scholarly journals The Spread of Revealed Religions in West Africa and Its Implications for the Development of Translation

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-34
Author(s):  
Adewuni Salawu
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
International Standard ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Islam And Christianity ◽  
Roman Script ◽  
Regional Languages ◽  
Local Languages

This study attempts to look at the metamorphoses of West African languages into written status and subsequently the acquisition of translation skills by West Africans during the spread of Islam and Christianity. With the trans-Saharan and Atlantic contacts, literacy spread in the sub-region and native languages became written, facilitating the translation of the Bible and the Qur’an into local languages, especially with Roman script. Africans who participated in the translations of the Scriptures became skillful translators and experts in both English and regional languages. This study concludes that the enthusiasm and dedication of the missionaries who developed local languages should be emulated to further enrich African languages to a competitive and international standard.

West African Manuscripts in Arabic and African Languages and Digital Preservation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fallou Ngom
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Digital Preservation ◽  
West African ◽  
Writing System ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Digital Repositories ◽  
World Regions ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
Other World

West African manuscripts are numerous and varied in forms and contents. There are thousands of them across West Africa. A significant portion of them are documents written in Arabic and Ajami (African languages written in Arabic script). They deal with both religious and nonreligious subjects. The development of these manuscript traditions dates back to the early days of Islam in West Africa, in the 11th century. In addition to these Arabic and Ajami manuscripts, there have been others written in indigenous scripts. These include those in the Vai script invented in Liberia; Tifinagh, the traditional writing system of the Amazigh (Berber) people; and the N’KO script invented in Guinea for Mande languages. While the writings in indigenous scripts are rare less numerous and widespread, they nonetheless constitute an important component of West Africa’s written heritage. Though the efforts devoted to the preservation of West African manuscripts are limited compared to other world regions, interest in preserving them has increased. Some of the initial preservation efforts of West African manuscripts are the collections of colonial officers. Academics later supplemented these collections. These efforts resulted in important print and digital repositories of West African manuscripts in Africa, Europe, and America. Until recently, most of the cataloguing and digital preservation efforts of West African manuscripts have focused on those written in Arabic. However, there has been an increasing interest in West African manuscripts written in Ajami and indigenous scripts. Important West African manuscripts in Arabic, Ajami, and indigenous scripts have now been digitized and preserved, though the bulk remain uncatalogued and unknown beyond the communities of their owners.

Other Ways of Reading the Qur'an and the Bible in Africa

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-76
Author(s):  
Gerald O. West ◽  
Tahir Fuzile Sitoto
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Central Question ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Islam And Christianity

This article explores how religion possesses and is possessed by Africans. It does this by recognising both the power of religion to configure and of Africans as agents who reconfigure what they encounter in their African contexts. The central question of this article is how placing African agency and context in the forefront reconfigures talk of Islam and Christianity in Africa. The question is taken up through an analysis of two African religious leaders, Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba from West Africa and Isaiah Shembe from South Africa.

The Linguistic Situation and Vernacular Literature in British West Africa

Africa ◽  
1929 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Westermann
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Vernacular Literature ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The North ◽  
Religious Books ◽  
Basel Mission ◽  
School Books

The beginnings of a vernacular literature in languages spoken in British West Africa go back for more than a century. As early as 1815 the gospel of St. Matthew was published in Bulom; in 1816 part of St. Matthew in Susu (Soso), 1829 Genesis and part of Matthew in Mampua, a dialect of Bulom. A translation of the whole Bible appeared in the Ga language in 1866, in Twi in 1871, in Efik in 1868, and in Yoruba in 1880. Since that time there has been a constant increase in the number of languages into which parts of the Bible or the whole Bible and other religious books such as catechisms, hymn-books and prayer-books have been translated. Other books for use in schools and for general reading have also been produced, but only to a very limited extent; the great majority are books written by missionaries for immediate missionary purposes. I know of only two cases in which a complete set of school-books in native languages for a curriculum of about eight or ten years has been published and is in use. These are produced by the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast (Twi and Ga) and the North German Mission in Togoland and on the Gold Coast (Ewe).

scholarly journals West African languages. Linguistic theory and communication

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Structural Patterns ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Structural Differences

The monograph covers the main aspects of studies on West African languages related to the diversity of structural patterns and complexity of their linguistic assignment. It includes various topics ranging from linguistic description and conceptualization patterns to the sociolinguistics of contemporary refugee camps. Typological diversity is enriched with the presentation of pidgin structures and sign languages. Structural differences between languages are seen from a comparative perspective, which also indicates the areal dimension of linguistic processes. The presentations of linguists from both Europe and Africa develop the idea of convergence area in West Africa, which is motivated by the contact between languages of different affiliations to language families and common cultural basis of language development.

scholarly journals African elements in Saramaccan Maroon plant names in Suriname

Botany ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte I.E.A. Van't Klooster ◽  
Vinije Haabo ◽  
Margot C. van den Berg ◽  
Piet Stoffelen ◽  
Tinde Van Andel
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
West African ◽  
African Origin ◽  
African Region ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Plant Names ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Scientific Attention

The ancestors of the Saramaccan Maroons, who were brought as enslaved Africans to Suriname, used their ethnobotanical knowledge and native languages to name the flora in their new environment. Little is known about the influence of African languages on Saramaccan plant naming. We hypothesized that Saramaccan plant names were more influenced by Central African languages than found so far based on ethnobotanical research, because data of the Central African region was scarce. We compiled a new database on Saramaccan plant names and compared these names with an unpublished plant name database from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the earlier published NATRAPLAND database on Afro-Surinamese plant names to find comparable plant names for botanically related species in Africa. We further analyzed form, meaning, function, and categories of Saramaccan plant name components by means of dictionaries and grammars. In total, 39% of the Saramaccan plant names had an African origin, of which 44% were African retentions, 54% were innovations and 2% were misidentifications with botanical links to Africa via other plant species. Most retentions were of Central African origin (62%). The Bantu language that contributed most to Saramaccan plant names was Kikongo, followed by West African Kwa languages. Plant names reveal important information on the African origin of the Saramaccans, and deserve more scientific attention.

Radical analyticity and radical pro-drop scenarios of diachronic change in East and mainland Southeast Asia, West Africa and Pidgins and Creoles

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-70
Author(s):  
Walter Bisang
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
West African ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Diachronic Change ◽  
Verbal Arguments ◽  
Asian Languages

Abstract The paucity or absence of inflectional morphology (radical analyticity) and the omission of verbal arguments with no concomitant agreement (radical pro-drop) are well-known characteristics of East and mainland Southeast Asian languages (EMSEA). Both of them have a special status in typology and linguistic theory. Radical analyticity is known under the term of ‘morphological isolation’ and has recently been described as ‘diachronically anomalous’ (McWhorter 2016), while radical pro-drop is a theoretical challenge since Rizzi (1986). The present paper offers an alternative view on these characteristics based on data from EMSEA languages, radically analytic West African languages and pidgins and creoles. It develops diachronic evolutionary scenarios combining the specific properties of languages in their diachronic and geographic situations with two different notions of complexity (hidden vs. overt complexity) and factors which tend to block the development of inflectional morphological paradigms. From such a perspective, radical analyticity and radical pro-drop are by no means extraordinary. Given the enormous size of the task, the paper is a thought experiment based on available data and discussions on the above languages for stimulating further research.

French Lexicography in Africa: a Three-Dimensional Project

1982 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conrad Max Benedict Brann
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Ford Foundation ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The Past ◽  
English Speaking

Few English-speaking scholars realise that a francophone network of scholars has powerfully developed the study of contact between French and African languages over the past decade, and that this is currently being synthesised in the form of an Inventaire des particularités lexicales du français en Afrique noire. This corporate work, sponsored by the Association des universités partiellement ou entièrement de langue française (A.U.P.E.L.F.) and the Agence de coopération culturelle et technique (A.C.C.T.),1 is of considerable linguistic, educational, and sociopolitical significance, and deserves to be widely known in Africa. Indeed, it will be remembered that at the founding of the West African Linguistic Society in 1961 two surveys were mooted: West African languages and, later, English in West Africa, of which the former was accomplished with the help of the International African Institute and the Ford Foundation, while the latter was forgotten. With the ‘Inventory of French in Africa’, the francophone network of scholars has certainly stolen a march on English-speaking Africa.

The Coin of the African Realm

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Herbst
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Regional Economies ◽  
African Countries ◽  
New Strategies

This chapter examines the politics of the currency in West Africa from the beginning of the twentieth century. A public series of debates over the nature of the currency occurred in West Africa during both the colonial and independence periods. Since 1983, West African countries have been pioneers in Africa in developing new strategies to combat overvaluation of the currency and reduce the control of government over the currency supply. The chapter charts the evolution of West African currencies as boundaries and explores their relationship to state consolidation. It shows that leaders in African capitals managed to make the units they ruled increasingly distinct from the international and regional economies, but the greater salience of the currency did not end up promoting state consolidation. Rather, winning the ability to determine the value of the currency led to a series of disastrous decisions that severely weakened the states themselves.

Penggunaan Bahasa Daerah pada Buku Bacaan Siswa Terbitan Kemdikbud

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Aisyah Nur Fadhilah ◽  
Laili Etika Rahmawati
Keyword(s):  
Flow Analysis ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Book Reading ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Student Reading ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Regional Languages ◽  
Local Languages ◽  
Reading Book

<p class="abstract">This study aims to identify the use of regional languages in student reading books published by the Ministry of Education and Culture. This type of research is a qualitative descriptive study. The object of research is the local language in the student reading book published by the Ministry of Education and Culture entitled "Kenara Anak Suku Gayo" and "Kain Kulit Kayu Dei". The data from this study are student reading books published by the Ministry of Education and Culture which contain local languages. The data source in this research is an archive or document in the form of a student reading book published by the Ministry of Education and Culture which contains local languages. Data collection techniques use the technique of listening and note taking, the researcher first reads the reading book "Kenara Anak Suku Gayo" and "Kain Kulit Kayu Dei" published by the Ministry of Education and Culture to carefully determine the use of local languages, then record in full and then identify the use of local languages in the book reading. Data analysis techniques using flow analysis. The results showed that the Ministry of Education and Culture has efforts to preserve local languages, use Indonesian, and master foreign languages. The language used in the students' reading book "Kenara Anak Suku Gayo" and "Kain Kulit Kayu Dei" is not purely using Indonesian, but there is interference with local languages. The percentage of the use of local languages in the reading books of "Kenara Anak Suku Gayo" is 40%, while in the reading books of students "Kain Kulit Kayu Dei" 20%.<strong></strong></p>

Making Africa Legible

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Caitlyn Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Generation Gap ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Language Standardization ◽  
Children And Parents ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Local Languages

European colonialism and missionization in Africa initiated a massive orthographic shift across the continent, as local languages that had been written for centuries in Arabic letters were forcibly re-written in Roman orthography through language standardization reforms and the introduction of colonial public schools. Using early missionary grammars promoting the “conversion of Africa from the East,” British colonial standardization policies and educational reforms, as well as petitions and newspaper editorials by the local Swahilispeaking community, I trace the story of the Romanization of Swahili in Zanzibar, the site chosen as the standard Swahili dialect. While the Romanization of African languages such as Swahili was part of a project of making Africa legible to Europeans during the colonial era, the resulting generation gap as children and parents read different letters made Africa more illegible to Africans themselves.

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