We learn Kanuri (Lehrbuch / Textbook)

Author: Norbert Cyffer. In collaboration with: Umara Bulakarima, Yaganami Karta. Illustrated by: Bernd Gimbel. Series edited by: Wilhelm J.G. Möhlig †, Bernd Heine.

Series: Study Books of African Languages Volume 2

The Kanuri language is one of the major languages in central Africa. It is spoken by more than four million people in the Lake Chad region. Most of the speakers live in Borno in north-eastern Nigeria and in the eastern parts of Niger. The Kanuri language together with Teda-Daza and Zaghawa, including the defunct Berti language, form the Saharan language family which is a member of the Nilo-Saharan phylum.

The dialect used in this course refers to the speech form of Maiduguri which is recognized as the standard form in Nigeria. The manual consists of 30 lessons, each comprising a dialogue, a grammar section, translation parts, several exercises and drills, and a vocabulary section. An appendix gives the keys to the exercises, the translation of the texts, and a vocabulary as well as a grammatical index. Numerous illustrations show the Kanuri material culture.

In completion of the textbook we offer audio-material on a CD, read by Nigerian mother-tongue speakers, that is available separately or together with the textbook, see links below. Furthermore, a dictionary English-Kanuri, a grammatical sketch and a reference grammar of this language have been published:

Accompanying material:

• A Sketch of Kanuri (ISBN 978-3-89645-032-6)
• Advances in Kanuri Scholarship (ISBN 978-3-89645-104-0)
• English–Kanuri Dictionary (ISBN 978-3-927620-44-5)
• Kanuri, Borno and Beyond (ISBN 978-3-89645-892-6)
• Reference Grammar of Kanuri (Nigeria) (ISBN 978-3-89645-670-0)
• We learn Kanuri (Audio-CD) (ISBN 978-3-89645-577-2)

Cross-reference:

• 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)
• Fading Delimitations (ISBN 978-3-89645-904-6)
• Language Change under Multilingual Conditions (ISBN 978-3-89645-724-0)
• We learn Kanuri (Textbook and Audio-CD) (ISBN 978-3-89645-585-7)
• When Languages Meet (ISBN 978-3-89645-257-3)

© 2025 by Rüdiger Köppe Verlag – www.koeppe.de

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