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Africa’s Endangered Languages
Africa’s Endangered Languages
DOCUMENTARY AND THEORETICAL APPROACHES
1
3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
We dedicate this volume to the memory and legacy of Russ Schuh (1941–2016),
a mentor, a colleague, and an inspiration.
CONTENTS
List of Contributors ix
Perhaps one of the most disturbing trends of our time is the accelerating rate of
language extinction and endangerment.* Most of today’s languages are struggling
to survive, clinging to life in a world of diminishing linguistic diversity. The phe-
nomenon is not relegated to the planet’s most remote linguistic outposts. Wherever
we find languages, we find language endangerment.
The African continent hosts roughly one-third of the world’s approximately
7,000 living languages. We might expect, therefore, to find a rich deposit of endan-
gered languages within its borders. But we would be wrong, according to some. Ever
since the late 1980s and early 1990s, the overall threat level of language endanger-
ment in sub-Saharan Africa has been characterized and widely accepted as “low”
(Sommer 1992; Brenzinger 1992, 1998; Wurm 1996; Anderson & Harrison 2006),
owing in all likelihood to misleadingly high population counts. In addition, it has
been claimed that the rate of language endangerment is significantly lower in sub-
Saharan Africa than in other parts of the world (Simons & Lewis 2013) owing to
diverse factors such as extensive multilingualism (Childs et al. 2014), urbanization
(Simons & Lewis 2013), and the effects of settlement colonization versus exploita-
tion colonization on language ecologies (Mufwene 2002). Consequently, research
on Africa’s endangered languages has lagged behind endangered language research
in other parts of the world.
Nonetheless, there have been some attempts to document the endangered lan-
guages of Africa, to ascertain their relative threat levels, and to catalogue the conti-
nent’s extinct languages. Among them are the Summer Institute of Linguistics’ (SIL)
2 Africa’s Endangered Languages
Ethnologue project (Lewis et al. 2015), the School of Oriental and African Studies’
(SOAS) Endangered Languages Documentation Program, Sommer’s (1992) survey,
the collection of articles in Brenzinger (1992, 1998), works such as Wurm (1996),
Haarmann (2001), and Batibo (2005), and the collection of Africa-specific articles
in Brenzinger (2007a), to name a few.1 Although they vary in the details, all such
projects paint a consistent picture with respect to the state of language endanger-
ment in sub-Saharan Africa. They note that threatened languages or families are
distributed across several geographically distinct regions of the continent, and that
internal pressures (e.g., regionally dominant languages and large-scale population
movements) rather than external factors (e.g., the influence of the languages of
former colonizers) drive and unify the pattern of African language endangerment.
As such, the state of language endangerment in sub-Saharan Africa is distinct from
that in much of the rest of the world.
Unlike Australia, northern Asia, and the Americas, where local languages are
threatened and replaced by the nationally dominant languages of colonizers, the
most immediate threats to minority African languages are posed by other local
or sub-national languages (Brenzinger et al. 1991), barring infrequent and excep-
tional cases like the threat posed by English in certain regions of Nigeria (Connell
2015) and by national languages like Swahili in Tanzania and Setswana in Botswana
(Brenzinger 2007b). Scotton (1982), for instance, concludes that less than 10% of
rural Africa has competence in an imported European language, and Traill (1995)
notes that the only documented instance of an African speech community aban-
doning its heritage language for the language of its former colonizers comes from
the Khoekoe shift to Dutch around 1700. Brenzinger (2007b) identifies mass migra-
tion and cyclic immigration as a second unique internal pressure driving the pat-
tern of language endangerment in Africa, predominantly in eastern Africa. The
bottom line is that external threats like colonization have not threatened African
minority languages in the way they have in most parts of the world (Grenoble &
Whaley 1998). Rather, internal pressures almost exclusively characterize the state of
language endangerment on the continent. Thus, because its pattern of endanger-
ment is unique, Africa represents a fertile landscape with great potential to provide
fresh perspectives on and valuable new insights into the causes, consequences, and
characteristics of human language endangerment.
Despite their great potential to fill gaps in our understanding of the inner work-
ings of language endangerment, Africa’s endangered languages pose several
unique challenges to documentation and revitalization efforts.2 For instance,
insufficient infrastructure, scarcity of resources, incomplete and/or inaccurate
information,3 and a general absence of public awareness (both locally and inter-
nationally) represent serious hurdles for the documentation and maintenance
Overview3
Despite the fact that practitioners of language documentation and linguistic theory
are often perceived as opposing or getting in the way of one another, the symbi-
otic nature of the two disciplines has been widely recognized (e.g., Everett 2001;
Gil 2001; Hyman 2004, 2009; Mithun 2001; Rice 2001; Sells 2010, among others).
Linguistic theory informed by marginalized or under-represented languages cru-
cially draws on data unearthed by language documentation and could not proceed
without it, while theory in turn guides the documentation process by predetermin-
ing the issues investigated, the questions asked, and the data sought (Hyman 2009).
4 Africa’s Endangered Languages
In some cases, awareness of and sensitivity to theoretical concerns can even reveal
missing gaps in the documentary record, for instance with research on logophoric
pronouns following the seminal work of Clements (1975). The two disciplines,
therefore, form a kind of “cycle” which drives linguistics forward. This cyclic inter-
play suggests that, at the very least, linguistic theory and language documentation
are interdependent. Some researchers, though, take an even stronger position,
claiming that the line between theory and documentation is a blurred one. Hyman
(2004), for instance, argues that description and documentation are essentially
indistinguishable from theory. When each is done right, they not only have the same
concerns, they have the same results: each mode of inquiry is a vehicle of discov-
ery. Matthewson’s semantic fieldwork methodology (Matthewson 2004; Bochnak
& Matthewson 2015) and Bruening’s (2008a,b) quantifier scope materials illustrate
the point nicely, demonstrating that theoretically oriented research can not only
yield novel descriptive discoveries but also effectively drive the development of
data-collecting techniques for both linguistic theory and language documentation.
If theory and documentation are indeed interconnected and complementary, then
partnerships between documentarians and theorists or projects that marry theory
with documentation are destined to be synergistic affairs. And synergistic affairs are
likely to be more visible and impactful than non-synergistic ones.
The keyword in the subtitle of this volume is therefore not “documentary” or
“theoretical,” but rather the word “and.” Our aim in this book is to bring together
both documentary and theoretical approaches to endangered African language
research in order to highlight the respects in which the two methodologies are
co-informing, mutually supportive, and equally essential to documentation and
preservation efforts. We believe that doing so will not only encourage increased
partnerships between these two types of linguists and consequently bolster the
net output of research on endangered African languages, but it will also greatly
improve the visibility, depth, breadth, and overall quality of that research.
Many of the themes introduced in this chapter are taken up in greater detail in
chapter 2, where Sands discusses the challenges of documenting Africa’s least-
known languages and concludes that the level of language endangerment in Africa
has been grossly underestimated.
The next four chapters deal with the documentation and theoretical analysis of
Nata, an endangered Bantu language of northern Tanzania, by a team of researchers
at the University of British Columbia. Existing descriptions and analyses of Nata in
the literature are scarce, making the contributions in this book some of the first pub-
lished materials on the language. Chapter 3 provides an overview of both the language
and the Nata research project, outlining the broader issues connected to the interplay
Overview5
between language documentation and linguistic theory that unify the three subse-
quent articles. In these three chapters, both theory and documentation converge on a
robust partition between nouns and verbs in the language. In chapter 4, Gambarage
and Pulleyblank treat this partition by way of an investigation into tongue root vowel
harmony that depends crucially on the iterative cycle connecting language documen-
tation, language analysis, and theory development. Anghelescu and colleagues exam-
ine nominal and verbal tone in Nata in c hapter 5, while Déchaine and colleagues
document and analyze deverbal nominalization in chapter 6.
The two chapters that follow are concerned with community-based approaches
to African language documentation and revitalization. In c hapter 7, Childs dis-
cusses two pedagogical frameworks for language revitalization and, on the basis of
a case study of Mani, an endangered Atlantic language of Sierra Leone, concludes
that the so-called community-centric “busy intersections” model is best suited for
success in the African context. In c hapter 8, Nash explores a conflict that can arise
between the needs of the community and the goals of the researcher in language
documentation projects that have both documentary and theoretical aims. Drawing
on his experience working with the Ekegusii community of southwestern Kenya,
Nash advocates for collaborative community-based documentary research, arguing
that it is a pursuit in which community and academic goals are both complemen-
tary and mutually beneficial.
Chapters 9 through 13 focus on the interplay between the documentation
and theoretical analysis of syntax and morphology in endangered African lan-
guages. In c hapter 9, Kandybowicz and Torrence investigate intervention effects
on in-situ interrogative constructions in Krachi, an endangered Kwa language of
eastern Ghana. The significance of the project is that it represents an instance in
which the influence of linguistic theory on descriptive fieldwork leads to the dis-
covery (and subsequent remedy) of missing gaps in the documentary record of
a language. Jenks and Rose explore a similar theme in chapter 10. Focusing on
the documentation, analysis, and theoretical implications of raising and control
in the endangered Kordofanian language Moro of the Republic of Sudan, they
argue that fieldwork guided by linguistic theory yields insights that would be dif-
ficult to establish solely on the basis of the documentary practice of text collection
and analysis. They conclude that the documentation of endangered languages is
most effective when it has a solid foundation in linguistic theory. Collins echoes this
sentiment in c hapter 11, on the syntax of the “linker” in five critically endangered
non-central Khoisan languages of southern Africa. Collins reveals a number of
new and fascinating properties of linkers, particles that introduce or “link” a wide
range of expressions in the verb phrase. Because it is highly unlikely that a purely
documentary-based approach would have produced similar results, Collins makes
a strong case for the ability of formal/theoretical linguists to produce high-quality
descriptive work. Bassene and Safir’s contribution (chapter 12) makes a strong case
for this as well. In their analysis of verb stem structure in Eegimaa, an endangered
6 Africa’s Endangered Languages
Atlantic language of southern Senegal, Bassene and Safir demonstrate that a set of
theoretical challenges posed by Eegimaa morphology led to a series of analytical
links which allowed the researchers to go beyond mere descriptions of facts and
uncover deeper underlying organizational principles. The value in such work is that
this deeper level of understanding can lead future Eegimaa researchers to discover
(and fill) hitherto unknown gaps in the documentation of the language’s grammar.
This is an excellent example of the cyclic interplay of documentation and linguistic
theory previously discussed, and it is the focus of McPherson’s contribution on
Seenku verbal morphology in c hapter 13. In her article, McPherson presents the
first published description of verbal morphology in Seenku, a threatened and pre-
viously undescribed Dogon language of Burkina Faso. McPherson explains how
the cyclic and symbiotic interplay of linguistic theory and documentation led to a
deeper account of the puzzling nature of verb forms in the language, which surpris-
ingly appear to have two stem forms.
The final six chapters address issues concerning the phonology and phonet-
ics of endangered African languages. In c hapter 14, Marlo discusses the symbi-
otic relationship between linguistic description and micro-comparative typological
research. His discussion proceeds by way of two case studies on tone and redu-
plication in the object-marking systems of Yao and Buguumbe Kuria, two Bantu
languages spoken in the Tanzania- Malawi- Mozambique region. Marlo shows
that in each case, knowing about analogous patterns in other languages informs
the description and analysis of the individual language. Furthermore, each case
expands knowledge of the typology of object-marking patterns in Bantu languages,
leading to improvements in the quality of descriptions of other languages. In this
way, he argues, theoretical approaches (broadly construed) can improve grammati-
cal description. Zsiga and Boyer’s contribution in c hapter 15 treads similar ground
by approaching the problem of the “unnatural” alternation of post-nasal devoicing
in Sebirwa, an endangered Bantu language of Botswana, from the vantage point
of a similar “unnatural” alternation in the related (yet phonologically distinct) lan-
guage Setswana. Once again, knowing about analogous patterns in other languages
informs the description and analysis of the individual language. In c hapter 16, Stirtz
discusses the phonology of plosives in Caning, an endangered Nilo-Saharan lan-
guage of the Republic of Sudan with a four-way plosive series. He examines three
analyses of the plosive system in great detail, but concludes that additional docu-
mentation is needed to furnish the missing decisive data. This conclusion resonates
strongly with the theme of this volume, for it underscores the symbiotic interplay
between language documentation and linguistic theory and analysis. In this case,
theoretical concerns (which were themselves a product of documentary efforts) will
play a catalyzing role in the future broadening of the Caning documentary record.
Chapters 17 and 18 investigate properties of the Somali Chizigula (Mushunguli)
sound system. Chapter 17 deals with hiatus resolution and its exceptions in the
language. Hout provides another striking example of how a project with humble
and purely descriptive origins can feed theoretical/analytical inquiry, which in turn
Overview7
gives way to deeper and more refined characterizations of the data. Hout’s article
thus embodies the cyclic interplay and symbiosis between language documentation
and linguistic theory that lies at the heart of this volume. In c hapter 18, Temkin
Martinez and Rosenbaum examine the acoustic and aerodynamic properties of
Chizigula stops in an effort to complement the description and documentation of
stops in the language. Although traditional language descriptions and revitaliza-
tion efforts have benefited from instrumental approaches utilized in other fields of
linguistics, the techniques of instrumental phonetics are infrequently applied to the
documentation and analysis of Africa’s endangered languages. Temkin Martinez
and Rosenbaum’s work thus joins a select and highly welcome body of research
that helps sharpen the description and documentation of Africa’s least studied lan-
guages. Chapter 19 closes the book with a critical look at the relationship between
orthography and language documentation, as informed by the endangered Bantu
languages Nata and Ikoma, as well as Swahili. Gambarage argues that orthogra-
phies are “masks” that disguise and often misrepresent the true phonetic qualities
of vowels. He discusses current vowel documentation methodologies and theoret-
ical approaches in the context of Bantu, arguing that revisiting the orthographic
analyses of the languages that preceded both modern linguistic theory and speech
analysis is essential to the documentation and description of endangered Bantu
languages. Because unmasking is ultimately a theoretical/analytical endeavor, we
are once again face to face with an instance in which the interplay between linguis-
tic theory and language documentation leads to synergistic results in the study of
Africa’s endangered languages.
Notes
*
The present collection of articles grew out of the workshop Africa’s Endangered
Languages: Documentary and Theoretical Approaches, which took place at the University of
Kansas on April 17–19, 2014, in conjunction with the 45th Annual Conference on African
Linguistics. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the National Science
Foundation (NSF-DEL grant 1360823) for making the workshop possible. Thanks also to the
University of Kansas Department of Linguistics for providing logistical support. We would
also like to thank our wonderful editors, Hallie Stebbins and Hannah Doyle for helpful feed-
back, support, and guidance along the way. Finally, we thank the following individuals who
served as reviewers for the articles submitted to this volume: Mark Baker, Herman Batibo,
Lee Bickmore, Robert Botne, Matthias Brenzinger, Leston Buell, Michael Cahill, Roderic
Casali, Anderson Chebanne, Bruce Connell, Laura Downing, James Essegbey, Colleen
Fitzgerald, Carol Genetti, Jeff Good, Christopher Green, Heidi Harley, K. David Harrison,
John Haviland, Brent Henderson, Larry Hyman, Peter Jenks, Allard Jongman, Raimund
Kastenholz, Michael Kenstowicz, Ruth Kramer, Nancy Kula, Fiona McLaughlin, Amanda
Miller, Scott Myers, David Odden, Mary Paster, Gérard Philippson, Keren Rice, Sharon Rose,
Bonny Sands, Russell Schuh, Anne Storch, Mauro Tosco, Susi Wurmbrand, and Jochen Zeller.
1. See Sands (this volume, chap. 2) for other notable projects.
8 Africa’s Endangered Languages
2. See Sands (this volume, chap. 2) for an in-depth discussion of these unique challenges.
3. At the time of writing, Wikipedia’s list of endangered languages in Africa (https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_endangered_languages_in_Africa) is severely underpopu-
lated, containing a mere 210 sub-Saharan languages, whose threat levels range from “vul-
nerable” to “critically endangered.” By comparison, the figure reported in Ethnologue
(Lewis et al. 2013) is 346 (“at risk” languages) and Sands (this volume) estimates that a
more accurate figure is closer to 600. Many of the languages featured in this volume do
not appear on Wikipedia’s list, highlighting the dearth of accurate information publicly
available about Africa’s endangered languages.
4. Essegbey et al. (2015) represents a recent exception and, we believe, a step in the right
direction.
References
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extinction, biodiversity and the human knowledge base. Living Tongues Institute for
Endangered Languages Occasional Papers Series 1. Online: http://www.livingtongues.
org/docs/Hotspots_whitepaper%20copy.pdf. Salem, OR: Living Tongues Institute for
Endangered Languages.
Batibo, Herman. 2005. Language decline and death in Africa: Causes, consequences and
challenges. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Blench, Roger. 2007. Endangered languages in West Africa. Language diversity endan-
gered, ed. by Matthias Brenzinger, 140–162. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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Brenzinger, Matthias. 1998. Endangered languages in Africa. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
Brenzinger, Matthias. 2007a. Language diversity endangered. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Brenzinger, Matthias. 2007b. Language endangerment in southern and eastern Africa.
Language diversity endangered, ed. by Matthias Brenzinger, 179–204. Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter.
Brenzinger, Matthias, Bernd Heine, & Gabriele Sommer. 1991. Language death in
Africa. Diogenes 153.19–44.
Bruening, Benjamin. 2008a. Quantification in Passamaquoddy. Quantification: A cross-lin-
guistic perspective, ed. by Lisa Matthewson, 67–104. Bingley, UK: Emerald.
Bruening, Benjamin. 2008b. The Scope Fieldwork Project. Online: http://udel.edu/~bruening/
scopeproject/scopeproject.html
Childs, G. Tucker, Jeff Good, & Alice Mitchell. 2014. Beyond the ancestral code:
Towards a model for sociolinguistic language documentation. Language Documentation
and Conservation 8.168–191.
Clements, George. 1975. The logophoric pronoun in Ewe: Its role in discourse. Journal of
West African Languages 10.141–177.
Connell, Bruce. 2007. Endangered languages in Central Africa. Language diversity endan-
gered, ed. by Matthias Brenzinger, 163–178. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Overview9
Connell, Bruce. 2015. The role of colonial languages in language endangerment in Africa.
Language documentation and endangerment in Africa, ed. by James Essegbey, Brent
Henderson, & Fiona McLaughlin, 107–130. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Essegbey, James, Brent Henderson, & Fiona McLaughlin 2015. Language documenta-
tion and endangerment in Africa. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Everett, Daniel L. 2001. Monolingual field research. Linguistic fieldwork, ed. by Paul
Newman & Martha Ratliff, 166–188. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gil, David. 2001. Escaping Eurocentrism: Fieldwork as a process of unlearning. Linguistic
fieldwork, ed. by Paul Newman & Martha Ratliff, 102–132. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Grenoble, Lenore A., & Lindsay J. Whaley. 1998. Towards a typology of language
endangerment. Endangered languages: Current issues and future prospects, ed. by Lenore
A. Grenoble & Lindsay J. Whaley, 22–54. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Haarmann, Harald. 2001. Die Kleinsprachen der Welt- Existenzbedrohung und
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Oluseye Adesola, 21–41. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
Hyman, Larry M. 2009. Good things come in small languages: Grammatical loss and inno-
vation in Nzadi. Proceedings of Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic
Theory 2, ed. by Peter K. Austin et al., 3–11. London: School of Oriental and African
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the world. 17th ed. Dallas, TX: SIL International.
Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, & Charles D. Fennig. 2015. Ethnologue: Languages of
the world. 18th ed. Dallas, TX: SIL International.
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of American Linguistics 70.369–415.
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10 Africa’s Endangered Languages
Sommer, Gabriele. 1992. A survey on language death in Africa. Language death: Factual
and theoretical explorations, with special reference to East Africa, ed. by Matthias
Brenzinger, 301–417. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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2
2.1. Introduction
Continent-
wide surveys: Batibo 2005, Brenzinger 1992, 1998a, 1998b,
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.
12 Africa’s Endangered Languages
Languages that are in urgent need of documentation include those that may not be
spoken by future generations. One way to measure this is by using a vitality scale such
as the Extended Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) (Simons &
Lewis 2013)
The web edition of Ethnologue 17 (Lewis et al. 2013) uses EGIDS to label 346
African languages as “vital,” “in trouble,” or “dying,” as shown in Table 2.1. A lan-
guage is counted as “in trouble” if it falls under 6b or 7 in the EGIDS—that is, it
is known by the child-bearing generation but transmitted to only some or none of
youngest generation.
Most African languages fall into one of the three EGIDS categories: 6a “vigor-
ous,” 6b “threatened,” and 7 “shifting,” shown in Table 2.2.2 “Vigorous” languages
are those still being learned by children; “threatened” languages are passed on to
only some children; and “shifting” languages are no longer passed on to children
but are known by the child-bearing generation. A language is not considered “mor-
ibund” or “nearly extinct” until the only remaining speakers are of the grandparen-
tal generation.
Many languages labeled “vigorous” or “developing” actually show signs
of language shift, particularly as populations migrate to urban centers (e.g.
TABLE 2.1. Numbers of African languages at different risk levels (Lewis et al. 2013).
Region # of living languages Vital In trouble Dying
TABLE 2.2.Levels 6–7 of the Expanded GIDS (Simons & Lewis 2013), adapted
from Fishman (2001) (boldface added).
GIDS Level Label Description UNESCO
Mugaddam 2012). For instance, even a large (7 million speakers) developing lan-
guage such as Gĩkũyũ is seeing language shift to Kiswahili (Orcutt-Gachiri 2013).
If only some of the child-bearing generation are transmitting it to their children,
then it would seem that Gĩkũyũ could be labeled “threatened.” One study of 800
Nigerians found that only 40% spoke to their children in their indigenous lan-
guage (Ohiri-Aniche 2008), but another study saw only 18% retention of mother
tongue among urban dwellers (Ndimele 2005). Major Nigerian languages such
as Yoruba and Igbo have begun to show signs of shift and attrition (Adéníyi &
Béllò 2009; Ugorji 2005; Fabunmi & Salawu 2005; Fabunmi 2005). Ethnologue
18 (Lewis et al. 2015) now defines a “vigorous” language as one “used for face-
to-face communication by all generations and the situation is sustainable.” It is
unclear how the term “sustainable” is applied; if a language consistently loses
speakers from one generation to the next, then its vitality level may not be sus-
tainable over time.3 The label “threatened” is not such a rare commodity that
only the most endangered of languages can be referred to in this way. Indeed,
even relatively “vigorous” languages that are losing speakers may benefit from
language maintenance and revitalization efforts.
Of course, the level of threat faced by Gĩkũyũ is not as high as it would be for
a language with a much smaller population, or for one losing a greater proportion
of speakers due to shift. If only 10% of the children of a language group with a
million speakers continue to use the language, that language would have 100,000
speakers in the youngest generation, and would therefore be less threatened than a
language with 1,000 speakers, whether undergoing some degree of language shift or
not. Though the absolute number of speakers and proportion of speakers within
a community are considered by UNESCO to be factors that affect language vital-
ity (UNESCO 2003), these criteria are not explicitly used in major publications
such as UNESCO’s Atlas of the world’s languages in danger (Moseley 2010) or in
Ethnologue 17. Ethnologue 18 (Lewis et al. 2015) does consider speaker population
and ethnic population in evaluating language endangerment.
14 Africa’s Endangered Languages
language of Angola long considered dead (Winter 1981), may instead be considered
“dormant.” As of 2014, it was still partially remembered by two people who had
used it as a secret language when they were children (Anne-Maria Fehn, personal
communication, March 7, 2014).
While Ethnologue identifies many threatened African languages, it does not accu-
rately identify all of them. The EGIDS labels cannot be blindly used to determine
the vitality of a language or to set language documentation priorities. An “extinct”
language may be extant, or a “vigorous”/“developing” language may already have
lost a significant number of speakers and shown signs of language obsolescence.
Some of the languages most under threat are those spoken by marginalized commu-
nities and/or by populations whose lifestyles are threatened. For instance, the G|ui
(Ethnologue code [gwi]) and G||ana [gnk] languages of Botswana are listed as “vig-
orous” in Ethnologue even though their populations are estimated to be only 2,500
and 2,000, respectively, and the actual numbers may be quite a bit lower; Brenzinger
(2013:19) cites figures of 1,470 |Gui and 1,030 G||ana, while Batibo (2001:315) gives
population figures of 500 and 800. Some 1,000 G|ui and G||ana lived by hunting and
gathering in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (Tanaka & Sugawara 2010), but
evictions from the park have threatened the traditional linguistic ecology in which
the languages have been maintained. We are fortunate that a great deal of work
has been done on G|ui by Hirosi Nakagawa and others, and a dictionary of G|ui
is in progress (Nakagawa et al. 2013), but other languages spoken by marginalized
populations such as the ǂHaba, Shua and Cire-Cire have not been so well docu-
mented. We certainly cannot blindly follow the labels provided by Ethnologue 17 if
a language spoken by a thousand hunter-gatherers is not considered “threatened.”
Naro [nhr] is one of the most vital of the Khoe languages, being spoken by
some 14,000 speakers according to Ethnologue (Lewis et al. 2013), which lists it as
a “language of wider communication,” reflecting the fact that many ǂAu||eisi use
Naro in addition to their own Ju language. Ranking 3 on the GIDS scale, this lan-
guage might not seem to be in as desperate need of documentation as more threat-
ened languages, yet Naro, G|ui and other Remote Area Dwellers in Botswana lack
equal access to education (Hays 2004; Sekere 2011) and political representation,
and Naro is not what I would consider an entirely “safe” language.4 Furthermore,
although Naro is listed as having several dialects, none of these has been the subject
of a linguistic documentation project. Although a few Ts’aokhwe words have been
noted in the Naro dictionary (Visser 2001), the Ts’aokhwe reportedly “prefer to
see themselves as separate people from the Naro” (Barnard 1985:2). Kango [kzy], a
Bantu language of the Democratic Republic of Congo spoken by Pygmies, is listed
as “vigorous” in Ethnologue 17—with perhaps only 2,000 speakers; very little is
known about either dialect of this language.
16 Africa’s Endangered Languages
The size of a population that speaks a language may be one indicator of the lan-
guage’s vitality. Batibo (2005:69) suggests considering minority languages spoken
by fewer than 5,000 people to be endangered. Because downward population pres-
sures such as disease, climate change, and armed conflict may affect the number
of a language’s users suddenly (cf. Lüpke & Storch 2013), it would be prudent to
consider any language with a population under 5,000 to be threatened. Given the
often abrupt nature of language shift, it might be even more prudent to consider
languages with populations below 100,000 to be threatened. Certainly, outside
of Africa, languages with larger populations are classified as “threatened.” For
instance, Navajo is cited in Ethnologue as having a population of 171,000 (2010
census) and is considered “threatened.” Studies of language shift are not availa-
ble for many African language groups, yet we know that the trends of population
movement, urbanization, education policies, and so on are in the direction of more,
rather than less, language shift.
There is evidence that many of the languages labeled “vital” actually are threat-
ened by language shift. For one thing, many supposedly vital languages have small
populations. For another, languages labeled “vital” have actually appeared in the
literature as examples of language endangerment, obsolescence, or marginaliza-
tion. Examples include Qimant [ahg] (Zelealem Leyew 1998), Iko [iki] (Urua 2004),
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Camphorated Oil, nine drachms:
Mix for a Liniment. For an adult, four drachms of the former, and eight of
the latter, may be used. If the child be young, or if the skin be very tender, the
camphorated oil may be used without the turpentine.
259. Wilson, on Healthy Skin.
260. Rain water ought always to be used in the washing of a child; pump-
water is likely to chap the skin, and to make it both rough and irritable.
261. Sometimes, if the child’s skin be very irritable, the glycerin requires
diluting with water—say, two ounces of glycerin to be mixed in a bottle with four
ounces of spring water—the bottle to be well shaken just before using it.
262. One frequent, if not the most frequent, cause of tape-worm is the eating
of pork, more especially if it be underdone. Underdone pork is the most
unwholesome food that can be eaten, and is the most frequent cause of tape-worm
known. Underdone beef also gives tape-worm; let the meat, therefore, be well and
properly cooked. These facts ought to be borne in mind, as prevention is always
better than cure.
263. The Grocer.
264. Shakspeare.
265. Tennyson.
266. Every house where there are children ought to have one of these india-
rubber hot water bottles. It may be procured at any respectable vulcanized india-
rubber warehouse.
267. South’s Household Surgery.
268. “It has been computed that upwards of 1000 children are annually
burned to death by accident in England.”
269. The cotton wool here recommended is that purposely made for surgeons,
and is of a superior quality to that in general use.
270. If there be no other lard in the house but lard with salt, the salt may be
readily removed by washing the lard in cold water. Prepared lard—that is to say,
lard without salt—can, at any moment, be procured from the nearest druggist in
the neighborhood.
271. See the Lancet for October 10th, 17th, and 24th, 1840.
272. A stick of pointed nitrate of silver, in a case, ready for use, may be
procured of any respectable chemist.
273. Which may be instantly procured of a druggist, as he always keeps it
ready prepared.
274. A Bee-master. The Times, July 28, 1864.
275. Shaw’s Medical Remembrancer, by Hutchinson.
276. A tepid bath from 62 to 96 degrees of Fahrenheit.
277. A warm bath from 97 to 100 degrees of Fahrenheit.
278. Health. By John Brown, M.D. Edinburgh: Alexander Strahan & Co.
279. Several years ago, while prosecuting my anatomical studies in London
University College Dissecting-rooms, on opening a young woman, I discovered an
immense indentation of the liver large enough to admit a rolling-pin, entirely
produced by tight lacing!
280. Dryden.
281. Sir W. Temple.
282. Goldsmith’s Essays.
283. Geoffry Hamlyn. By H. Kingsley.
284. Proverbs, xx. 29.
285. “I would have given him, Captain Fleming, had he been my son,” quoth
old Pearson the elder, “such a good sound drubbing as he never would have
forgotten—never!”
“Pooh! pooh! my good sir. Don’t tell me. Never saw flogging in the navy do
good. Kept down brutes; never made a man yet.”—Dr. Norman Macleod in Good
Words, May, 1861.
286. The Birmingham Journal.
287. A Woman’s Thoughts about Women.
288. If a girl has an abundance of good nourishment, the school-mistress
must, of course, be remunerated for the necessary and costly expense; and how
this can be done on the paltry sum charged at cheap boarding-schools? It is utterly
impossible! The school-mistress will live, even if the girls be half-starved. And
what are we to expect from poor and insufficient nourishment to a fast-growing
girl, and at the time of life, remember, when she requires an extra quantity of good
sustaining, supporting food? A poor girl, from such treatment, becomes either
consumptive or broken down in constitution, and from which she never recovers,
but drags out a miserable existence. A cheap boarding-school is dear at any price.
289. A horse-hair mattress should always be preferred to a feather bed. It is
not only better for the health, but it improves the figure.
290. Spare Hours. By John Brown, M.D., F.R.S.E.
291. Household Verses on Health and Happiness. London: Jarrold and Sons.
292. Hurdis’s Village Curate.
293. Shakspeare.
294. Todd’s Student’s Guide.
295. Sir Astley Cooper’s Lectures on Scrofula.
296. I. Chronicles, xxi. 13.
297. A. K. H. B., Fraser’s Magazine, October, 1861.
298. Shakspeare.
299. The Times, May 16, 1867.
300. Winter in the South of Europe. By J. Henry Bennett. Third Edition.
London: Churchill and Sons, 1865.
301. A wineglassful of barm, a wineglassful of vinegar, and the remaining sage
tea, to make a half-pint bottle of gargle.
302. December 10, 1864.
303. Shakspeare knew the great importance of not crowding around a patient
who has fainted. He says:
304. For the best way of stewing prunes, see page 1258.
305. Professor Trousseau in Medical Circular, Feb. 5, 1862.
306. Exodus, v. 12.
307. Wilson on Healthy Skin.
308. Four poppy-heads and four ounces of chamomile blows to be boiled in
four pints of water for half an hour, and then to be strained to make the
fomentation.
309. Cut a piece of bread, about the size of the little finger—without breaking
it into crumb—pour boiling hot milk upon it, cover it over, and let it stand for five
minutes, then apply the soaked bread over the gum-boil, letting it rest between the
cheek and the gum.
310. As long as fashion, instead of common sense, is followed in the making of
both boots and shoes, men and women will as a matter of course suffer from corns.
It has often struck me as singular, when all the professions and trades are so
overstocked, that there should be, as there is in every large town, such a want of
chiropodists (corn-cutters)—of respectable chiropodists—of men who would
charge a fixed sum for every visit the patient may make; for instance, to every
working-man a shilling, and to every gentleman half a crown or five shillings for
each sitting, and not for each corn (which latter system is a most unsatisfactory
way of doing business). I am quite sure that if such a plan were adopted, every
town of any size in the kingdom would employ regularly one chiropodist at least.
However we might dislike some few of the American customs, we may copy them
with advantage in this particular—namely, in having a regular staff of chiropodists
both in civil and in military life.
311. Youth—Ablution, page 1321.
312. A very small quantity of pure nitric acid—just a drain at the bottom of a
stoppered bottle—is all that is needed, and which may be procured of a chemist.
313. Dublin University Magazine.
314. The Round Table.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and
variations in spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings
as printed.
3. Reindexed footnotes using numbers and collected
together at the end of the last chapter.
4. Renumbered pages “Advice to a Mother” by adding
1000.
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