Kumzari: The Forgotten Language

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Said Al Jahdhami
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Academic Work ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
To Come ◽  
Future Status

<p>Arabic is the first widely used language in Oman. It is not uncommon, however, to come across Omanis who converse in minority languages other than Arabic. Remarkably, these languages are of three different families: Indo-Iranian languages such as Kumzari, Lawati, Zadjali, Baluchi; Modern South Arabian languages such as Harsusi, Bathari, Hobyot, Mehri, and Jabbali /Shehri; and Bantu language family which includes Swahili. Named after the ethnic groups speaking them as mother tongues side by side with Arabic, the number of speakers of these languages varies as some are spoken by thousands of speakers while other languages may claim only a few hundred speakers. Academic work geared towards exploring these languages is scarce indeed, especially languages such as Kumzari, Harsusi, Zadjali, Bathari and Hobyot, a fact that makes them lesser-known and uninvestigated as opposed to their counterparts. In view of this, the focus of this paper lies on one of the lesser-known and unexplored minority languages spoken in Oman, namely Kumzari. In line with this, the study highlights the genetic affiliation of Kumzari, its speakers and their location, views on the origin of its name and its future status.</p>

Language Use and Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Policy-Makers and Educators in Northeast Vietnamese Areas

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130
Author(s):  
Ha Ngan Ngo ◽  
Maya Khemlani David
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Status ◽  
Wedding Songs

Vietnam represents a country with 54 ethnic groups; however, the majority (88%) of the population are of Vietnamese heritage. Some of the other ethnic groups such as Tay, Thai, Muong, Hoa, Khmer, and Nung have a population of around 1 million each, while the Brau, Roman, and Odu consist only of a hundred people each. Living in northern Vietnam, close to the Chinese border (see Figure 1), the Tay people speak a language of the    Central    Tai language group called Though, T'o, Tai Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, or Pa Di. Tay remains one of 10 ethnic languages used by 1 million speakers (Buoi, 2003). The Tày ethnic group has a rich culture of wedding songs, poems, dance, and music and celebrate various festivals. Wet rice cultivation, canal digging and grain threshing on wooden racks are part of the Tày traditions. Their villages situated near the foothills often bear the names of nearby mountains, rivers, or fields. This study discusses the status and role of the Tày language in Northeast Vietnam. It discusses factors, which have affected the habitual use of the Tay language, the connection between language shift and development and provides a model for the sustainability and promotion of minority languages. It remains fundamentally imperative to strengthen and to foster positive attitudes of the community towards the Tày language. Tày’s young people must be enlightened to the reality their Tày non-usage could render their mother tongue defunct, which means their history stands to be lost.

Detection and lexicographic treatment of salient features in e-dictionaries for African languages1

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-287
Author(s):  
D J Prinsloo
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Support Systems ◽  
Language Family ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Northern Sotho ◽  
Word Lists ◽  
Salient Features ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Maximum Utilization

Abstract As for many e-dictionaries across the globe, e-dictionaries for African languages embarked on the unfortunate route of being ‘paper dictionaries on computer’ often simply enhanced with additional search features or simply by perpetuating the practice followed in paper dictionaries of compiling e-dictionaries which are just translated word lists. In this article it will be argued that e-dictionaries for African languages should firstly be compiled through maximum utilization of ‘true electronic’ features enabled by the computer era. Secondly, specific attention should be given to the salient features of the Bantu language family, taking Sepedi (Northern Sotho) as a case in point. Thirdly attention is given to the issue of dictionary survival in the information era and how innovative e-support systems can contribute to ensure that future dictionaries will remain the preferred point of departure for users for information retrieval.

scholarly journals Književno stvaralaštvo manjina u Hrvatskoj – dio hrvatske književnosti ili ne?

2021 ◽  
pp. 494-504
Author(s):  
Helena Stranjik
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
The State ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Literary Creation ◽  
Minority Literature ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
Majority Population ◽  
To Come ◽  
Minority Writers

There are numerous national minorities in Croatia supported by the state in their maintenance of minority languages, cultures and traditions. And many of these minorities with songs, dance and customs cherish their own literature, meaning poetry, prose, and drama written by their members in minority languages or in Croatian. These works are mostly known among members of the minorities, but sometimes it is difficult to find the way to readers of the majority of the population. An example of such a minority literature with a long tradition is literary creation of the Czech, who have been living in today’s Croatia for over two hundred years. Nowadays regularly or occasionally there are about thirty authors who write mostly in Czech, but to come to the readership, some of them have been translating their work into the Croatian language lately or leaving their mother tongue and starting to create in Croatian. Are Croatia’s minority works known and to what extent? What are the possibilities of writers using minority languages to publish their works? Why are minority literary works important, what can they offer to a broader readership and in what way can they enrich Croatian literature? How could they reach the majority population and could they wake up the interest beyond Croatian borders? And what difficulties do minority writers encounter? In the presentation, we will use the example of Czech minority literary works in Croatia to answer these and other issues related to minority literature emerging in Croatia, but remaining unknown to the Croatian public.

Bende

2020 ◽  
pp. 494-506
Author(s):  
Yuko Abe
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Complex Conjugation ◽  
Conjugation System ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Noun Classes ◽  
Western Tanzania

Bende (Sibhende [síβendé]) is a Bantu language (Niger-Congo phylum) spoken mainly in the Katavi region in western Tanzania, known as F12 in Guthrie’s reference classification. It is sometimes called Tongwe-Bende, since both ethnic groups are closely related linguistically, not to mention their cultural common ground. The number of Bende speakers is estimated to be 41,490 by Language of Tanzania Project (Chuo kikuu cha DSM 2009). Bende is a tone language with ten vowels (five each short and long) and nineteen consonants. Eighteen noun classes are listed for nouns, whereas verbs have rich morphological derivations and a complex conjugation system consisting of twenty-five patterns for simple affirmatives and nineteen patterns for simple negatives.

scholarly journals Segmentary Lineage Organization and Conflict in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Econometrica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (5) ◽  
pp. 1999-2036 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Moscona ◽  
Nathan Nunn ◽  
James A. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Ethnic Boundaries ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
To Come

We test the longstanding hypothesis that ethnic groups organized around “segmentary lineages” are more prone to conflict. Ethnographic accounts suggest that in such societies, which are characterized by strong allegiances to distant relatives, individuals are obligated to come to the aid of fellow lineage members when they become involved in conflicts. As a consequence, small disagreements often escalate into larger‐scale conflicts involving many individuals. We test for a link between segmentary lineage organization and conflict across ethnic groups in sub‐Saharan Africa. Using a number of estimation strategies, including a regression discontinuity design at ethnic boundaries, we find that segmentary lineage societies experience more conflicts, and particularly ones that are retaliatory, long in duration, and large in scale.

scholarly journals The pride of east Belfast: Glentoran Football Club and the (re)production of Ulster unionist identities in Northern Ireland

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (8) ◽  
pp. 975-996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Bleakney ◽  
Paul Darby
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Academic Work ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Football Club ◽  
Football Clubs ◽  
Majority Population ◽  
Sectarian Conflict ◽  
To Come

It has become a truism that football provides a revealing window into how various forms of identity are (re)produced. There is a not insubstantial body of academic work which illustrates that football in Northern Ireland has long served as a vehicle for individuals to come together, develop a sense of belonging, share in common bonds of loyalty and articulate both semantic and syntactical forms of identity. This certainly holds true for the country’s Ulster unionist population. Indeed, in many ways, the game has been inextricably bound up with the development of unionist politics and identities. As such, football and football clubs in Northern Ireland represent a particularly useful, yet currently under-utilised, lens through which to analyse the development and nature of the identities of the majority population and how these have manifested themselves in civil society at various points in time. Better understanding how these identities are generated and articulated is important in the context of a society emerging from almost four decades of internecine, ethno-sectarian conflict and particularly at a time when sections of the unionist community have grown disaffected at what they consider to be deliberate attempts to dilute and diminish their identity and cultural traditions. This article contributes to and expands on what is barely a fledgling scholarship on sport and Ulster unionism by examining the ways in which unionist and loyalist identities have developed through and coalesced around Glentoran Football Club, one of Northern Ireland’s leading domestic teams.

Anticipating Nationhood: Collaboration and Rumor in the Japanese Occupation of Manila

1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-82
Author(s):  
Vicente L. Rafael
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Japanese Occupation ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Constant Displacement ◽  
Cultural Forces ◽  
To Come

To come under colonial occupation is to live in a state of constant displacement. Under siege from the economic, military, and cultural forces of the metropole, a colonized people finds itself constrained to exist on the expanding borders of imperial designs. Differentially positioned within the structures of the colonial regime, it must perforce negotiate with and around the regime’s agents and institutions, now rejecting, now acceding to the Other’s claims on land, labor, and loyalties. As such, this people continually recasts, even as it appropriates, identities and languages: those of its real or imagined ancestors, as well as those imposed on it by the colonial state or imputed to it by other ethnic groups. With these efforts, it seeks a place in the social hierarchy, even as it struggles to project alternative conditions for future empowerment.

scholarly journals The Mystery of Vlach Magic in the Rural Areas of 21st century Serbia

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anđelija Ivkov-Džigurski ◽  
Vedrana Babić ◽  
Aleksandra Dragin ◽  
Kristina Košić ◽  
Ivana Blešić
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Endogamous Population ◽  
To Come

Abstract This article offers an ethnographic exploration of the Vlachs in the Branicevo region of Serbia. The Vlachs rarely exist anywhere as a distinct ethnic group due to their permanent assimilation with other ethnic groups. The thing that has always been linked to the folklore of the Vlachs and still attracts a large number of people to come and visit some remote parts of Eastern Serbia is definitely a certain mystery which represents the essential part of the culture of this nation. Instances of Vlach magic can be seen in the Timok area, all over Eastern Serbia and across its borders. Vlach magic is a miracle or is miraculous, when looking at how long it has been present, its unique rituals, beliefs, shamans and spells. Vlach culture intertwined with pagan customs and interesting rituals, makes the municipalities in Eastern Serbia mysterious places in modern 21st century Europe, because the Vlachs are a mostly closed (endogamous) population which do not blend with people of other nationalities.

scholarly journals Central America in the 17th Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Madrigal
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Internal Markets ◽  
Economic Cycles ◽  
Colonial Society ◽  
To Come

When the 16th century—the Conquest Century—drew to a close, the territory of what is today called Central America was already organized as a colonial domain. The system of “Two Republics”—segregating autochthonous populations from the Spanish in order to protect the former from the abuses and potential perversions of the latter, but also to better control the former and demand labor, goods, and money from them—was well established, and colonial institutions (Audiencia, royal treasury offices, town councils (cabildos), dioceses, parishes, etc.) had been put in place. The Spanish governing and enriched elite were clearly on top but were surrounded, nonetheless, by a plethora of dominated ethnic groups, such as the indigenous and the African—either slave or free—populations, the non-elite Spanish immigrants, and those of mixed race. The process of miscegenation between all ethnic groups of colonial society, slow and faltering at first, was already a fact in the region, and a caste society was firmly established. At the same time, Spanish settlement in the territory was entrenched, with consolidated cities and established rural properties. Trade and mining were also active, creating economic cycles linked to the global economy, as well as to internal markets. However, resistance and rebellions by the dominated populations and an extended frontier—made of unconquered and uncontrolled zones—as well as the irruption of enemies in the uncontrolled regions, were not absent from the region. What was the destiny of this complex newly born society over the century to come? In Central America, the new century would be characterized by processes of stabilization and consolidation of colonial life in all aspects, but also by strong geostrategical interests, brutal social asymmetries, and an overwhelming peripheral status.

scholarly journals TATAR LANGUAGE:

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dinara S. Sultan ◽  
Tatiana G. Bochina ◽  
Atirkul Ye. Agmanova ◽  
Yevgeniya A. Zhuravleva
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethnic Identification ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The One ◽  
Linguistic Aspect

Conservation and development of minority languages in countries unique in the ethno-linguistic aspect, such as Russia and Kazakhstan, are highly relevant. Wide linguistic diversity, on the one hand, and dominance of the official Russian in Russia and the official Kazakh and Russian languages in the socio-communicative system of society in Kazakhstan, on the other hand, determine the linguistic landscape and peculiarities of multilingualism in these states. Research interest in linguistic contacts of a modern multiethnic society has determined the choice of the processes of linguistic and ethnic identification, related issues of conservation and using the native language and culture by representatives of various ethnic groups living in Russia and Kazakhstan, as well as the specifics of their interaction and mutual influence under new geopolitical conditions as the object of the study

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