Languages of the World - Nilo-Saharan - Will Styler, Fall 2014

<lang>Zarma</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

# Nilo-Saharan Languages
### LING 1020 - Will Styler

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### Administrative Note

* For Monday, a new lecture topic: **"English is a linguistic trainwreck (like every other language!)"**

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## Today's Agenda

* Why typology is *really* hard in Africa

* "Nilo-Saharan"

* Two common features in African Languages

* Songhay languages/Zarma

* Luo

* Kuliak

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Although I haven't said it explicitly, this course is all about **Typology**

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### Language Typology

The process of comparing languages and establishing relationships and universals among them

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### Typology lets us make claims

* Sometimes, these claims are regional

* "Turkic languages are agglutinative"

* "Semitic languages use template morphology"

* Sometimes, they're universal

* "Languages with SOV order are postpositional"

* "If a language has the category of gender, it always has the category of number."

* These are from [Greenberg's Universals](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenberg's_linguistic_universals)

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Typological information is useful, but requires hard work!

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### The Typology process

* 1) Pick an area to study

* 2) Get as much language data as you can from that area

* 3) Start comparing and finding links and patterns

* 4) Use those links and patterns to establish relationships

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### Step 2 is a problem for African languages

* "Get as much language data as you can from that area"

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### Indo-European - "As much data as you can get"

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### African Languages - "As much data as you can get"

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This is an even bigger problem for Africa because...

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### Africa is big

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### There's lots of linguistic diversity

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### Linguistic diversity in Africa

* 1.1 *billion* people live in Africa

* 2000+ languages spoken in Africa (much higher, by some estimates)

* Nigeria alone has 500+ languages

* Entire *families* of languages are endangered

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### Travel to Africa is complicated (in some places)

* 20 out of 54 countries currently have US State Department Travel Warnings

* Corruption is often a problem

* Getting to your language's speakers from a transit hub is non-trivial

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### Language documentation is hard once you get there

* Sam Beer is going to talk all about that.

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### So, we know a lot less about African languages than we'd like to.

* There's less data to compare, less research being done, and less funding to pay for it.

* This means that our language groupings are a bit looser in Africa than elsewhere.

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... but we still do our best!

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### Africa has four main language families

* Afroasiatic

* Nilo-Saharan

* Niger-Congo

* Khoisan

* These were first laid out in Greenberg's 1963 "The Languages of Africa"

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### ... but we're not quite sure about two of them

* Afroasiatic and Niger-Congo are pretty well accepted

* Khoisan has all the vaguely isolating, clicky languages Greenberg couldn't place elsewhere

* Nilo-Saharan has been called "Greenberg's Trashcan", as it has the rest

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## ... but these classifications are the best we've got!

* So, we'll run with them.

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Today, we're working with...

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# Nilo-Saharan Languages!

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### Nilo-Saharan

* Spoken by ~39 million (or more!) speakers

* Loosely grouped, typologically speaking

* The evidence for Nilo-Saharan relies more on cognates than shared features

* Very diverse (almost as much so as IE)

* Contains some important (and cool!) languages and families

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### Nilo-Saharan Languages

* Luo (~6 million speakers)

* Kanuri (4 million speakers)

* Songhay (3.2 million speakers)

* Maasai (1 million speakers)

* Kuliak subgroup (~15,000 speakers)

* 10,000 speakers of Ik, 5,000 of Soo

* ... and many, many more that we don't have time to even mention.
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### Features of Nilo-Saharan Languages

* Singulative/Collective Number System

* ...

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### Features of Nilo-Saharan Languages

Singulative/Collective Number System

...

<audio data-autoplay src="humorimg/cricket.mp3"></audio>
 
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### Singulative/Collective Number System

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### English is a "Singular/Plural" system

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"Bad movie"

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"Bad movie***s***"

* This is called a **plural** form

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(Armageddon was OK, I guess)

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The default for a word in Singular/Plural systems is singular.

* If you want plural, **you have to add a morpheme**

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In a Singulative-Collective System, **the default is plural**

* If you want singular, **you have to add a morpheme**

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ŋɛɛti 'lice'

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ŋɛɛti-n 'louse'.

* This is called a **singulative form**

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So, in Nilo-Saharan Languages, plural is usually the default, and singular needs to be marked.

* (but even this isn't always the case)

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Beyond that, there aren't really specific features *across* Nilo-Saharan.

* **... but there are some features present in *many* Nilo-Saharan languages**

* (and lots of other African languages)

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### Two Common Features of African Languages

* Level-based tone systems

* ATR Vowel Systems and Harmony

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## Level Tone

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## Tone

Changes in pitch during the word change the meaning of the word

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### There are two types of Tone Language

* Level (or "register") tone - Tone is categorized by pitch "levels"

* "High", "Low", "Mid", "Rise", "Fall"

* Contour Tone - Tone is categorized by shape and *pattern* of pitch

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### Vietnamese Tone Contours

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### Level Tone

* Very common in African languages

* Usually "High" and "Low"

* Sometimes "Mid", or "Rising", or "Falling"

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<lang>Zarma (Djerma)</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

Yesterday - "bi"

Wound - "bi"

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(Zarma also has rise and fall, but I couldn't find recordings of it)
 
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### Tone is not intonation!

* Tone is a property of the word

* In Zarma, "bí" for "Yesterday" *must* have a higher pitch.

* Intonation does not change the meaning of a morpheme

* It can change the meaning in a sentence, though!

* English has intonation, but not tone!

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Now, our other feature...

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## ATR-based Vowel Systems

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### ATR ("Advanced Tongue Root")

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### ATR

* Vowels with Advanced Tongue Root are "+ATR"

* Vowels without ATR are "-ATR"

* Similar to the difference between the English /i ɪ/ ("beet" vs. "bit"), /u ʊ/ ("boot" vs. "book")

* This is called "Tense vs. Lax" in English

* In ATR languages, it's *really* important

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<lang>Dholuo</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan - Kenya/Tanzania</ldata>

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### ATR Harmony

When all vowels in the word *must* be either +ATR or -ATR

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<lang>Karamojong</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan - Uganda</ldata>

ɑkɪdɔŋ - "to castrate"

* ɑkidoŋ-okin - "for castration"

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**ATR Harmony is common throughout Africa**

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### Features of Nilo-Saharan Languages

* Singulative-Collective Number Systems

* ...

* ### Common features of African languages

* ATR in vowel systems

* Level tones!

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*"Uh, OK... but why did you use "to castrate" as an example there?"*

**Because it's the best example I found**

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## This represents a truth of field linguistics

* "The sentence you need when doing Linguistic fieldwork will often end up being awkward, embarassing, or absurd."

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**Actual Sentences Elicited during 'Field Methods' in the CU Linguistics Department, Spring 2007**

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<lang>Zarma</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

*ai feidzi woy de no yon go*

'This is indeed my female sheep there'

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<lang>Zarma</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

*a goga dei feidzi za susube za kalichini*

'He was sheep-buying from morning to night'

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<lang>Zarma</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

*ai do: na ginə kar*

'I used to be hitting you (regularly)'

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<lang>Zarma</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

*ai ginə kar chei bo:bo:*

'I will be hitting you regularly in the future'

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<lang>Zarma</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

*fawoka na feidziyama bío: kar*

'The butcher hit the bad black sheep'

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<lang>Zarma</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

*ai go fu:*

'I am at home'

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<lang>Zarma</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

*ai ga fu:*

'I am going to fart'

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(OK, let's learn something not obscene in Zarma!)

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### Zarma ("Djerma")

* Nilo-Saharan, spoken in Niger

* Around 2 million speakers!

* The most widely spoken Songhay language

* SOV order

* Vowel length

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### Cool Noun Form System!

<center>
<style type="text/css">
.tg  {border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0;}
.tg td{font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;}
.tg th{font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-weight:normal;padding:10px 5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;overflow:hidden;word-break:normal;}
.tg .tg-lt3p{font-size:22px}
.tg .tg-2662{font-weight:bold;font-size:22px}
</style>
<table class="tg">
  <tr>
    <th class="tg-lt3p"></th>
    <th class="tg-2662">Indefinite</th>
    <th class="tg-2662">Definite</th>
    <th class="tg-2662">Demonstrative</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tg-2662">Singular</td>
    <td class="tg-lt3p">-∅</td>
    <td class="tg-lt3p">-ǒ or -ǎ</td>
    <td class="tg-lt3p">-ô</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tg-2662">Plural</td>
    <td class="tg-lt3p">-yáŋ</td>
    <td class="tg-lt3p">-ěy</td>
    <td class="tg-lt3p">-êy</td>
  </tr>
</table>
</center>

* There is no gender, even in pronouns!

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<lang>Zarma</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan:Songhay - Niger</ldata>

<audio data-autoplay src="lotwimg/Zarma_Narrative.mp3"></audio>
 
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<lang>Dholuo</lang><br><ldata>Nilo-Saharan - Kenya</ldata>

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### Dholuo ("Luo")

* Spoken by around 3.5 million people in Kenya and Tanzania

* ATR Harmony

* Level Tone

* Differentiates "Alienable" and "Inalienable" possession

* You use a different word for "My arm" and "My laptop"

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### Dholuo

*cho-go guok*

bone-POSS.ALI dog

'the dog's bone' (which it is eating)

*cho-k dhiang*

bone-POSS.INALI cow

'a cow bone'

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### The Kuliak Languages

* A sub-family of Nilo-Saharan, three languages

* Ik - 10,000 speakers

* Soo - 500 speakers and falling

* N'yangi - ~1 speaker

* Sam Beer will be talking about his (mis)adventures in Kuliak next Wednesday

* Sam is awesome.

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### Wrapping Up!

* Typology is tough

* ... especially when you don't know about many of the languages

* Africa's got four main language families (we think)

* Nilo-Saharan is big, and diverse

* ATR and Tone are common in African language

* Zarma is awesome

* .. and "I'm at home" is *ai **go** fu:*

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## Next time: Niger-Congo Languages, and Khoisan!

<correct>Pereltsvaig Ch. 6.2 and 6.3</correct>

<danger>This has changed on the schedule!</danger>
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<huge>Thank you!</huge>