A Sketch of Kanuri

Author: Norbert Cyffer. Series edited by: Wilhelm J.G. Möhlig †, Bernd Heine.

Series: GA Grammatical Analyses of African Languages Volume 9

Kanuri belongs to the Saharan language family and is spoken by more than 5.5 million people as a mother tongue in the area surrounding Lake Chad in Nigeria, Niger and Chad, partly in the Fezzan region of Libya. In 1854, Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle wrote the first full grammar of Kanuri and published a text collection in the same year. Johannes Lukas completed his studies at the University of Vienna/Austria by the PhD thesis Studien zur Kanuri Grammatik und Literatur an Hand unedierter Texte.

The present grammatical sketch gives basic information on origin, distribution and linguistic relatives of Kanuri. The main part comprises phonology, morphology and syntax and is followed by an introduction to the different dialects within Kanuri and sociolinguistic considerations. The main purpose of this present study is to provide an abridged description of Kanuri on hierarchic grammatical levels. Special emphasis is also placed on typological features of the language in order to afford the non-Kanuri expert an insight into typical structural features of Kanuri grammar.

This grammar was also written to assist the Kanuri teacher in teaching Kanuri as a mother tongue or as a foreign language. The student of Kanuri may find this book a useful companion to his teaching materials. It is also intended to stimulate future researchers to continue to disclose the many unresolved problems of grammatical analysis.

Following the links below, you will find further editions of our elaborate Kanuri programme:

Accompanying material:

• English–Kanuri Dictionary (ISBN 978-3-927620-44-5)
• Reference Grammar of Kanuri (Nigeria) (ISBN 978-3-89645-670-0)
• We learn Kanuri (Audio-CD) (ISBN 978-3-89645-577-2)
• We learn Kanuri (Lehrbuch / Textbook) (ISBN 978-3-927620-01-8)
• We learn Kanuri (Textbook and Audio-CD) (ISBN 978-3-89645-585-7)

Cross-reference:

• Advances in Kanuri Scholarship (ISBN 978-3-89645-104-0)
• Aspects of Co- and Subordination (ISBN 978-3-89645-888-9)
• Aspekte adverbialer Subordination im Hausa, Fulfulde und Kanuri (ISBN 978-3-89645-469-0)
• Kanuri, Borno and Beyond (ISBN 978-3-89645-892-6)
• When Languages Meet (ISBN 978-3-89645-257-3)

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