Can a language endanger itself? 131
- “Is this my language?” 153
- Development, language revitalization, and culture 177
- Some challenges of language documentation in African multilingual settings 195
-
How to document particular domains or use documentary data to address specific issues
- Folk definitions in linguistic fieldwork 215
- Out of context 239
- Archaeological inspiration and historical inference 253
- Describing endangered languages 277
- Index 313
- Language index 317
