ANTH 543 AFRICAN LANGUAGE STRUCTURES
J. David Sapir

Fall - 2006

MW 1530-1645 - Brooks Hall Library

This course will be run as a seminar for the most part. We will cover the following topics: Language Classification and Language History; phonology, morphology and syntax, following the chapters in African Languages.

Each student will pick a language and present discussions of it to the class. These discussions are to be written up in the form of a course paper. The course grade will be based on the paper and it oral presentation along with class participation. The latter will be taken very seriously. This is a small course and there is no reason whatsoever for a student to disappear into anonymity (the maxim "still waters run deep" will not be accepted! )

The choice of language will depend on certain variables starting with personal interest in a particular language and the availablity of sufficient materials (grammars, dictionaries, teaching texts, oral literature, etc.). Those of you who have a good command of French will have a much larger range of choices. And in certain cases German is important. For example, significant work in English, German and French is available on Pular (Fulbe) an intriguing language spoken across the Western Sudan from Senegal to the Central African Republic.

This course requires a familiarity with basic descriptive linguistics. Permission of Instructor required.

VAI script

Readings will be drawn from:

African Languages: An Introduction - Bernd Heine & Derek Nurse, editors

You will want to familiarize yourself with several journals devoted to Afiican Linguistics:

Journal of African languages and linguistics
The Journal of West African Languages
Journal of African Languages Studies in African linguistics

Note this very useful web address: www.ethnologue.com/web.asp

Presentations and writeup guide