On whether 'Doboro' was a fourth Kuliak language

Wayland’s (1931) description of a northeastern Ugandan people called the ‘Wanderobo’ includes thirty-eight ‘Dorobo’ words, many of which resemble words in Ik, the last thriving member of the Kuliak (Rub) subgroup. Because of this resemblance, it has been speculated that ‘Dorobo’ might have been a fo...

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Autor principal: Terrill Schrock
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
FR
Publicado: LibraryPress@UF 2015
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/6cfd115dd966432e83fb5660e95f16ee
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:6cfd115dd966432e83fb5660e95f16ee2021-11-19T03:52:19ZOn whether 'Doboro' was a fourth Kuliak language10.32473/sal.v44i2.1072590039-35332154-428Xhttps://doaj.org/article/6cfd115dd966432e83fb5660e95f16ee2015-06-01T00:00:00Zhttps://journals.flvc.org/sal/article/view/107259https://doaj.org/toc/0039-3533https://doaj.org/toc/2154-428XWayland’s (1931) description of a northeastern Ugandan people called the ‘Wanderobo’ includes thirty-eight ‘Dorobo’ words, many of which resemble words in Ik, the last thriving member of the Kuliak (Rub) subgroup. Because of this resemblance, it has been speculated that ‘Dorobo’ might have been a fourth, now extinct Kuliak language (e.g. Heine 1976). Unfortunately, this notion has persisted in the literature up to recent times. This paper examines the information found in Wayland 1931 from several perspectives to argue that ‘Dorobo’ was at most a dialect of Ik, not a separate language. From an anthropological perspective, the ‘Wanderobo’ that Wayland described match in many ways the Ik of today. From a sociolinguistic perspective, the Ik living today in the area visited by Wayland are often mixed with members of other neighboring tribes, such as the Dodoth or Toposa (Eastern Nilotic). Thus it is likely that the Ik were mixed up with them in the 1930s as well. Furthermore, the linguistic data may be unreliable: Wayland was not a linguist, and his transcriptions were adversely affected by having been acquired through interpreters speaking only broken Swahili. These three strands of evidence coincide to render the 1931 document insufficient evidence on which to establish a ‘Dorobo’ language.Terrill SchrockLibraryPress@UFarticleDoboroKuliakIkNilo-SaharanNiloticPhilology. LinguisticsP1-1091ENFRStudies in African Linguistics, Vol 44, Iss 2 (2015)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
FR
topic Doboro
Kuliak
Ik
Nilo-Saharan
Nilotic
Philology. Linguistics
P1-1091
spellingShingle Doboro
Kuliak
Ik
Nilo-Saharan
Nilotic
Philology. Linguistics
P1-1091
Terrill Schrock
On whether 'Doboro' was a fourth Kuliak language
description Wayland’s (1931) description of a northeastern Ugandan people called the ‘Wanderobo’ includes thirty-eight ‘Dorobo’ words, many of which resemble words in Ik, the last thriving member of the Kuliak (Rub) subgroup. Because of this resemblance, it has been speculated that ‘Dorobo’ might have been a fourth, now extinct Kuliak language (e.g. Heine 1976). Unfortunately, this notion has persisted in the literature up to recent times. This paper examines the information found in Wayland 1931 from several perspectives to argue that ‘Dorobo’ was at most a dialect of Ik, not a separate language. From an anthropological perspective, the ‘Wanderobo’ that Wayland described match in many ways the Ik of today. From a sociolinguistic perspective, the Ik living today in the area visited by Wayland are often mixed with members of other neighboring tribes, such as the Dodoth or Toposa (Eastern Nilotic). Thus it is likely that the Ik were mixed up with them in the 1930s as well. Furthermore, the linguistic data may be unreliable: Wayland was not a linguist, and his transcriptions were adversely affected by having been acquired through interpreters speaking only broken Swahili. These three strands of evidence coincide to render the 1931 document insufficient evidence on which to establish a ‘Dorobo’ language.
format article
author Terrill Schrock
author_facet Terrill Schrock
author_sort Terrill Schrock
title On whether 'Doboro' was a fourth Kuliak language
title_short On whether 'Doboro' was a fourth Kuliak language
title_full On whether 'Doboro' was a fourth Kuliak language
title_fullStr On whether 'Doboro' was a fourth Kuliak language
title_full_unstemmed On whether 'Doboro' was a fourth Kuliak language
title_sort on whether 'doboro' was a fourth kuliak language
publisher LibraryPress@UF
publishDate 2015
url https://doaj.org/article/6cfd115dd966432e83fb5660e95f16ee
work_keys_str_mv AT terrillschrock onwhetherdoborowasafourthkuliaklanguage
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