Sakun (Sukur) language documentation project

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 Sakun (Sukur) Language Documentation Project will provide a discourse-based corpus of an endangered and undocumented language of the Mandara mountains, Nigeria.Sakun is spoken by approximately 15,000 people. Since the enlistment of Sukur in 1999 as aUNESCO Cultural Landscape, the increased contact following infrastructure development hascaused Sakun to give way to Hausa in a number of domains.Working with local stakeholders, this project will assemble a corpus that captures a broadrange of cultural practices identified as important by the community, and provide thefoundation for a grammar, dictionary and pedagogical materials to support the community'sown efforts at language maintenance. Primary investigator: Michael Thomas

Project Details


Location: Nigeria, Western Africa, Africa Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): University of Colorado, Boulder Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £29,993.00 Commencement Date: 01/2006
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