Projekt

This follow-up project aims at finalizing the documentation of the Taa language complex which belongs to the Tuu family (generally known as the southern branch of South African Khoisan) and is spoken by a few hundred socially and economically marginalized speakers in Namibia and Botswana. The two Namibian varieties under investigation by the DoBeS team are West !Xoon and 'N|ohan. The linguistic differences between the two varieties are found to be much greater than expected. Both had previously not been subject to in-depth research and documentation. At the same time, the speakers of these two varieties are socially heavily intermingled and depend sociopolitically on each other in many ways, cooperating, but at the same time competing for the same resources and constantly in a struggle to mark themselves off at the expense of the other group. The project aims at the documentation of these different varieties, carried out by an interdisciplinary team of three linguists and one anthropologist. In linguistics, special emphasis is given to the identification of click parameters, the tonal system, semantic and morphosyntactic aspects of noun classification, and serial verb constructions. Anthropological research focusses on ethno-history, cultural mapping including land use and subsistence patterns, as well as selected aspects of social organization.

• Prof. Dr. Bernard Comrie

  Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre
  Anthropologie
  Abteilung für Linguistik
  Leipzig
  

• Prof. Dr. Roland Kießling

  Universität Hamburg
  Asien-Afrika-Institut
  Abteilung für Afrikanistik und Äthiopistik
  Hamburg
  

• Priv.-Doz. Dr. Tom Güldemann

  Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre
  Anthropologie
  Abteilung für Linguistik
  Leipzig