A Comparative Phonology of Gbe (Publications in African Languages and Linguistics, No 14).

The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with fully analyzed sample texts and, if appropriate, a word list and other relevant information which is available on the language in question. There are no restrictions as to language family or area, and although special attention is paid to hitherto undescribed languages, new and valuable treatments of better known languages are also included. No theoretical model is imposed on the authors; the only criterion is a high standard of scientific quality.

This book is about the close historical and linguistic relationship between the languages of Surinam and Benin, a relationship which can be viewed in terms of a Trans Atlantic Sprachbund or linguistic area. It consists of a detailed analysis of various possible substrate and adstrate effects in a number of components of the grammar, in the Surinam Creole languages, primarily from the Gbe languages of Benin but also from Kikongo.

Ewe dance-drumming has been extensively studied throughout the history of ethnomusicology, but up to now there has not been a single study that addresses Ewe female musicians. James Burns redresses this deficiency through a detailed ethnography of a group of female musicians from the Dzigbordi community dance-drumming club from the rural town of Dzodze, located in South-Eastern Ghana. Dzigbordi was specifically chosen because of the author's long association with the group members, and because it is part of a genre known as adekede, or female songs of redress, where women musicians critique gender relations in society. Burns uses audio and video interviews, recordings of rehearsals and performances and detailed collaborative analyses of song texts, dance routines and performance practice to address important methodological shifts in ethnomusicology that outline a more humanistic perspective of music cultures. This perspective encompasses the inter-linkages between history, social processes and individual creative artists. The voices of Dzigbordi women provide us not only with a more complete picture of Ewe music-making, they further allow us to better understand the relationship between culture, social life and individual creativity. The book will therefore appeal to those interested in African Studies, Gender Studies and Oral Literature, as well as ethnomusicology. Includes a DVD documentary.

The first edition of ELL (1993, Ron Asher, Editor) was hailed as "the field's standard reference work for a generation". Now the all-new second edition matches ELL's comprehensiveness and high quality, expanded for a new generation, while being the first encyclopedia to really exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics. * The most authoritative, up-to-date, comprehensive, and international reference source in its field * An entirely new work, with new editors, new authors, new topics and newly commissioned articles with a handful of classic articles * The first Encyclopedia to exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics through the online edition * Ground-breaking and International in scope and approach * Alphabetically arranged with extensive cross-referencing * Available in print and online, priced separately. The online version will include updates as subjects develop ELL2 includes: * c. 7,500,000 words * c. 11,000 pages * c. 3,000 articles * c. 1,500 figures: 130 halftones and 150 colour * Supplementary audio, video and text files online * c. 3,500 glossary definitions * c. 39,000 references * Extensive list of commonly used abbreviations * List of languages of the world (including information on no. of speakers, language family, etc.) * Approximately 700 biographical entries (now includes contemporary linguists) * 200 language maps in print and online Also available online via ScienceDirect – featuring extensive browsing, searching, and internal cross-referencing between articles in the work, plus dynamic linking to journal articles and abstract databases, making navigation flexible and easy. For more information, pricing options and availability visit www.info.sciencedirect.com. The first Encyclopedia to exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics Ground-breaking in scope - wider than any predecessor An invaluable resource for researchers, academics, students and professionals in the fields of: linguistics, anthropology, education, psychology, language acquisition, language pathology, cognitive science, sociology, the law, the media, medicine & computer science. The most authoritative, up-to-date, comprehensive, and international reference source in its field

Since creole languages draw their properties from both their substrate and superstrate sources, the typological classification of creoles has long been a major issue for creolists, typologists, and linguists in general. Several contradictory proposals have been put forward in the literature. For example, creole languages typologically pair with their superstrate languages (Chaudenson 2003), with their substrate languages (Lefebvre 1998), or even, creole languages are alike (Bickerton 1984) such that they constitute a “definable typological class” (McWhorter 1998). This book contains 25 chapters bearing on detailed comparisons of some 30 creoles and their substrate languages. As the substrate languages of these creoles are typologically different, the detailed investigation of substrate features in the creoles leads to a particular answer to the question of how creoles should be classified typologically. The bulk of the data show that creoles reproduce the typological features of their substrate languages. This argues that creoles cannot be claimed to constitute a definable typological class.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of current research in African languages, drawing on insights from anthropological linguistics, typology, historical and comparative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Africa is believed to host at least one third of the world's languages, usually classified into four phyla - Niger-Congo, Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan - which are then subdivided into further families and subgroupings. This volume explores all aspects of research in the field, beginning with chapters that cover the major domains of grammar and comparative approaches. Later parts provide overviews of the phyla and subfamilies, alongside grammatical sketches of eighteen representative African languages of diverse genetic affiliation. The volume additionally explores multiple other topics relating to African languages and linguistics, with a particular focus on extralinguistic issues: language, cognition, and culture, including colour terminology and conversation analysis; language and society, including language contact and endangerment; language and history; and language and orature. This wide-ranging handbook will be a valuable reference for scholars and students in all areas of African linguistics and anthropology, and for anyone interested in descriptive, documentary, typological, and comparative linguistics.

This is the very first publication mapping onomatopoeia in the languages of the world. The publication provides a comprehensive, multi-level description of onomatopoeia in the world’s languages. The sample covers six macro-areas defined in the WALS: Euroasia, Africa, South America, North America, Australia, Papunesia. Each language-descriptive chapter specifies phonological, morphological, word-formation, semantic, and syntactic properties of onomatopoeia in the particular language. Furthermore, it provides information about the approach to onomatopoeia in individual linguistic traditions, the sources of data on onomatopoeia, the place and the function of onomatopoeia in the system of each language.