A Dictionary of the Rumanyo Language

Rumanyo-English / English-Rumanyo. Including a Grammatical Sketch

Author: Wilhelm J.G. Möhlig †, Karl Peter Shiyaka-Mberema. Series edited by: Axel Fleisch, Wilhelm J.G. Möhlig †.

Series: SAL Southern African Languages and Cultures Volume 2

2005
459 pp.
10 tables
Text language(s): English
Format: 160 x 240 mm
810 g
Paperback
€ 69.80

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The Bantu language Rumanyo (K.70) is spoken in two dialectal variants – Rushambyu and Rugciriku – on both sides of the middle Kavango River in the northern part of Namibia. Approximately 120,000 people speak this tone language. It is used as medium at the local schools and in the educational literature, and it is supraregionally broadcasted through the Kavango Radio.

The intellectuals of the politico-cultural active class write belletristic literature in their native language, and they are getting more and more in evidence in the national context of Namibia. In the year 1965 Möhlig collected a list of words with 2,000 entries in Rugciriku, French, and German, 1967 he wrote a grammatical sketch in German.

The South African apartheid government standardized the Rumanyo orthography in 1988. This was an essential precondition for the dictionary, which can therefore also be used by the native population. The authors succeeded in compiling a dictionary with 10,000 keywords in close cooperation with native experts – especially with the school inspector Karl Peter Shiyaka-Mberema.

The book is divided into three parts. The main part includes the Rumanyo-English wordlist with exhaustive information about every entry concerning grammar, syntax and semantics. The tonal rules for the context bound usage are marked graphically for every word, too. In addition cross references show derivations as well as word formations.

The second part consists of the wordlist English-Rumanyo. At the end of this book the reader finds a grammatical sketch. In this chapter the separate information parts of the dictionary are established a systematic correlation.

Under these links you will find publications by the authors and descriptions of further Bantu languages and cultures and of the history of the Kavango region/Namibia:

Accompanying material:

• “Grandmother’s Footsteps” (ISBN 978-3-89645-056-2)
• A Grammar of Yeyi (ISBN 978-3-89645-549-9)
• A Grammatical Sketch of Rugciriku (Rumanyo) (ISBN 978-3-89645-542-0)
• A Tonal Grammar of Kwanyama (ISBN 978-3-89645-084-5)
• A Tonal Grammar of Kwanyama (ISBN 978-3-89645-980-0)
• Ethnographie des Sprachwechsels (ISBN 978-3-927620-25-4)
• Konzeptualisierung von Landschaft im Mbukushu (K.333/K.43) Bantusprache in Nord-Namibia) (ISBN 978-3-89645-600-7)
• Lucazi Grammar (ISBN 978-3-89645-038-8)
• Namibian Languages (ISBN 978-3-89645-080-7)
• Singing in the Bush (ISBN 978-3-89645-355-6)

Cross-reference:

• A Grammatical Sketch of Herero (Otjiherero) (ISBN 978-3-89645-044-9)
• Atlas of Kamba Dialects (Kenya Bantu E.55) (ISBN 978-3-89645-708-0)
• Cultural Change in the Prehistory of Arid Africa (ISBN 978-3-89645-092-0)
• Frühe Kolonialgeschichte Namibias, 1880–1930 (ISBN 978-3-89645-058-6)
• Language Contact, Language Change and History Based on Language Sources in Africa (ISBN 978-3-89645-093-7)
• People, Cattle and Land (ISBN 978-3-89645-363-1)
• Reference Grammar of Herero (Otjiherero) (ISBN 978-3-89645-602-1)
• The Bantu Languages of the Kenya Coast (ISBN 978-3-89645-716-5)
• The Kavango Peoples in the Past (ISBN 978-3-89645-353-2)
• The Mbukushu in Angola (ISBN 978-3-89645-350-1)

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