The languages of Tanzania

Coordinators

• Karsten Legère
• Henry R. T. Muzale
• Josephat M. Rugemalir

Participants

• Malin Petzell
• Eva-Marie Ström
• Christina Thornell
   

This endeavour was conceived in the Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics (FLL) of the University of Dar-es-Salaam (UDSM) in cooperation with colleagues from University of Gothenburg, in particular the Founding Professor of African Linguistics at the Department, Tore Janson.
The project has two major objectives. First it seeks to produce a language atlas showing the geographical location of the Tanzanian languages, number of speakers for each language, and the genetic classification of the languages in question.
Second, the project will produce a series of descriptive studies which will document the grammar and vocabulary of each of the languages spoken in Tanzania, excluding the already well-documented Swahili. The materials put together under this project will form the base of a Tanzanian languages archives.

The research team is led by Dr H.R.T. Muzale and Prof. J.M. Rugemalira of FLL, in collaboration with the African Linguistics group at University of Gothenburg, which was initially headed by Tore Janson and now by Karsten Legère.

The initial phase of the project was implemented from 2001 to 2004, the 2nd phase comes to an end in 2008. The entire project is financed by Swedish SIDA/SAREC.

For the Tanzanian part see Languages of Tanzania (LoT)

Publications, papers and reports (Swedish part)

for Tanzanian LoT publications

Legère, Karsten. 2002. The "Languages of Tanzania" project: background, resources and perspectives. In: Africa & Asia (Göteborg working papers on Asian and African languages and literatures), no 2, pp 163-186.

Legère, Karsten. 2003. Trilingual Ngh'wele-Swahili-English and Swahili-Ngh'wele-English wordlist. Dept of Oriental and African Languages, Göteborg University. Pp 81.PDF download (280 kb) 

Legère, Karsten. 2004. Vidunda people and their plant names. In Africa&Asia, 4, pp. 115-141.

Legère, Karsten. 2004. ”Simu ya mkononi” and ”ifungandedzi”. Against the myth of African languages lacking terminologies. In: Joachim Pfaffe (ed.) Making Multilingual Education a Reality for All. Proceedings of the Third International Conference of ADALEST, held at Sun’n’Sand, Mangochi, 30 August – 3 September 2004. Lilongwe and Zomba: GTZ and University of Malawi, Centre for Language Studies ISBN 99908‑69‑08‑1, pp. 37-58.

Legère, Karsten. 2005. Records of the independence struggle in Uhehe (Tanzania)/Kumbukumbu za kupigania Uhuru Uhehe (Tanzania). In: Africa & Asia, 5, pp. 142-156 (in English/Hehe and Swahili).

Legère, Karsten. 2005. Wordlists in the LoT project: Experiences from Ngh’wele. In: Occassional Papers in Linguistics Series, 1, pp. 168-178, Dar es Salaam: TUKI/LoT ISBN/ISSN: 9987691072 GUP 33276

Legère, Karsten. 2006. Language endangerment in Tanzania: Identifying and maintaining endangered languages. In: South African Journal of African Languages (SAJAL), 26 (3),.

Legère, Karsten. 2007. Vidunda (G38) as an Endangered Language?. Selected Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 43-54. ISBN/ISSN: 978-1-57473-420-1 GUP 48591

Legère, Karsten. 2007. Documenting the Vidunda language of Tanzania. Working Together for Endangered Languages: Research Challenges and Social Impacts (Proceedings of FEL XI). Bath: The Foundation for Endangered Languages. pp. 148-153. ISBN/ISSN: 978-0953824892 GUP 67575

Legère, Karsten. 2008. Plant names in the Tanzanian Bantu language Vidunda: Structure and (some) etymology. Selected Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project (forthc.).

Aho katali.../ Hapo zamani... Hadisi dza katali dza Chividunda/Hadithi za zamani za Kividunda (co-author Peter Mkwan’hembo) Ndanda: Ndanda Mission Press (pp. 120) (forthc.)

Baho umwaka... /Hapo zamani... Hadisi za katali za Ching’hwele/Hadithi za zamani za Kikwere (co-author Sh. Msumi) (pp 98) (forthc.)
 

Maho, Jouni & Bonny Sands. 2002 (Dec.). The languages of Tanzania: a bibliography. (Orientalia et africana gothoburgensia, no 17.) Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Pp ix, 428. ISBN 91-7346-454-6.

1. Introduction, 1
2. General reference works, 7
3. Asian languages, 25
4. Bantu languages (excluding Swahili), 44
5. (South) Cushitic languages, 318
6. Khoesan languages, 339
7. Nilotic languages, 358
8. Other languages, 394

Indexes, 401

Distributors & Orders
Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis
Box 222
SE-40530 Göteborg
Sweden

Maho, Jouni & Bonny Sands. 2002. The languages of Tanzania: a web links collection. Web-appendix to the above.

Petzell, M. (2007). A linguistic description of Kagulu. Göteborg: Department of Oriental and African languages. Doctoral thesis
GUP 56774

Petzell, M. (2008). Kagulu: Grammar, vocabulary and texts. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Publ. (Forthc.)

Ström, E-M. (2006). Morphonological alternations in the noun class prefixes of Ndengereko. MISS (Meddelanden fran Institutionen för svenska språket). 56 s. 163-179. GUP 54103
Ström, E-M. (2008). The situation of Ndengeleko: a coastal Tanzanian language (P10). Selected Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project 2008 (Forthc.)

Thornell, Christina. 2002. A preliminary sketch of time, aspect and mood in Kikerebe. In: Africa & Asia (Göteborg working papers on Asian and African languages and literatures), no 2, pp 125-147.

Thornell, Christina. 2004. The noun phrase in the Kerebe language. In: Globalisation and African languages: risks and benefits, pp 219-242. Edited by Katrin Bromber & Birgit Smieja. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.