Documentation, description et typologie des langues du Sénégal (langues en danger) – SENELANGUES

In a general context in which many African languages are still poorly documented and strongly endangered, the general goal of this project is to update and complement the documentation of the languages of Senegal (and thereby of the Niger-Congo family) in order to bring a substantial contribution to (1) the preservation of Senegal's linguistic and cultural heritage and (2) the typological description of the languages. In particular, the project will first prioritise descriptive and supportive efforts for the endangered languages of this country. In addition, the project will considerably advance the knowledge of Senegalese languages through the linguistic description of little or not at all known languages. Finally, the project will result in rendering the linguistic inheritance of the country accessible by creating documentary corpora of primary data on as many languages as possible. The project has four main components. The first component consists in the documentation of Senegalese languages. The documentation for language endangerment will depend on the compiled electronic corpora and video films produced by professionals in collaboration with the researchers. The data on Senegalese minority and endangered languages will be transcribed, interlinearised and annotated. For other languages, only audio-video will be compiled. The second component is based on the description of Senegalese languages. The results will be achieved through work on existing sources as well as fieldwork in order to identify and classify the languages that are not covered by existing inventories and obtain updated information on language endangerment. This component will consist in the gathering and summarization of linguistics data for Atlantic languages for which we have some documentation. Fieldwork will be planned for some of these languages, if necessary. The linguistic application TOOLBOX will be used for analysing and working with data. It is also planned to archive all texts in audio/video format with time-aligned transcriptions and annotations and to make them accessible via the internet. The third component will establish a typology of some characteristics of Atlantic languages. These analyses are closely linked with the descriptions and the compilations of descriptions produced in the previous component. Three books based on three linguistic features are planned: the nominal classification; the verbal system and the verbal derivation. The relevance of this step of the project consists, on the one hand, in the fact that it will provide and synthesize new data on the Atlantic family; on the other hand, these features are also specific of the Niger-Congo phylum. The scope of these analyses exceeds the framework of the description of the Atlantic languages. The fourth and last component 'filing' plans the preservation in sound-text files and the setting on line of the collected data. All the components of the project rely on an intense collaboration of the parties involved. All participants will conduct fieldwork in Senegal. Additionally, regular progress meetings will be organised and alternate between Dakar and Paris. Both the linguistic inventory and the electronic corpora will constitute important data bases for a number of different disciplines in the humanities and social sciences (sociologists, anthropologists, specialists on oral literature and history, etc.) and for futher analysis in linguistic typology; they will allow a revision of the genetic classification of the Atlantic group, grounded on a qualitatively and quantitatively outstanding documentation.