A Dictionary of the Kisi Language

With an English-Kisi Index

Author: George Tucker Childs †. Series edited by: Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Norbert Cyffer.

Series: WeStu Westafrikanische Studien Volume 22

2000
24 pp. Roman, 524 pp.
1 map, 1 b/w photo, 2 graphs, 16 tables
Text language(s): English
Format: 160 x 240 mm
1110 g
Paperback
€ 98.00

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The Kisi language belongs to the (West) Atlantic languages of the Niger-Congo language family and is spoken by more than half a million people. Geographically, the language is spoken primarily in the Republic of Guinea, where it functions as one of the national languages, but also in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The book is the first comprehensive Kisi-English dictionary. The author gathered the linguistic material during several field studies during 1983–2000. Mostly it is drawn from the southern Kisi dialect. Following a short grammatical sketch, the 6,000 lexical entries are complemented by numerous examples illustrating their use and various meanings. An attempt was made to render the meaning of the numerous ideophones as closely as possible by providing extensive English paraphrases.

The individual lexemes are complemented with grammatical information, e.g. indicating membership to one of the seven noun classes, and detailing the origin of derived verbs as part of the subcategorization information. The language has lexical and grammatical tone, and vowel length is contrastive. Both prosodic parameters are reflected in the notation of the entries. An English-Kisi index allows for easy cross-referencing.

 

Under these links you will find publications of the author and descriptions of further (West) Atlantic languages in monographs and paper collections:

Accompanying material:

• A Saafi-Saafi (Sébikotane Variety) and English // French Dictionary (ISBN 978-3-89645-509-3)
• Dictionnaire du balanta-ganja (ISBN 978-3-89645-230-6)
• Fulfulde-Studien – Fula Studies (ISBN 978-3-89645-011-1)
• L’expression du temps en wolof (ISBN 978-3-89645-557-4)
• Language Contact in Guinea (ISBN 978-3-89645-906-0)
• Lehrbuch des Pular (ISBN 978-3-89645-841-4)
• Les classes nominales dans les langues atlantiques (ISBN 978-3-89645-565-9)
• Morphosyntaxe du jóola banjal (ISBN 978-3-89645-548-2)
• Temne Stories · Erzählungen der Temne · Mump me Themne (ISBN 978-3-927620-76-6)

Cross-reference:

• « Les deux amis, les tresses, et la viande » – Contes balant du Sénégal (ISBN 978-3-89645-740-0)
• Actes du 3e WOCAL Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Africaine, Lomé 2000 (ISBN 978-3-89645-335-8)
• Arbeit, Sklaverei und Erinnerung (ISBN 978-3-89645-349-5)
• Dictionnaire des proverbes balant (ISBN 978-3-89645-737-0)
• Focus and Topic in African Languages (ISBN 978-3-89645-718-9)
• Interrogative and Syntactic Inquiries (ISBN 978-3-89645-723-3)
• Les Fulbe du Boobola (ISBN 978-3-89645-301-3)
• Lone Tree – Scholarship in the Service of the Koon (ISBN 978-3-89645-227-6)
• Nomades des espaces interstitiels (ISBN 978-3-89645-252-8)
• Problems of Linguistic-Historical Reconstruction in Africa (ISBN 978-3-89645-094-4)
• Proceedings of the 6th WOCAL World Congress of African Linguistics, Cologne, 17-21 August 2009 (ISBN 978-3-89645-199-6)
• Sprache und Wissen in Afrika (ISBN 978-3-89645-406-5)
• The Complete Linguist (ISBN 978-3-927620-84-1)

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