Documentation of Cifungwa Folktales

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.

Cifungwa [ISO 639-3 Ula] is an endangered Benue-Congo, West Kainji language that is spoken in the Ringa communities of Rafi Local Government area, Niger state, Nigeria (10°23'34.4"N 6°27'46.6"E). Due to war, migration and the political hegemony of the Hausa people, the speakers are generally shifting to speaking Hausa. As a result of this, various aspects of their culture (e.g. religion, folktales and music) are being forgotten. Only about 20 of 1000 speakers of Cifungwa currently practice their culture/religion. The project aims to document Cifungwa folktales with help from these few local practitioners. The result of the field research will be pictures, annotated audio, audiovisual data, a dictionary, and texts which will be made available to the community. In addition, my PhD thesis will be based on some aspects of the data. Primary investigator: Samuel Akinbo

Project Details


Location: Nigeria, Western Africa, Africa Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): University of British Columbia Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £8,060.00 Commencement Date: 01/2013
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