Lexicon, Linguistic Structure, and Verbal Arts in Chadic Languages of Northeastern Nigeria (DBP, KAI, NBH)

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Nigeria encompasses one of the linguistically and culturally most complex areas in the world, and despite nearly two centuries of documenting language and culture in Nigeria, many of the peoples there remain virtually unknown beyond their localities. This project, as part of the Documenting Endangered Languages program will focus on peoples speaking six languages of the Chadic family in Yobe State, Nigeria: Bade, Ngizim, Bole, Karekare, Ngamo, and Duwai. The project will focus on the last three, which are the least documented and the most endangered. Two languages and associated cultures, Hausa and to a lesser extent Kanuri, massively dominate the language and culture scene of northern Nigeria. Yobe State is sandwiched between these juggernauts. The traditional cultures are rapidly giving way and the indigenous languages, though not exactly dying, are becoming loaded with Hausa and Kanuri loanwords and expressions while losing much traditional vocabulary and "verbal arts" more broadly speaking, including proverbs, word play, tales, songs, and oral traditions. This project will produce video, audio, and print (both paper and web-based) documentation of these languages and associated verbal arts. Video and audio recording of performance of traditional music will be a focus of the project. Hausa music is now dominating all of northern Nigeria, and contexts for performing traditional music are diminishing. Aside from the cultural importance of traditional songs, the texts and the way they are set to music is completely unstudied for this region, and analysis of these text will be a major contribution to the study of folk metrics. In addition to making this material available to the world-wide scholarly community, the project will produce audio cassettes and printed song texts for distribution in local markets.