Projekt

The project aims at documenting Akie, a highly endangered Kalenjin language (Southern Nilotic , Nilo-Saharan), which is virtually unknown. Akie is spoken by hunter-gatherers in three villages of northern Tanzania, where they live among the Maa (Eastern Nilotic pastoralists, Nilo-Saharan) with whom they have largely merged culturally and linguistically. Among the approximately 2,500 Akie people, there are roughly 80 adults (plus an unknown number of children) left who still speak the language to some extent. Recently, Akie has undergone growing influence of the national language of Tanzania, Swahili. The language will be documented in audio and video recordings in a variety of speech events, covering conversations, folktales, songs, oral traditions, proverbs, riddles, etc. Special attention will be paid to the intimate interaction of Akie people as traditional hunter-gatherers with nature (bee-keeping and exploiting wild plants for a variety of vital uses) and gender-related issues (food and its preparation, child care and traditional medicine, initiation rites, hunting).

• Prof. Dr. Rainer Voßen

  Universität Frankfurt am Main
  FB 09 Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaften
  Institut für Afrikanische Sprachwissenschaften
  Frankfurt am Main
  

• Prof. em. Dr. Karsten Legère

  University of Gothenburg
  Humanities Faculty
  Department of Languages and Literatures
  Göteborg
  Schweden
  

• Prof. Dr. Christa König

  Universität Frankfurt am Main
  Sprach und Kulturwissenschaften
  Institut für Afrikanische Sprachwissenschaften
  Frankfurt am Main