User:Mcostag1/Language selection

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By the beginning of the Thursday class during the first week of classes (this semester: 11:20 on 19 January 2016), turn in the following:

List in order of preference three languages you would like to work on this semester.


1. Samoan

Morphological typology

Samoan morphology is predominantly derivational, meaning new words are formed by existing words with suffixes and prefixes. Some common morphological processes found in Samoan include affixation, reduplication, vowel lengthening and compounding.

[1]

Basic Information

  • Number of speakers: 510,000 as of 2015 [2]
  • Location: Spoken in the Samoan Islands. It is one of the official languages in both the Independent State of Samoa and the Territory of American Samoa. There is also a large concentration of individuals who speak Samoan in New Zealand. [3]
  • Other languages native speakers may know: English, because it is the other official language of the Samoan islands. [4]
  • Current status of the language: The language is fairly well preserved - an official language in the Samoan languages and the 4th most spoken language in New Zealand. It is not experiencing a significant decline. in speakers. [5]
  • Orthography: Samoan is written with the Latin alphabet. It has only 14 letters: 5 vowels (a e i o u) and 9 consonants (f g l m n p s t v). It also uses two diacritics, a macron to indicate long vowels and a reverse apostrophe is used to indicate a glottal stop. [6]
  • ISO code: [smo]

Language Data Availability

Very likely - I found an online bible translation in Samoan. [7]


2. Lingala

Morphological typology

Lingala uses a tonal morphology with a highly agglutinative verbal morphology. There are two types of tones used - a low tone and a high tone. [8]

Basic Information

  • Number of speakers: There are over 10 million speakers of Lingala world-wide

[9]

  • Location: Spoken primarily in the Southern Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo. [10]
  • Other languages native speakers may know: There are 211 languages spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Lingala is primarily spoken. [11]
  • Current status of the language: Its main center of use, the city of Kinasha, has grown in size and importance and the language has grown with it. [12] It is also Statutory provincial language in northwestern regions (2006, Constitution, Article 1(8)). [13]
  • Orthography: Written in the Latin alphabet. There are 35 letters and digraphs in the Lingala alphabet. In borrowed words, the letters r and h sometimes appear. Tones are indicated by accents. [14]
  • ISO code: [lin]

Language Data Availability

Very likely - I found an online bible translation. [15]

3. Chamorro

Morphological typology

The Chamorro language is an agglutinative language, featuring affixation. It's grammatical structure is typically VSO but can also be formatted in SVO. It also has many borrowed words from Spanish and Spanish etymological roots.

[16]

Basic Information

  • Number of speakers: 25,800 in Guam (2013 UNSD). Total users in all countries: 58,000 [17]
  • Location: Spoken primarily in Guam although also spoken in The Northern Mariana Islands and the United States. [18]
  • Other languages native speakers may know: English [19]
  • Current status of the language: Severely threatened - with a significant drop in fluency over the past century. Approximately 75% of the population of Guam knew the Chamorro language in 1898 (when the US captured Guam in the Spanish-American War). As of the 2000 U.S. Census, less than 20% of Guam inhabitants speak the language, and of that 20% most are over the age of 55. However, it is gaining in importance again, as it is taught at the University of Guam. [20]
  • Orthography: Written with the Latin alphabet. There are 23 letters in the Chamorro alphabet, and the apostrophe is used to indicate a glottal stop. [21]
  • ISO code: [cha]

Language Data Availability

Very likely - I found an online bible translation as well as a number of Chamorro songs with accompanying lyrics. [22]


References
  1. http://www.sfu.ca/~alderete/pubs/aldereteBradshaw2012_samoanGrammarSynopsis.pdf
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_language
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_language
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_language
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_language#Morphology
  6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_language#Morphology
  7. https://www.bible.com/bible/599/jhn.1.rscb
  8. https://bobangi.wordpress.com/morphology/
  9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingala#History
  10. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/lin
  11. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/lin
  12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingala#History
  13. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/lin
  14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingala#Alphabet
  15. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/
  16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamorro_language#Grammar
  17. https://www.ethnologue.com/country/GU/languages
  18. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/cha
  19. https://www.ethnologue.com/country/GU
  20. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/cha
  21. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamorro_language#Orthography
  22. http://worldbibles.org/language_detail/eng/cha/Chamorro