The book reviewed here is a collection of articles from the workshop “Africa's Endangered Languages: Documentary and Theoretical Approaches”, which took place in conjunction with the 45th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 45) at the University of Kansas on 17–19 April 2014. It should be mentioned and commended that work on this collection was completed within three years and published a year before the Proceedings of ACAL 45.
The book brings research on a number of endangered African languages to the forefront. As the editors point out the subject of language endangerment in Africa has not received equal attention to that in Australia, North Asia, and the Americas. In fact, only two books have been published in the last two decades on language endangerment in Africa. This volume is therefore a timely contribution that creates awareness of the endangerment situation of African languages and invites linguists and Africanists to work towards safeguarding them. As the subtitle indicates, the book seeks to encourage partnerships between documentary and theoretical perspectives to research on endangered languages in Africa and other parts of the world.
After the introduction (pp. 1–10), which offers a synopsis and highlights the symbiotic relationship between linguistic theory and language documentation, Bonny Sands discusses the challenges of documenting Africa's least-known languages (pp. 11–38) and argues that the level of language endangerment in Africa has generally been underrated. She concludes that the number of languages in urgent need of documentation in the continent is close to 600, and recommends that when setting priorities for language documentation in Africa, the vitality level of a language as reported by Ethnologue or UNESCO should be considered alongside other factors such as trending patterns in language use, proportion of speakers undergoing language shift, population movement, language attitudes, and the absolute number of speakers.
Chapters 3 to 6 are dedicated to the documentation and theoretical analysis of Nata, spoken in Tanzania. The Nata language and research project are introduced in chapter 3 (pp. 39–55), an account of tongue root harmony is given in chapter 4 (pp. 57–85), followed by that of nominal and verbal tone in chapter 5 (pp. 87–123) and, finally, a discussion of deverbal nominalizations in chapter 6 (pp. 125–44). The interplay between language documentation and linguistic theory in Nata is first outlined in Chapter 3 and illustrated in chapters 4–6.
The next two chapters focus on community-based approaches to African language documentation and revitalization. G. Tucker Childs discusses two frameworks of adult education, the programme-centric “Parking Lot” and the learner-centric “Busy Intersection”, and recommends the latter for language revitalization in Africa, based on a case study of Mani, an endangered language of Sierra Leone (pp. 145–64). Carlos M. Nash advocates collaboration between the researcher and the community in language documentation efforts in Africa since both academic and community goals are complementary and mutually beneficial (pp. 165–86).
The five subsequent chapters are dedicated to the documentation and analysis of syntax and morphology in a number of languages. Jason Kandybowicz and Harold Torrence focus on intervention effects on in situ interrogative constructions in Krachi, an endangered language of Ghana (pp. 187–205) while Peter Jenks and Sharon Rose investigate raising and control in Moro, an endangered language of the Republic of Sudan (pp. 207–35) and Chris Collins presents the linker in the Khoisan languages, as a vP-internal functional projection (pp. 237–66). Mamadou Bassene and Ken Safir go beyond mere descriptions of verb stem morphology in Eegimaa, an endangered language of Senegal, to uncover deeper underlying organizational principles (pp. 267–96) and Laura McPherson presents a case where the researcher goes through the entire cycle from fieldwork and data collection to descriptive analysis based on theoretical insights and back to fieldwork and further analysis of the (Ir)realis in Seenku, spoken in Burkina Faso (pp. 297–320). The overall point that runs across the five chapters is that fieldwork, data collection, descriptive analysis, and linguistic theory are complementary.
The last six chapters focus on the phonology and phonetics of endangered African languages. Michael R. Marlo studies tone and reduplication in the object-marking systems of Yao and Kuria (pp. 321–42) while Elizabeth C. Zsiga and One Tlale Boyer report on a natural experiment in learning an unnatural alternation based on contact between two languages of Botswana: Sebirwa and Setswana (pp. 343–66). Both illustrate that knowing about analogous patterns in other languages can lead to better interpretations of data in a language. Timothy M. Stirtz analyses the plosive system of Caning spoken in the Republic of Sudan (pp. 367–410) but expresses the need for more data in order to make analytical decisions between the three proposed analyses. Katherine Hout examines hiatus resolution and its exceptions in Somali Chizigula (pp. 411–26) while Michal Temkin Martinez and Vanessa Rosenbaum use acoustic and aerodynamic data to describe stops in the same language (pp. 427–47). Both illustrate how linguistic theory can contribute to documentation and revitalization efforts. Finally, Joash J. Gambarage offers clues on how to unmask Bantu vowel systems and argues that it is misleading to account for vowel alternations using orthographic vowels (pp. 449–84). His contribution shows how the interplay between linguistic theory and language documentation can lead to better descriptions of vowel systems of Africa's endangered languages.
The editors and contributors of this book's articles have successfully offered descriptive analyses of endangered languages spoken in some 14 African countries and shown how linguistic theory and language documentation are mutually beneficial. It is hoped that others working to safeguard Africa's endangered languages will expand this strategy to other parts of the continent given that the language situation is complex and vastly different from country to country.
