Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa

“This volume provides interesting new insights into the issue of language endangerment in Africa. It is a must-read for researchers working on endangered languages and documentation projects, especially within Africa, and would provide interesting insights for other researchers. The papers within this book would serve as an effective reference material for both undergraduate and post-graduate students who intend to work on documentation projects. The book also provides new ways of thinking and gives advice on numerous pitfalls to avoid. It seeks to provide a fresh perspective on the discourse on language endangerment and documentation, treating it from an Africanist perspective; it is assumed that, despite the fact that Africa is said to possess a third of the world’s languages, numerous of which are endangered, the literature does not properly reflect the African situation. The book is very readable and written in a conversational style, although good understanding of basic linguistic terminology is essential for proper understanding of its contents. Its emphasis on data-driven research is very commendable; and there is a strong connecting thread between all the papers in the book. They are all well-researched and based on practical fieldwork; and they reflect the theme of the book in discussing a wide range of issues pertinent to the study of African languages, like methodology, culture, ideology and typology of endangerment, the role of colonial languages in endangerment, the sociolinguistic situation of selected African languages, orthography design, language development and revitalization, challenges of documentation and so on. Overall, the book is concisely written and looks at the issue of language endangerment and documentation from a purely African perspective. The methodological and theoretical concerns in the book are a perfect complement to Brenzinger (1998), though the focus of Brenzinger is more on language endangerment than documentation.”