Gorwaa, Hadza, and Ihanzu: Language contact, variation, and grammatical inquiries in the Tanzanian Rift

This talk is an outline of two closely-related projects to be based at Leiden University over the coming 24 months. Gorwaa (South-Cushitic, Afro-Asiatic), Hadza (isolate), and Ihanzu (Bantu (F-group), Niger-Congo) are three of the least documented languages of the Tanzanian Rift Valley linguistic area. Decreasing numbers (15,000 for Gorwaa in 2017, 650 for Hadza in 2013, and 32,000 for Ihanzu in 1987), environmental change, and the loss of linguistic domains to Swahili all contribute to the endangerment status of these three languages. Building on knowledge gained during previous documentation projects (Gorwaa for Andrew Harvey, and Asimjeeg Datooga for Richard Griscom), the current projects aim to provide equivalent documentation of materials deemed historically and culturally important for the Ihanzu and Hadza, including musical traditions, oral histories, and traditional ecological knowledge. Harvey will employ these materials, supplemented in all three languages with structured elicitation, to form the basis of grammatical analysis comparing specific features present in these languages with the characteristic areal features for the Tanzanian Rift Valley. Griscom, focusing exclusively on Hadza, will conduct detailed sociolinguistic interviews, as well as explore possible regional differences in varieties of Hadza. Both projects will actively involve the language communities by training local speakers in audiovisual language documentation methods, as well as providing funding for them to make extensive recordings of their own languages. This project is based on the assumption that language contact also implies human contact (intermarriage, cultural contact, etc.), and aims to challenge traditional assumptions of the African past as one in which ethnic groups were static, isolated, and primitive, and to suggest alternative African pasts in which African societies are dynamic, innovative, and often more complex than an ethicity-based view of ‘tribe’ allows. Furthermore, it aims to actively involve Africans in this reframing process and to provide a platform for the indigenous peoples of the Rift Valley Area to actively participate in and guide the documentation of their languages.