From Description to Standard Orthography and Pedagogic Grammar in the Revitalisation Process of Endangered Languages : the case of "Bembele"
Keywords:
Culture, african languages, linguistics, bantu languages, Bembele language, orthography, phonology, morphology, syntax, grammarSynopsis
This work entitled “From Description to Standard Othography and Pedagogic Grammar in the Revitalisation Process of Endangered Languages: the case of Bә̀mbәlә̀” Bantu (A40) aims at showing how a language could be efficiently revitalised by describing, establishing orthographic principles, organising literacy activities and proposing teaching materials like the pedagogical grammar, through the immersion of the researcher in the natural milieu of the language. The work focuses on Bә̀mbәlә̀. The analysis of the study passes through the different stages of language description, language standardisation and development, and the total immersion of the researcher in the community of the language he is studying. Furthermore, to be systematic, the contents have been divided in two main parts. The first part of the work deals with language description. Through the structural approach, the phonological, morphological and syntactic systems of the language are established. Bә̀mbәlә̀ has 15 phonemic vowels, 48 phonemic consonants and 4 tonemes made up of 2 level tones (High, Low) and 2 contour tones (HL, LH), with V, CV and CVC syllable structures, the most prominent in the language. Based on the agreement pattern generated by the head noun in a syntactic chain, mainly on its modifiers, we arrived at the conclusion that the language has 8 noun classes, although Guthrie argues that Bantu (A) languages cannot have less than 10 classes. Bә̀mbәlә̀ organises and expresses the different actions on the axis of the present, the past and the future. Each period is characterised by at least one tense. Tense, aspect and mood are so linked in the language that their separation could lead to some incongruities. As an SVO language, a Bә̀mbәlә̀ complete simple sentence can be made up of an NP, a VP and (PP). The last constituent, notably the (PP), is most often optional, a superfluous constituent whose suppression could not affect sentence grammaticality, although it could affect its semantic core to an extent. The second part of the work focuses on standardisation, immersion approach and pedagogical grammar. Here, the examination of the writing system of the language reveals that it is composed of 35 graphemes made up of vowels, consonants and tones. The whole writing and reading principles of the language are elaborated through the choice of a standard reference dialect: manyɔ̀k spoken in Bibey. The total immersion approach adopted for the promotion of the standard model developed has allowed the training of local people in reading and writing their language and to set a provisional frame of reference which will enable them to protect the norms, and to promote the language. This approach and the training of community members, have led to the elaboration of the guidelines for writing a pedagogic grammar in African languages. The guidelines are then followed by the production of a sample of the pedagogic grammar of the language under revitalisation. The work shows that the researcher, together with the native linguistic community within / with which he is working, must work hand in hand to consolidate and reinforce the revitalisation of the language. The outcome of such a piece of research is three dimensionally beneficial: first and foremost to the linguistic community, then to the researcher and finally to the scientific community. In sum, this work is a sound contribution to the search for a model for elaborating pedagogic grammars from descriptive grammars.
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