Maa (Maasai) Lexicography and Text Databases

目前在肯尼亚和坦桑尼亚有多达50万马赛人、桑布鲁人和加缪人使用Maa（马赛语）。没有语言学上适当的文本集或该语言的词典存在。目前的项目将编制计算机化的文本和词典编纂数据库，其中包括一套全面的领域，以便最终能够根据不同读者的需要出版各种词典和文本材料，这些读者包括语言学家、人类学家、历史学家、双语学校教师和说马族语的人自己。词典编纂数据库将包括每个条目形式的声音结构、形态和语法属性的准确信息；每个词根可以使用的句子类型信息；以及文化和人种学信息。同时，一个包含形态和句法信息的单独的动词数据库，已经由首席研究员开始，将被进一步阐述，并且在先前工作的基础上发展起来的句法假设将与新的数据进行核对。在资助期内，该项目将纳入至少四种马族方言的广泛信息。当前项目的第一阶段将重点关注IlKeekonyokie地区使用的各种马语，该地区在地理上位于肯尼亚马赛地区的东部到中部。然后，该项目将扩展到位于肯尼亚领土西部边缘的IlWuasinkishu部分。第三，它将包括一种北马方言（桑布鲁语或加缪语），然后是一种坦桑尼亚方言，如阿鲁萨马赛语。之所以选择这四个品种，是因为首席研究员过去对其中两个品种的研究，以及与母语人士的联系，以及Maa地区从北到南、从东到西的地理分布。在所有的文化中，都有基本的和专门的词汇来描述活动、传统、宇宙学、宗教以及该文化特有的无数种生活方式。如果不了解表达构成文化传统的概念的词汇，就无法彻底理解这些特征。广泛的词典编纂和文本数据库将成为保存和传播Maa人文化知识的宝贵文件，Maa人在20世纪末受到快速文化变革的影响。

The Maa (Maasai) language is currently spoken by up to 500,000 Maasai, Samburu, and Camus people in Kenya and Tanzania. No linguistically adequate set of texts or dictionary of the language exist. The current project will produce computerized text and lexicography databases, with a comprehensive set of fields, such that a variety of dictionaries and text materials can eventually be published depending on the needs of various audiences, including linguists, anthropologists, historians, bilingual school teachers, and Maa speakers themselves. The lexicography database will include accurate information about the sound structure, morphology, and grammatical properties of each entry form; information about sentence types in which each word root can be used; and cultural and ethnographic information. Simultaneously, a separate verb database with morphological and syntactic information, already begun by the Principal Investigator, will be further elaborated, and syntactic hypotheses developed on the basis of previous work will be checked against new data. The project will incorporate extensive information from a minimum of four Maa dialects during the funding period. The first stage of the current project will focus on the variety of Maa spoken by the IlKeekonyokie section, which, geographically, is on the eastern-to-central part of the Kenyan Maasai area. The project will then expand to the IlWuasinkishu section, which lies on the western edge of the Kenyan territory. Thirdly, it will incorporate a North Maa dialect (Samburu or Camus), and then a Tanzanian variety, such as Arusa Maasai. These four varieties are chosen because of the Principal Investigator's past work on two of them and connections with native speakers, and geographic distribution from the north to south, and east to west extremes of the Maa area. In all cultures there is both basic and specialized vocabulary which describes activities, traditions, cosmology, religion, and the myriad ways of life specific to that culture. These features cannot be thoroughly understood without an understanding of the vocabulary which expresses the concepts comprising the traditions of the culture. The extensive lexicographic and text database will be valuable documents for preserving and transmitting the cultural knowledge of the Maa people, who are being impacted by rapid cultural change at the end of the 20th Century.