A Grammatical Sketch of the Lusaamia Verb

Author: Robert Botne. In collaboration with: Hannington Ochwada, Michael R. Marlo. Series edited by: Wilhelm J.G. Möhlig †, Bernd Heine.

Series: Grammatical Analyses of African Languages Volume 30

2006
10 pp. Roman, 186 pp.
1 map, 3 tables, numerous charts, index
Text language(s): English
Format: 160 x 240 mm
410 g
Paperback
€ 39.80

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The Bantu language under consideration is classified as E.34 Guthrie’s zone classification, and J.34 in the Tervuren revision of Guthrie. Lusaamia – Ólusaamya in the language itself – is spoken along the eastern shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya and eastern Uganda. There are approximately 50,000 speakers in Kenya and 175,000 speakers in Uganda. It is considered to be one of seventeen dialects constituting the Luluyia language cluster. Lusaamia is an agglutinating language – like nearly all Bantu languages – with a basic SVO word order.

This sketch represents the language as spoken in Busia, Western Province, Kenya. The Saamia people live in close proximity to the Luo people. Because of the dominant size of the Luo population and culture, Lusaamia has a significant number of lexical borrowings from Dholuo. The data described here differ in certain respects from some of the descriptions found in Angogo Kanyoro (1983) and Chagas (1876).

The present work analyses the composition and forms of the verbal word. Besides all typical verbal categories like tense, aspect (Aktionsart), mood, the author also provides detailed descriptions of clitics, the occuring extensions in form of suffixal elements, reduplication phenomena as well as phonological and syllable characteristics of the verb forms of this language. It also contains some proverbs, sayings, and texts followed by a Lusaamia verb stem lexicon Lusaamia–English and English–Lusaamia.

Review by Ursula Drolc in Afrikanistik-Ägyptologie online 2007

Following the links below, you will find further editions of the author in our programme:

Cross-reference:

• A Learner’s Chichewa and English Dictionary (ISBN 978-3-927620-10-0)
• A Lega and English Dictionary (ISBN 978-3-927620-39-1)
• A Saafi-Saafi (Sébikotane Variety) and English // French Dictionary (ISBN 978-3-89645-509-3)
• Mpoto Fables and Folktales (Tanzania) (ISBN 978-3-89645-738-7)

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