The Challenge(s) of Documenting Africa's Least Known Languages Bonny Sands Northern Arizona University
[email protected] ACAL 45 April 17-19, 2014, University of Kansas Preliminaries ¤ Why are languages endangered? ¤ Continent-wide Surveys: Batibo (2005) & Brenzinger 1992, 1998a, Brenzinger et al. 1991, Brenzinger & Batibo 2010, Dimmendaal & Voeltz 2007, Mous 2003, Sommer 1992, Tamanji 2008, Tourneux et al. 2000. ¤ Central Africa: Anchimbe 2013, Connell 1998, 2007, Idiata 2009 ¤ West Africa: Blench 2007, Childs 2006, Haruna 2012 ¤ Northern/Eastern Africa: Brenzinger 2007 a & b; Dimmendaal 1989. Mezhoud & El Allame 2010, Nyombe 1997, Savà & Tosco 2006, Zelealem Leyew 2004 ¤ What is language documentation? EGIDS: Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (Simons & Lewis 2013) GIDS Level Label Description UNESCO 5 written The language is used orally safe by all generations and is effectively used in written form in parts of the community. 6a vigorous The language is used orally safe by all generations and is being learned by children as their first language. 6b threatened The language is used orally vulnerable by all generations but only some of the child-bearing generation are transmitting it to their children. 7 shifting The child-bearing definitely endangered generation knows the language well enough to use it among themselves but none are transmitting it to their children. 8a moribund The only remaining active severely endangered speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation. 8b nearly extinct The only remaining speakers critically endangered of the language are members of the grandparent generation or older who have little opportunity to use the language. Numbers of African languages at different risk levels (Lewis et al.