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African languages?

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Calro2
Triglot
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Canada
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Speaks: English*, Portuguese, French

 
 Message 25 of 33
04 July 2010 at 7:26pm | IP Logged 
Zorrillo wrote:

I wanted to learn Zulu but there is almost nothing to do with it once you have learned it. There is not much of an internet presence for African languages, and little written or audio material.

For those who don't mind religious stuff, the Jehova's Witnesses have a lot of material in a staggering number of obscure languages. They offer free monthly downloadable newsletters of about 20-25 pages in length, in languages such as Zulu, Lingala, Twi, Hausa, and Shona. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but for some of these "little" languages, it is literally the only practice material you can find aside from the Bible itself.


Have you tried these? http://www.isolezwe.co.za/ (online newspaper) and http://www.ukhozifm.co.za/portal/site/UkhoziFM/ (radio station, not sure how well this link works, seems to be better in internet explorer).

There seems to be a lot of resources for a handful of languages (Hausa, Swahili, and Somali), including online news broadcasts and written news pages from the BBC and the UN. I'm sure there's more out there, but I've been focused on resources for Yoruba and haven't yet found a lot of stuff.
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Calro2
Triglot
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Canada
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Speaks: English*, Portuguese, French

 
 Message 26 of 33
04 July 2010 at 7:55pm | IP Logged 
Derian wrote:
Calro2 wrote:
In 2010, some people still have to be informed that it's a continent, not a country.
Haha, what?!?
Hmm, you live in Canada, ok.

Actually, I'm referring to my experiences in the US, not Canada.

Calro2 wrote:
I think ignorance is also sometimes part of the reason, as there are some people who just don't know anything (or care to find out) about Africa.

There is no obligation to want to learn about Africa or any other continent/country when the "contributions to science, technology, literature, business, and international politics made through those languages" [quote from Dixon] is very insignificant in our part of the world.
It's up to Africa to make itself interesting and encourage people to learn about it.

The other thing is that, linguistically, Africa is more associated with European languages like English, French or Portuguese than its own native languages.


This is not case for all African countries. Even though European languages are dominant in several countries, some African languages are also very strongly associated with these countries and are lingua franca in their own right, such as Wolof in Senegal and The Gambia, Sango in Central African Republic, and Amharic in Ethiopia.

It's my opinion, which I'm not insisting that anyone else has to agree with, that there are already a lot of interesting things about Africa that make its languages worth exploring, especially in contributions through history, culture, and religion (e.g. Christianity in Ethiopia, also the spread of religious practices to places where they have become significant and intimately integrated into the culture, like Brazil, where the ceremonies are conducted in the original African language, e.g. Yoruba). There are also many studies I've heard of, and would like to explore in greater depth, about how some words/folklore in English (e.g. Wolof) and Portuguese (e.g. Yoruba, Kimbundu) originated from African languages and cultures.


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Quabazaa
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French
Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 27 of 33
05 July 2010 at 1:59pm | IP Logged 
I adore ADORE Bambara, especially the music, and really music from Mali in general. If there were more resources available I would learn it! But I think for me personally and the countries I'm interested in, it seems a lot easier for me to perfect my French first, and perhaps think about a language like Bambara or Algerian Arabic later, if I ever travel to Africa...
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Quabazaa
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5607 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French
Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 28 of 33
05 July 2010 at 2:02pm | IP Logged 
Oh, also, with all the talk about things like literature and culture, can anyone recommend some great books from the African continent?? I am trying to read a book from every country in the world but I am having a hard time finding literature from many of the countries in Africa.
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ennime
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Senior Member
South Africa
universityofbrokengl
Joined 5902 days ago
397 posts - 507 votes 
Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans
Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu

 
 Message 29 of 33
06 July 2010 at 9:32am | IP Logged 
rasputin wrote:
If you live in Kwa-Zulu (Formerly Natal Province), you'll use Zulu
every day of your life... (-:


yeah, the Zulu nation is so big... they are one of the largest ethnic groups in
Southern Africa. My friend from KwaZulu kinda summarizes it as "if you don't speak Zulu
in KwaZulu... you're f***ed"

rasputin wrote:
Calro's right...    you don't hear Swahili spoken anywhere in South
Africa.


Actually I do... the amount of mirgrants from Eastern Africa (mostly Tanzania) means
that there are communities of Kiswahili speakers in urban areas, in the same way that
you can hear French all the time randomly in Kaapstad due to migrants from DRC who use
it as a lingua franca among themselves. Granted the Swahili speakers are harder to find
and not as obvious as they speak mostly English, but they are there...

liddytime wrote:

I have read that Zulu and Xhosa are more or less mutually intelligible.


Yep... it is... most of my Xhosa and Zulu friends just talk to each other, and as long
as the conversation doesn't get into too deep stuff, they're fine... However, for
beginners it's hard, because there is some difference in vocabulary used or
preferred... although due to it's widespread usage, there are quite some typical Zulu
words that are now part of everyday Xhosa... It pretty much sounds similar as well,
difference is that Xhosa has more clicks. Zulu is somewhat easier, and has lots more
materials than Xhosa, as a result it's starting to spread beyond kwaZulu...

liddytime wrote:

What about Swahili? I have heard music sung in Lingala that I could have sworn was
sung in Swahili. So even if
Swahili proper is not spoken much outside of Tanzania and Kenya is it close enough to ,
say, Luganda, Lingala,
Kikongo, Chichewa etc... to pass??


Perhaps because they're both related, bantu, languages? On the other hand I wouldn't
say it's mutually intelligible... as far as I know


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Fasulye
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Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
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 Message 30 of 33
06 July 2010 at 2:02pm | IP Logged 
I think learning African languages is mainly useful for those who travel or work in African countries and want to communicate with the local population there in their own language. As I understand the other posts in this thread internet usage is still not widespread in Africa and resources of those languages almost not available on websites. Of course Westerners living in Africa should make attempts to learn the local African language(s) to integrate better in the African society.

Fasulye

Edited by Fasulye on 06 July 2010 at 5:01pm
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Talairan
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Spain
Joined 6590 days ago
194 posts - 258 votes 
Speaks: Afrikaans, English*, Gypsy/Romani, Dutch
Studies: Spanish, Flemish, Galician, Aramaic

 
 Message 32 of 33
07 July 2010 at 9:21am | IP Logged 
@Paranday: you might like this video course on Khoekhoegowab then:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz44WiTVJww
Only 4 videos in the series, but it's the only course I know of that has audio.


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