2009
XVIII, 206 pp.
3 maps, 6 oszillograms, 59 tables, appendix
Text language: English
Koalib is a Kordofanian language belonging to the Heibanian branch. It is spoken by at least 100,000 people currently or formerly living in Sudan’s South Kordofan province. This book is devoted to the phonology of Koalib and has successive chapters dealing with its vowels, consonants, tonal system, syllabic structure, and orthographic traditions. This volume is the first part of a detailed, systematic description of this language. It will be followed by others on the morphology, syntax, and lexicon of Koalib.
The dialect chosen for this study is Rere, spoken around the town of Abri in the heart of the Koalib linguistic area. This Phonology of Koalib Language, the first of ist kind, is essential reading for everyone interested in the history, comparative studies, and classification of African languages.
About the authors:
Nicolas Quint was born at Poitiers (France) in 1970. He has a doctorate in linguistics from Université Paris III – La Sorbonne Nouvelle and is also a qualified agronomist. Since 2000, he has been working on the description of Koalib and currently holds the post of a “Directeur de Recherche en Linguistique Africaine” at the research centre LLACAN Langage, langues et cultures d’Afrique noire in Villejuif near Paris.
Siddig Ali Karmal Kokko was born in 1962 in the Abri region of Southern Kordofan (Sudan) and is a schoolteacher in Omdurman. His mother tongue is Koalib (Rere dialect) and, as the principal informant, he has made a vital contribution to the successful completion of this study.
The proceedings volumes of the International Conferences on the Nuba Mountain Languages have also been published in our programme, as well as further descriptions of Kordofanian languages and cultures (see under KORDOFANIAN / NML / NUBA MOUNTAINS):
John Vanderelst: A Grammar of Dagik – A Kordofanian Language of Sudan [PDF]
Ulrike Nüsslein: A Grammar of Kordofanian Julut [PDF]
Meike Meerpohl: The Tima of the Nuba Mountains (Sudan) – A Social Anthropological Study [PDF]
