Dagbani dictionary CD - Roger Blench

DAGBANI-ENGLISH DICTIONARY with contributions by:

Harold Blair Tamakloe Harold Lehmann Lee Shin Chul André Wilson Maurice Pageault Knut Olawski Tony Naden Roger Blench

CIRCULATION DRAFT ONLY ALL COMENTS AND CORRECTIONS WELCOME This version prepared by;

Roger Blench 8, Guest Road Cambridge CB1 2AL United Kingdom Voice/Answerphone/Fax. 0044-(0)1223-560687 E-mail [email protected] http://homepage.ntlworld.com/roger_blench/RBOP.htm

This printout: Tamale 25 December, 2004

1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 5 2. Transcription .................................................................................................................................................... 5 Vowels ................................................................................................................................................................................ 5 Consonants......................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Tones .................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Plurals and other forms.................................................................................................................................................... 8 Variability in Dagbani speech .......................................................................................................................................... 8 Parts of Speech .................................................................................................................................................................. 8

References ............................................................................................................................................................. 9

2

TABLES Table 1. Vowel conversion table

6

History of this Document The first published dictionary of Dagbani1 was prepared in 1941 by Blair and Tamakloe. The original source data for a 3000-word Dagbani Dictionary was compiled from 1948 through to the late 1950s by a Ghanaian government-appointed committee headed by Vo-Naa Andani, Chief of Voggo. The research for that draft was co-ordinated by the Bureau of Ghana Languages and the Assemblies of God New Testament Revision Committee. Because of continuing government-decreed revisions of orthographic practice during this period, neither a final nor a consistent text was ever prepared. The first Dagbani New Testament Committee had begun work in 1929-30, and the first rough translation was done on an incremental basis. From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, the New Testament Revision was co-ordinated by Harold Lehmann, who had also worked on the dictionary committee. Rev. Lehmann sent John Miller Chernoff his own typescript of the draft dictionary at its most developed form (with Mr. D.A. Mahama written above the title on the front page), along with extensive notes and relevant correspondence. Conversion History 1. Dagbani Dictionary draft from Harold Lehmann (NTRC-2.DIC ) 2. entered onto electronic media and sent to GILLBT by John Chernoff 3. Converted to WINWORD6 tables by Tony Naden, March 1997 4. This version, Word for Windows 8.0, Roger Blench, December 25, 2004. Tony Naden created a composite file incorporating the electronic Dagbani wordlist of Knut Olawski. NTN, AJN Naden comments either already in KO or added to Chernoff or amalgamation. Roger Blench has put all the existing file into systematic order (approximately!). Major Problems (mid-1997): Orthography: inconsistencies in sources particularly with short mid vowels: e/E/iE are randomly used in both lists (often two or three spellings of the same word appear in KO), likewise o/ç, and to make things more difficult the two sources alphabetise the e/E (resp. o/ç) in different orders, so duplication of entries and disorganised ordering will be found in those areas. Preliminary rules from the currently-sitting orthography committee suggest that their proposals, while linguistically unmotivated, will be largely such as will be possible to implement automatically Consistency : I’m afraid that working hurriedly and in small gobbets of time has left a lot of inconsistency in format. Particularly I have tended to move things into Col.4 notes or not according to whether Col.3 was overloaded in relation to Col.4. Items which need to be consistently located are :

Dialect (E.D./W.D.) information Cross.-refs – Chernoff’s “vide”, KO/TN “see”, “see”, “see”, “cf.” etc. Sources of loans: form of abbreviation, type of bracket if any

1

Excluding the Dagbani-German wordlist of Fisch (1913). 3

Entry structure: Chernoff puts all homographs of the same word-class as numbered sections of a single entry, along with idioms, combinations and examples. I have mostly transferred examples to Col.4 but left the rest. Olawsky/Naden attempts to separate homophones, numbering the entries (ka (1), ka(2) &c.) for crossreference purposes. Polysemous senses within these entries are partially distinguished by semi-colons between glosses (comma-ed glosses being regarded as synonymous English correspondents). Idiomatic uses or characteristic combinations were entered in a separate \phr field in the original and are mostly in Col.4 in this version. Particularly with a view to reversal, I would consider it better to split up the Chernoff entries according to the numbered sections: this cannot be done automatically, as some separate numbers distinguish totally interchangeable English glosses, some homophonous senses, and some collocations which may be either idiomatic or combinatorial.

4

1. Introduction The Dagomba are one of the most widespread and numerous peoples of Northern Ghana. They have two principal centres, Tamale and Yendi, centred in the Northern territories. Their language, Dagbani or Dagbanli, is widely known as a second language in north-eastern Ghana. Despite this, no dictionary of their language has ever been published. This draft is for circulation only. 2. Transcription Dagbani is a member of the Oti-Volta language group, which in turn forms one major branch of the Gur family (Manessy 1975). Its closest relatives are likely to be the languages Talni and Nabti. Most of these languages show marked vowel harmony and thus have either seven or nine vowels in ±ATR pairs. Historically, in Ghana, the transcription of most languages has followed the pattern of Twi, with seven vowels, adding /E/ and /ç/ to the five cardinal vowels. Despite this tradition, the phonology of Dagbani is exceptional. The open vowels /E/ and /ç/ have merged with their closed counterparts and a central vowel /´/ has developed. This was represented in some orthographies with /ˆ/ but most recent publications eschew this. Academic publications on Dagbani are (Fisch 1913; Benzing 1969, 1971; Wilson 1963, 1970, 1972 & 1976; Wilson & Bendor-Samuel 1969). Despite its importance, Dagbani has no standard writing system. The orthography used in the Bible is not the same as that recommended in academic publications such as Wilson (1972) nor that used by the current Dagbani literacy committee. Present writing systems do not accurately represent the sounds of the language. The intention is therefore to transcribe Dagbani in a phonemic orthography so that words can be pronounced correctly. Readers may then convert words to a writing system with which they feel comfortable (see Table 1). Dagbani has two dialects, East and West, centred around Yendi and Tamale. In many cases, words are very similar or the same in both dialects. Where differences have been recorded, there are given with the abbreviations; ED WD

Eastern or Yendi Dialect Western Dialect

The reference forms given here are based on the dialect of the Tamale area. The most common differences are vowel sounds, ways of forming the plural and the exchange of /r/ and /l/. Speakers seem to have little trouble adapting to these differences. The Nanumba people, speaking the Nani language, who live in scattered settlements in the south-east of the Dagomba area use very similar terms to those in Dagbani, often with small vowel changes. Vowels Dagbani has six vowels; Front Close Close-Mid

Central

Back

i

u e

ˆ

Open

o

a

These can all occur in any position except /ˆ/ which is confined to stems. Vowels may be long or short, except for /ˆ/. A long vowel is marked by doubling. Ghanaian orthographies traditionally mark seven vowels, i.e. the five symbols used in English together with E and ç. These are actually unnecessary for Dagbani, although now that the tradition has been established, writing them will probably continue. 5

Table 1 shows how to convert these characters to those used here; Table 1. Vowel conversion table Commonly written Æ Æ

E ç

This document e o

The ˆ sound can be written as ‘i’ if the reader wishes to transcribe some of the words into one of the other Dagbani orthographies. Consonants The consonants are as follows;

Plosive

Bilabia l p b

Fricative Nasal Lateral Tap Approximant

Labiodental

f v m

Alveolar t d s z n l

Alveopa latal c j S Z

Palata l

Velar k g h (ƒ) Nm

Labial -velar kp gb

r w

y

Most orthographies mark /ƒ/ the velar fricative as a separate consonant. This appears to be unnecessary as /ƒ/ is simply a positional allophone of /g/ between vowels. Nonetheless, it is marked in the present text as Dagbani speakers are familiar with it. The voiceless alveopalatal / tS / is usually written ‘ch’ in Ghanaian languages following English orthographic practice and this is also retained. The palatal nasal /¯/ is written ‘ny’. /S/ is written ‘sh’ by /Z/ uses the IPA symbol. Both alveopalatal fricatives are allophones of their alveolar counterparts but they will be written here following Dagbani orthographic practice. The palatals /S/ and /Z/ are in near-complementary distribution with their alveolar counterparts /s/ and/z/. In word initial and word-medial position, the palatals occur before front vowels, /i/ and /e/ and the alveolars before back and central vowels, /o/, /u/, /a/ and /ˆ/. The exception to this occurs with the –si suffix, which is quite common in the names of plants and animals and which does not appear to be shifting to the palatal form. However, it is in complementary distribution with initial and medial palatals. Since suffixes such as –Si never occur. There are, however, some words where –si- occurs in the penultimate syllable; sapasini suhuyiƒsili

captain of the Dagomba Army hot-temperedness.