Documentation and description of Ikaan, a language in Southern Nigeria

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.

The project aims to produce a collection of annotated audio recordings of Ikaan, a Benue-Congo language spoken in Southern Nigeria. Ikaan is only sparsely described but a documentation and more thorough description have been initiated in 2006 with the help of a former ELDP grant.All recordings will be transcribed and translated, with at least 10% of the recordings annotated in detail. The audio corpus will be supplemented by an Ikaan-Yoruba-English dictionary of around 2000-3000 words, a sketch grammar and linguistic descriptions and analyses of the Ikaan tonal system and the Ikaan numeral system. Primary investigator: Sophie Salffner

Project Details


Location: Nigeria, Western Africa, Africa Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): SOAS, University of London Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £6,095.00 Commencement Date: 01/2003
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