Afrika und Übersee
Not a member yet
58 research outputs found
Sort by
“Behold, I have written it on parchment…” Two Early Amharic Poems from Ms. Ef. 10 (Koriander 2), St. Petersburg
Full text linkThe article deals with two short poems in Amharic from Ms. Ef. 10 kept in the Library of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. Amharic, a Semitic language of Ethiopia, came to function as the second written language of Ethiopian Empire in the course of the 19th century. Samples of Amharic texts prior to this period are scanty and worthy of special study. The poems in question can be dated to the period end of the 17th – beginning of the 18th century. The article provides the texts of the poems with translation and linguistic and philological commentary, accompanied by a short description of Ms. Ef. 10
Verbal pluralization strategies in Plateau
Full text linkPluractional verbs are found in many Plateau (and adjacent Chadic) languages. The present study looks into the distribution of a stock of common markers of pluractionality. These are *s, *n, *k, and *d, all reminiscent of Proto-Bantu verb extensions. While these extensions each function differently in Bantu languages, in the Plateau area they serve a common function: that of expressing verbal pluractional stems. The surface manifestations of pluractionality present a picture of utter complexity in most of the languages studied. The study endeavors to reconstruct the strategies different languages have followed to create a synchronic chaos from a relatively clear picture in the proto-stage. Phonological changes and morphophonemic constraints are the major cause of surface differences. It is argued that the similarities observed between the pluractional forms of the languages treated here are due to internal developments rather than to language contact
Grammaticalization of qәl ‘gourd’ in Amharic
Full text linkThe Amharic word qəl ‘gourd’ represents a rare case where a plant term serves as the source of a grammaticalization chain. The development occurred in two stages, first metaphoric change, then grammaticalization proper: gourd > skull/head > Intensive (never Plain) Reflexive (‘he himself, etc.’). This process was entangled with the grammatical evolution of two other words, ras and gəll. Ras, which is the basic unmarked term for ‘head’, as such underwent the basic unmarked grammaticalization into a Plain Reflexive (and only secondarily into an Intensive Reflexive). The other word, gəll ‘separate, individual’, phonetically quite similar to qəl but with no etymological connection to ‘head’, grammaticalized directly to the meaning ‘one’s own, by oneself’, thence secondarily to an Intensive Reflexive (but never a Plain Reflexive). Thus two near-synonyms (qəl, ras ‘head’) underwent two parallel grammaticalizations, but yielding different results: qəl, unlike ras, was never a Plain Reflexive. Why? The distinctive semantic evolution of qəl, I suggest, was partly driven by its phonetic similarity to the historically unrelated gəll, which also was never a Plain Reflexive. The phonetic similarity helped to foster a semantic attraction between the two grammaticalizing morphemes
A sketch of Akum (Southern Jukunoid)
Full text linkThis article presents data on the little researched Southern Jukunoid language Akum which is spoken in five villages of the Cameroon-Nigerian border area. Akum shows the typical Benue-Congo syllable structure (CV, CVC) as well as typical sounds of the Benue-Congo consonant inventory (double and secondary articulation). As is known from other Southern Jukunoid languages, only the consonants r, b, g, and nasals are permitted in word-final position and – because they are unreleased – the distinction voiced/voiceless is neutralized. The number and qualities of phonemically distinct vowels remains debatable. Concerning the nominal morphology, the Akum nominal prefix system is reduced in several aspects compared to its Southern Jukunoid relatives: it only has a set of 4 different nominal prefixes which are vocalic in form and it shows only marginal agreement on adjectives. The quinary numeral system and SVO basic word order are similar to its Southern Jukunoid relatives Bezen, Yukuben and Kuteb
Préliminaires à une étude du saba, langue tchadique orientale du Tchad (région de Melfi)
Full text linkThe article provides first information on Saba, an Eastern Chadic minority language spoken in the Melfi district of the Guéra region, northeast of Melfi by some 1,500 speakers. The main focus is on the grammatical structures of the verb, which are based on a binary aspect system, i.e. a perfective – imperfective distinction. A considerable percentage of verbs are “strong” in that they display internal ablaut, e.g. the verb meaning ‘to kill’: perfective: dèegè (past), imperfective: díggà (present) and dàagà (future). According to the different vocalic patterns, seven classes of strong verbs may be distinguished. Phonologically, Saba belongs to the rather small group of Chadic languages which display two centralized vowel phonemes, i.e. ə and ʌ.L\u27article fournit les premières informations sur le saba, une langue minoritaire tchadique de l’Est, parlée par environ 1500 locuteurs dans le district de Melfi, région du Guéra, au Nord-Est de Melfi. L\u27accent principal est mis sur les structures grammaticales du verbe, qui sont basées sur un système aspectuel binaire, c\u27est-à-dire avec une opposition perfectif-imperfectif. Un pourcentage considérable de verbes sont «forts» dans la mesure où ils affichent des alternances vocaliques internes, par exemple le verbe signifiant «tuer»: perfectif: dèegè (passé), imperfectif: díggà (présent) et dàagà (futur). Selon les différents systèmes vocaliques, sept classes de verbes forts peuvent être distinguées. Phonologiquement, le Saba appartient plutôt au petit groupe de langues tchadiques ayant deux phonèmes vocaliques centralisés, c\u27est-à-dire ə et ʌ
Research on the Plateau languages of Central Nigeria
Full text linkThe paper is an overview of scholarship on the Plateau language group of Central Nigeria to November 2020. It reviews the existing published and manuscript sources and describes modern scholarship. It provides an overview of the literature on the internal and external classification of these languages and the issue of endangerment, which is severe for some languages. It summarises the use of Plateau languages in education and the media, which has undergone a major revival after 2010. There is now a concerted push for the use of Plateau languages in education. The paper then reviews each subgroup, presenting an internal classification and references to publications. Based on the existing evidence, a fresh classification of Plateau is presented
