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Documentation of the Bantu language Mpiemo of the Central African Republic (A86c)

SND-ID: snd0940-1. Version: 1.0. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5878/001678

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Citation

Creator/Principal investigator(s)

Christina Thornell - University of Gothenburg, Department of Languages and Literatures

Research principal

University of Gothenburg - Department of Languages and Literatures rorId

Description

The overall aim of the study has been to document and preserve the minority language Mpiemo as well as to analyse it from a linguistic perspective. The language is spoken in some regions of the Central African Republic and Cameroon. The language is classified as A86c according to the Guthrie system and has approximately 29,000 speakers. When the project started there was a translation of the four gospels with a French-based orthography, but no other texts. The documentation has spanned several projects from 1998 onwards and has resulted in, amongst other things, a number of articles on Mpiemo phonetics, phonology, morphology as well as the publication of recorded speech together with transcripts and annotations and texts about the local wild plant life.

Purpose:

The purpose of the project has been to document and linguistically analyse the Central African language Mpiemo by means of varying subprojects.

Trilingual word list Mpiemo-French-English containing roughly 1,900 words and grammatical information like word class and noun class. The word list is an updated and extended version of the

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The overall aim of the study has been to document and preserve the minority language Mpiemo as well as to analyse it from a linguistic perspective. The language is spoken in some regions of the Central African Republic and Cameroon. The language is classified as A86c according to the Guthrie system and has approximately 29,000 speakers. When the project started there was a translation of the four gospels with a French-based orthography, but no other texts. The documentation has spanned several projects from 1998 onwards and has resulted in, amongst other things, a number of articles on Mpiemo phonetics, phonology, morphology as well as the publication of recorded speech together with transcripts and annotations and texts about the local wild plant life.

Purpose:

The purpose of the project has been to document and linguistically analyse the Central African language Mpiemo by means of varying subprojects.

Trilingual word list Mpiemo-French-English containing roughly 1,900 words and grammatical information like word class and noun class. The word list is an updated and extended version of the unpublished lists put together by Laurent Wanabetsina, Keith Beavon and Nkali Lazaro Mbaro (1986) and Lydia Lundström (197?). For the updates a number of native Mpiemo speakers, among others Abel Mabessimo and Zacharie Metekouli, have been consulted. They spoke the Mpiakoumbo and Kwabili dialects. The words in this list are phonological transcriptions. The dataset consists of the word list in an Excel file and sound recordings of the words. Show less..

Data contains personal data

No

Language

Method and outcome

Population

Mpiemo

Time period(s) investigated

1999 – 2008

Data format / data structure

Data collection
  • Time period(s) for data collection: 1998 – 2008
  • Source of the data: Population group
Geographic coverage

Geographic spread

Geographic location: Central African Republic

Geographic description: Nola, southwestern Central African Republic.

Administrative information

Responsible department/unit

Department of Languages and Literatures

Funding

  • Funding agency: Swedish Research Council
Topic and keywords

Research area

General language studies and linguistics (Standard för svensk indelning av forskningsämnen 2011)

Specific languages (Standard för svensk indelning av forskningsämnen 2011)

Language and linguistics (CESSDA Topic Classification)

Keywords

Minority languages, Folklore, Translation, Linguistics, Linguistic analysis, Mpiemo, Bantu languages, A86c, Endangered languages, Word list

Publications

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Thornell, C. ; Ankouma, O. ; Mabessimo, A. et al. (2007). Boulettes de graines de courge, pêche, hospitalité... Enregistrements transcrits et annotés pour une documentation du mpiemo (langue bantoue de la République Centrafricaine et du Cameroun). Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
Libris | Swepub | Institutional Repository
ISBN: 978-3-89645-281-8

Thornell, C. ; Bessamia, R. ; Metekouli, Z. (2005). Des plantes à l’état sauvage chez le people mpiemo: leurs noms et leurs usages. Göteborg: Göteborg University.
Libris
ISSN: 1404-8523

Tronnier, M. ; Thornell, C. (2000). On the initial aggregation of nasality and stops in the Bantu language Mpiemo, Proceedings. Fonetik 2000. The Swedish Phonetics Conference. May 24-26 2000-05-21. 2000 pp. 137-140.
Libris | Swepub | Institutional Repository
ISBN: 91-630-9647-1

Thornell, C. ; Tronnier, M. (1999). Morphological function, syllabic and phonetic form of nasal+plosive combinations in the Bantu language Mpiemo, Proceedings. Fonetik 99. The Swedish Phonetics Conference. June 2-4 1999. (1999) pp. 137-140.
Libris | Swepub | Institutional Repository
ISSN: 0349-1021

Thornell Christina & Yasuko Nagano-Madsén. 2004. Preliminaries to the phonetic structure of the Bantu language Mpiemo. In Africa & Asia, nr 4, pp 163-180. (Coauthor:). 17p.
Swepub | Institutional Repository
ISSN: 1650-2019

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Versions

Version 1.0. 2014-03-25

Version 1.0: 2014-03-25

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5878/001678

Published: 2014-03-25
Last updated: 2019-11-15