A new doctoral thesis by Eva-Marie Ström from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden is the first attempt ever to explore Ndengeleko, a language that belongs to the Bantu language family of Africa.
Habiba Kiongoli, left, and Hawa Nyakisoma, right, recording Ndengeleko stories in Tanzania (Eva-Marie Ström / University of Gothenburg)
Ndengeleko is currently spoken in Tanzania by about 72,000 people.
“Although this is not an extremely low number in the context of minority languages, my conclusion is that Ndengeleko is indeed endangered and will most likely disappear within a few generations,” Eva-Marie Ström said.
Her study is based on interviews and recordings, and was carried out on-site with speakers of the language who are interested in preserving their knowledge for future generations.
“My research gives a good description of the phonology of the language, or of the sounds used. It turns out that it has a rather limited number of consonants and vowels. Moreover, some consonants have disappeared from some words over time, making combinations of vowels common.”
According to Eva-Marie Ström, in Ndengeleko morphemes are combined to form long words. Morphemes are the small building blocks of words, and they all have a meaning. Combinations of morphemes can appear differently in different words depending on which vowels and consonants are involved. A large part of the analysis concerned these complex processes.
‘Traditional research on languages and cognition is still largely based on Western languages. My thesis contributes to our understanding of human languages,” Eva-Marie Ström said.
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Bibliographic information: Eva-Marie Ström. 2013. The Ndengeleko Language of Tanzania. Doctoral thesis. University of Gothenburg; http://hdl.handle.net/2077/32111
