The Gorwaa Noun Phrase: Toward a Description of the Gorwaa Language
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.
Gorwaa (South-Cushitic, Afro-Asiatic) is an undocumented language, spoken by approximately 15,000 individuals in Babati District, Manyara Region, Tanzania. Gorwaa is accorded no formal status in Tanzania, and is banned from use in important public domains. This project will build a corpus based on culturally rich oral arts including stories, riddles, prayers and songs, which will be used for further documentation and descriptive work. The project will culminate in the completion of my PhD thesis: a detailed examination of the noun phrase which will lay the foundation for the future creation of a Gorwaa reference grammar and dictionary.
Primary investigator: Andrew Harvey
Project Details
Location: Tanzania, Eastern Africa, Africa
Organiser(s):
Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
Project partner(s): SOAS, University of London
Funder(s):
Arcadia
Funding received: £46,055.00
Commencement Date: 01/2011
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