A usage-based grammar of Cuvok with focus on documenting the endangered social role of blacksmiths of the Tchouvok community.
The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create multimedia collection of endangered languages. These collections are preserved and made freely available through the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) housed at the library of SOAS University of London.
Cuvok is a Central Chadic language spoken in the Far North Region of Cameroon. Tchouvok traditional society pivots around blacksmiths, who play a number of other key social roles: doctor, metalworker, mortician, mind-reader, and midwife. With the introduction of Islam, Christianity and modernism, the knowledge possessed by the blacksmith is no longer transmitted to the younger generation. This documentation project is integrated into my PhD research, which aims at a usage-based grammatical description of Cuvok. Much of my corpus will be composed of video recordings. Ethnographic notes will complement my annotated texts.
Primary investigator: Dadak Ndokobai
Project Details
Location: Cameroon, Middle Africa, Africa
Organiser(s):
Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
Project partner(s): The University of Maroua, Cameroon
Funder(s):
Arcadia
Funding received: £35,571.00
Commencement Date: 01/2010
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