Studies on people's migration and language contacts around Lake Tanganyika

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26370477
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Tokyo Woman's Christian University (2017-2018); Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (2014-2016)
• Principal Investigator: Abe Yuko 東京女子大学, 現代教養学部, 准教授 (80724442)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: タンガニイカ湖 / バントゥ諸語 / ベンデ・トングェ語 / Microvariation / Persistive / 未完了アスペクト

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The studies have started at the beginning with preliminary survey on Taabwa and Bembe languages of DRC where the further survey became impossible because of the domestic affairs. The outputs consist of two types; (1) the investigation covering the whole languages around Lake Tanganyika remained with a grammatical topic such as “imperfective aspects”, and (2) languages in Tanzania and Zambia were described more systematically especially in morphosyntax.
Some outputs of comparative studies on imperfective aspects were presented and published, while some languages were segregated by 142 Microvariation parameters compiled by a project team from SOAS, University of London. Bende data of Microvariation have been published, while other language data are still on the process for publishing.

Free Research Field

言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

タンガニイカ湖は現在、タンザニア、ブルンジ、コンゴ民主共和国、ザンビアの4国の国境線をなしており、近代国家の成立以来、民族語はそれぞれの国の歴史を背景としてリンガフランカや英語・フランス語等の公用語との接触による変化が進んでいる。これらの民族語については限定的な語彙調査による言語分類が試みられているものの、それらの分類が人々の語りや民族誌と異なることもある。
そこで、限定的な語彙のみではなく、文法項目や特殊語彙（動植物名、鉄・土器に関する語彙）、さらに民族誌を総合的に記述することで、無文字社会の歴史の再構築に新たな資料を提供する。