Farming, food and yam: language and cultural practices among Ikaan speakers

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.

Ikaan, a dialect of Ukaan, is spoken in two villages in south-western Nigeria. This project will investigate phonetic and phonological variation among speakers based on a documentation of language around, knowledge of and practices in food, food production and farming, with a special focus on the New Yam Festival. Data will be collected by a linguist, a visual anthropologist and community members themselves. Project outputs include an annotated audiovisual documentation corpus with data from a wide range of speakers, but also an anthropological visual map and a series of short documentary films around the festival. 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: £117,618.00 Commencement Date: 01/2007
Project owner? Update this project



Related Projects

Archive Collage

Understanding Mandate Palestine through the publications and archive of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem

This project digitised 33000 pages of rare books (1619-1950) and archives (1919-1950) from the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, preserving endangered materials on M…

Explore project
EAP1402 Pub003

19th-century documents from the Peruvian asylum el Manicomio del Cercado

The Victor Larco Herrera Hospital in the centre of Lima, Peru, was closed in 1917. Its archives, dating back to 1859, consist of medical documentation as well as administrativ…

Explore project
EAP1306 Silk Museum

The Caucasian Silk Circle: Digitising Photo Collection of the State Silk Museum in Georgia

The State Silk Museum of Georgia holds the only documentary evidence of the practice of sericulture in the 19th century. Taken during expeditions of the Caucasian Sericulture …

Explore project