|
Laal is an unclassified language spoken by 749 people () in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of Chad on opposite banks of the Chari River, called Gori (''lá''), Damtar (''ɓual''), and Mailao. It may be a language isolate, in which case it would represent an isolated survival of an earlier language group of central Africa. It is unwritten (except in transcription by linguists). According to former SIL-Chad member David Faris, it is in danger of extinction, with most people under 25 shifting to the locally more widespread Baguirmi language. This language first came to the attention of academic linguists in 1977, through Pascal Boyeldieu's fieldwork in 1975 and 1978. His fieldwork was based for the most part on a single speaker, M. Djouam Kadi of Damtar. ==Speakers and status== The language's speakers are mainly river fishermen and farmers, who also sell salt extracted from the ashes of doum palms and ''Vossia cuspidata''. Like their neighbors the Niellim, they were formerly cattle herders, but lost their herds around the turn of the 19th century. They are mainly Muslims, although until the latter half of the 20th century they followed the traditional ''Yondo'' religion of the Niellim. The area is fairly undeveloped; while there are Qur'anic schools in Gori and Damtar, the nearest government school is 7 km away, and there is no medical dispensary in the region (). The village of Damtar formerly had a distinct dialect, called Laabe (''la:bé''), with two or three speakers remaining in 1977; it was replaced by the dialect of Gori after two Gori families fled there at the end of the 19th century to escape a war. No other dialects of Laal are known. Under Chadian law, Laal—like all languages of Chad other than French and Arabic—is regarded as a national language. Although the 1996 Constitution stipulates that "the law shall fix the conditions of promotion and development of national languages", national languages are not used for education nor for official purposes, nor usually for written media, although some of the larger ones (not Laal) are used on the radio. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Laal language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|