This book comprises a synchronic description of Tagdal a Songhay-Berber mixed language spoken in the southeastern and central regions of the Republic of Niger. It begins with a summary of the... Show moreThis book comprises a synchronic description of Tagdal a Songhay-Berber mixed language spoken in the southeastern and central regions of the Republic of Niger. It begins with a summary of the historic and general sociolinguistic situation in Niger and how it affects speakers of Tagdal, followed by a description of the sound system, beginning with the consonant and vowel inventories, as well as some phonological processes. The largest sections include a description of the grammar, starting with the morphology. The intricate interactions between stress placement, vowel and consonant length, and certain aspects of the morphology are described in detail. Special attention is given to the idea that Tagdal contains two prosodic sub-systems, one for vocabulary of Songhay origin and another for vocabulary of Berber-Tuareg origin. This leads to processes such as suppletion of Songhay cognates, with suppletive stems of Tuareg origin. The syntax of Tagdal is also described, including descriptions of how clauses are combined to form both simple and complex sentences. Attention is also paid to how Tagdal combines sentences into higher-level units such as paragraphs, sections and discourses. Show less
This thesis concerns the traditional script of the Tuaregs, tifinagh. This script is a direct descendent of the Libyco-Berber script, which appeared in Northern Africa in the first millennium BCE.... Show moreThis thesis concerns the traditional script of the Tuaregs, tifinagh. This script is a direct descendent of the Libyco-Berber script, which appeared in Northern Africa in the first millennium BCE. Nowadays, it is used by most Tuareg populations in southern Algeria, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. The thesis focuses on the current form and usage of this script. On the basis of a large corpus of letter signs and texts gathered during fieldwork in Niger, and to a lesser extent Mali and Burkina Faso, the graphemic diversity of the script is shown, and the orthographic system is analyzed. The traditional Tifinagh script is basically consonantal, except for the fact that vowels are written in word-final position. Moreover, by means of ligatures, it is shown which consonants in a graphemic sequence are to be interpreted as a consonant cluster (in that case the ligature is used), and which are to be interpreted as consonants separated by a vowel in pronunciation (in that case two separated signs are used). The thesis also describes the many uses the Tifinagh script has in traditional usage. This ranges from personal administrative tasks to love letters and grafitti. It is shown that recently traditional Tifinagh have started to be used in printed media too. A new development is the creation of neo-Tifinagh systems - orthographies graphemically based on Tifinagh, but with different systems - esp. the introduction of vowel signs. The different proposals are analyzed as to their main inspirations, which are mainly the Arabic and the Latin script. The usage of these new systems is traced, both in personal contexts as in the printed media. The thesis also contains a chapter on the other two scripts in use for writing Tuareg, the Latin script and the Arabic script. For the first, it shows the history of orthograohic reforms in Niger and Mali since independence. For the latter, it provides a first analysis of the graphemes and orthography used in the age-old tradition of writing Tuareg in Arabic script. Show less
