Documentation of endangered languages and cultures in the Nigeria-Cameroon Borderland(on-going)
This project is funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council. It is carried out by:
David Zeitlyn (University of Kent, Associate member of CRLCC) and
Bruce Connell (English, Glendon and DLLL)
with three PhD students, Sascha Griffiths, Marieke Martin and Laura Robsonat the University of Kent and supervised jointly by Connell and Zeitlyn. The project focuses three endangered languages the Nigeria-Cameroon borderland, Somyev, Njanga, and Wawa. Connell and Zeitlyn have been concentrating on the Somyev, a small group of blacksmiths whose language and culture are on the verge of disappearing; Robson is preparing a descriptive grammar of Njanga and on documenting aspects of their culture and history, with Griffiths and Martin taking a similar approach to Wawa. For each language, the approach has been to explore the connection between language endangerment and culture change and language ecology. The project is nearing completion.
