Douglas Boone
Richard L. Watson
editors
May 1996
Summer Institute of Linguistics
Sudan Branch, Box 44456,
Nairobi, Kenya
Limited circulation of
full report: February 1992, May
1996
Limited circulation of
condensed report: June 1996
© SIL-Sudan, 1996
This language survey of the Moru-Ma'di language family in Sudan, Uganda and Zaïre is the result of much cooperation.
The survey team wishes to acknowledge the following, to whom they owe sincere thanks:
First mention goes to SIL's Survey Coordinator, Ted Bergman, for his leadership, especially in initiating the survey and finding funding.
We are very grateful for the financial assistance given by the Pew Foundation.
We extend our gratitude to the Avokaya, Kaliko, Ma'di, and Moru language committees, without whose help and guidance this survey would not have been possible, and also to individuals too numerous to mention.
Our thanks to Dr. Livingstone Walusimbi of the Department of Languages and Linguistics of Makerere University for advice and assistance.
Thanks to Mr Jeroham P. Kaddu, General Secretary of the Bible Society of Uganda, for his practical assistance.
Thanks to the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) for arranging a visit to the Moyo area and providing flights and accommodations in Kampala, and to the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) for accommodations in Moyo.
We are also grateful to the Moyo Ma'di Language Committee for providing valuable linguistic and Scripture-in-Use information.
We are also most appreciative to the missionaries of Kuluva station of Africa Inland Mission (AIM) and of the Roman Catholic missions at Ediofe (Arua town) and Lodonga (Aringa County) for their hospitality and kind help with transportation and locating language helpers.
A word of thanks also to the District Executive Secretary at Arua for providing transportation and administrative and demographic information.
The Linguistic surveyors in Zaïre worked under the auspices and care of CECA 20 (Communauté Evangélique au Centre de l'Afrique), and all survey travel in Zaïre was carried out under an Ordre de Mission.
Our thanks, therefore, to the Administrative Leaders of the CECA Bureau in Bunia for their kindness and eager cooperation.
Thank you to the people, pastors and missionaries of CECA 20 in the areas where the survey was conducted. Their hospitality was warm and their generous sharing of wisdom provided insight that the short snapshot of a survey trip is incapable of giving.
Thank you to Tasile Maraka Filipo whose ear for tone was indispensible.
Our gratitude also extends to MAF whose reliable flight service enabled the involvement of more personnel at the strategic times and places.
Thank you to the Commissaires de Zone of Faradje and Watsa for kindly sharing demographic information.
Thank you to the many kind chiefs of groupements and collectivités who not only allowed us to do the research but kindly helped us.
Finally, our thanks to the Lord God for putting the following team together, and for providing the daily strength and divinely ordered events, without which this project would not have been done.
Lugbara, Logo, Kaliko, Avokaya, Moru, and Ma'di (with Luluba) are a chain of closely related languages, each with a number of dialects.
"Lugbara, Moru, Ma'di, and Avokaya each have literature either published or in preparation for publication. However, these will not cover the needs of all the people involved. Desire for Scriptures in their own vernaculars is so strong that some people are wanting to initiate translations of their own. This could produce an unnecessary number of translations of doubtful quality unless all the translation work can be coordinated and help be given in planning the optimum number of translations which will cover all the language groups."
There are language committees in most of these groups. One common concern is in the area of orthography. In Kaliko and Logo, there is considerable interest in developing a suitable orthography. Even in languages with published materials there is a need for improvement of existing orthographies: it is said that the primary reason that the Ma'di New Testament is not used is because it is so hard to read. Another issue is the need to choose or confirm a 'reference dialect' of each language for developing a standard written form. Materials (including translated Scripture) published in these reference dialects will encourage the development of these languages with the ultimate benefit of facilitating communication and fostering greater unity. (It should be emphasized that usage of a standard written form of a language will not replace spoken variations among those who use it.)
A Moru-Ma'di Survey planning meeting was held in Nairobi in March 1988. Present were Ted Bergman (Africa Area Task Assessment Coordinator for SIL), Dick Watson (Moru-Ma'di Survey Project Coordinator), Ursula Wiesemann and Constance Kutsch Lojenga (Linguistics Consultants with SIL), Dr. Livingstone Walusimbi (Chairman of the Department of Linguistics at Makarere University in Kampala), Carol Borreson, Douglas Boone and Vern Hein. This group drafted the following statement of purpose 17 March 1988:
The purpose of the Moru-Ma'di Chain Survey is to determine the relationships between speech varieties within the Moru-Ma'di subgroup of Central Sudanic languages.... 'Relationships' will be defined by:
(1) degree of lexical and grammatical similarity
(2) degree of intelligibility
(3) sociolinguistic dynamics
The purpose of the survey is also to discover the widest possible extent of effective written communication.
The following are the GOALS of the project:
A. TRANSLATION To suggest the best means of ensuring that every speaker of one of these speech varieties has access to Scripture which s/he can understand. The survey should provide the information which will enable the church and Bible translation agencies:
1. To select speech varieties for translation so that every group will accept and be able to use at least one.
2. To prevent the production of redundant translations.
With respect to translation activities, our aim is to meet translation needs efficiently, more quickly and with a wiser use of personnel and tools than would otherwise be possible.
B. LINGUISTICS Our linguistic goals are twofold:
1. To provide comparable linguistic and sociolinguistic data for all Moru-Ma'di speech varieties.
2. To serve as a model for future surveys among other multi-dialect language chains.
Our aim is to be able to compare any Moru-Ma'di speech variety with any other; for example, the 'Ogambi dialect of Logo' with the closest 'Avokaya dialects', or the 'Wa'di dialect of Moru' with its closest 'Avokaya dialects'.
C. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT To suggest guideline options for the language planning in the regions where these speech varieties are spoken.
1.To provide the information which each language committee needs in order to choose the best reference dialect for developing a standard written form of their language.
2.To determine which dialects could be covered by each proposed standard.
3.To provide a basis for a standard Moru-Ma'di orthography, or as few variant orthographies as possible.
Our aim of "bringing groups together" is in accordance with the objective of UNESCO as stated in Les langues communautaires africaines et leur utilisation dans l'enseignement et l'alphabétisation (UNESCO, Bureau régional d'éducation pour l'Afrique, 1985, p. 13):
Les Etats qui partagent [des langues communautaires] pourraient coopérer de manière très étroite à leur developpement.
("States which have regional languages in common could work together on developing them.")
This report presents all research results considered relevant for the making of recommendations for language development and translation.
A summary report in French for the Zairean church has already been prepared. The present report, therefore, assumes a certain linguistic background on the part of its readers, but not a previous acquaintance with the educational, religious and political systems of Sudan, Uganda, and Zaïre. The authors of the report felt that these should be explained so that the reader can understand the situational factors of which linguistics is only one.
The concept of linguistic clusters is useful in a language chain like Moru-Ma'di where 'language' boundaries are unclear. Traditional divisions and group names based as much on ethnicity as linguistic similarity are understood to represent a classification of Moru-Ma'di speech varieties into languages. These accepted terms (Avokaya, Kaliko, Logo, Lugbara, Moru, and Ma'di) are useful for organizing our data, but we call them 'dialect clusters' to indicate our reservation of judgment as to where the true 'language' boundaries lie.
Chapter 2 is a technical overview of the survey tools and how they were used.
Chapter 3 presents the results of the survey using the above tools. Section 3.1 describes the relationships between the neighboring clusters, while 3.2 describes relationships of dialects or speech varieties within a given cluster.
Chapter 4 moves from the descriptive to the prescriptive by explaining the recommendations of the Moru-Ma'di Survey team based on the information presented in Chapter 3.
In Chapter 5 we evaluate the survey in the light of our original goals.
Finally one finds the references and bibliography as well as numerous appendices.
The following three linguistic tools were used. Each is reproduced in an appendix.
A simple measure of the relatedness of two speech forms is the number of similar words they share. Suppose, for example, that we are told that of one hundred commonly-used words sampled from a speech form called Lugbara, ninety are similar to words used to mean the same thing in a speech form called Ma'di, whereas only twenty of those Lugbara words are similar to the words meaning the same thing in a speech form called Kebu. We say that there is 90% lexical similarity between Lugbara and Ma'di, and only 20% lexical similarity between Lugbara and Kebu. It seems reasonable to conclude that Lugbara and Ma'di are more closely related than Lugbara and Kebu.
To take another example, suppose there are three groups of people called Ma'di. These people speak dialects called 'Burulo, Lokai, and Okollo. Of 160 'Burulo words sampled, 157 sound like the corresponding Lokai word; that is, the words are exactly the same (for example, the word mí means 'eye' in both 'Burulo and Lokai) or there are small differences in pronunciation (for example, the 'Burulo word for 'to die' is dà, while the Lokai word is drà). The corresponding Okollo words are elicited from someone who speaks that speech form, and it is found that 120 of these words are like the 'Burulo words. Though all three speech forms are called 'Ma'di', the lexical similarity figures of 98% 'Burulo-Lokai and 75% 'Burulo-Okollo are evidence that 'Burulo and Lokai are dialects of a single language, whereas Okollo may or may not be a dialect of the same language. The dialects with more words in common are generally more closely related.
For the Moru-Ma'di dialect chain survey, a 170-item elicitation list was used (See Appendix 9). Native speakers of each speech form were read the list, one item at a time, and asked the word used in their dialect for each item. For many speech forms, information was elicited from several individuals, resulting in multiple lists; at other times, a group of people were interviewed at the same time. When time for the full list was not available, only 100 items were elicited; these shorter lists give less information but help to double-check the accuracy of longer lists.
The responses were written phonetically and in many cases tone was marked as well. Thus when two lists were compared, allowances did not need to be made for differing orthographies. The lists were compared with two measures in mind: lexical similarity and phonetic similarity.
The count of lexical similarity is simply the proportion of 'similar' words in the two speech forms, calculated by dividing the number of words judged similar by the total number of words compared. Thus, if for a given pair of languages, 153 words out of 161 are judged similar, the two languages are said to be 95% lexically similar, since 153/161 = 0.95.
The count of phonetic similarity is less easily determined. 'similar' words are compared for phonetic differences; if, for example, it has been decided that the 'Burulo word dà is similar to the Lokai word drà, we note that these have the same vowel and the same tone, but different consonants (d vs. dr). Another 'similar' pair consists of mí and mí, that is, the 'Burulo word and the Lokai word are identical. For each pair of corresponding phones (sounds), a 'degrees of difference' value is assigned. Sounds considered identical have zero degrees of difference. Extremely similar, but distinct, sounds, such as b and p have one degree of difference; less similar sounds, such as o and e have two degrees of difference, and so on.…
Then, for a pair of lists, the degrees of difference between phones (sounds) in words counted as lexically similar are added up and divided by the number of comparable phones. The measure of phonetic similarity of two lists is then the average number of degrees of phonetic difference found for each 100 pairs of comparable phones. The higher the measure, the less phonetic resemblance between the two lists.
Note that the 'ratio of phonetic degrees of difference' is a relative measure, since it depends on how one assigns 'degrees of difference values'. A person could use a very coarse measure (0 for the same phone, 1 for a difference) or a very fine one (where two phones could differ from between 0 and 9 degrees of difference). Using a coarse measure for near-identical lists would yield a very low ratio of degrees of difference; using a fine measure might even yield a ratio of more than one hundred! (Since it can only be calculated for words counted as lexically similar, the ratio also depends on one's judgments of lexical similarity. A conservative policy— counting forms to be lexically similar only when highly phonetically similar— would yield a lower lexical similarity percentage and lower ratio of degrees of difference than a liberal policy— counting as lexically similar any forms which could conceivably be cognate, irrespective of the amount and complexity of phonetic mutations needed to explain the cognate relationship.)
In cases where two lists appear to be equally similar to a given list ('X') on the lexical level, their relative degrees of phonetic similarity to list 'X' may suggest that one of the corresponding speech forms is more closely 'related' to speech form 'X'.
Again, as an example, suppose that the Lugbara, Ma'di and Kebu words for 'fire' are aci, asi, and kisi, respectively, and that it has been decided that these are 'similar'.
There is only one degree of phonetic difference between the Lugbara word and the Ma'di word, because the vowels are identical and there is one degree of phonetic difference between s and c (which represents the ts sound). For a list of many similar words, this pair would add one to the total number of degrees of phonetic difference between the data and three to the total number of comparable phones.
In contrast, there are four degrees of phonetic difference between the Lugbara word and the Kebu word: 1 for 'no consonant' vs. k, 2 for a vs. i, 1 for c vs. s, and 0 for i vs. i. This adds four to the total number of degrees of phonetic difference between the data and four to the total number of comparable phones.
For a list of one hundred words, Lugbara and Ma'di might show a total number of degrees of phonetic difference of 150 for 450 comparable phones in 84 words, while Lugbara and Kebu might have 57 total degrees of difference for 120 comparable phones in 20 words. To compare the amount of phonetic variation, we calculate the ratio of degrees of phonetic difference per hundred comparable phones. For Lugbara-Ma'di, this is (150/450)x100, or 33; for Lugbara-Kebu, it is (57/120)x100, or 48. Thus we note that not only does Kebu exhibit weak lexical similarity with Lugbara, but even when the Kebu word resembles the Lugbara word, it tends to be less similar to the Lugbara word than the Ma'di word is.
Inter-language intelligibility does not only depend on how similar the words are in the two languages. For the speakers of two related speech forms to understand each other (without having to learn each other's language) the speech forms must have a similar grammatical structure. Realizing this fact, we attempted to compare low-level grammatical features by means of a thirty-five-item list of phrases, clauses, and questions. The list (see Appendix 9) consists of two major parts: verbal research (the first twenty items) and research of the noun phrase (the remaining fifteen items). The verbal research was considered the most important, so that in cases where only some of the data could be collected, the first twenty items were elicited; where possible, however, the full list was elicited.
No quantitative procedure has been developed to measure how great a hindrance to comprehension a given grammatical difference would be. Thus, this report only makes simple qualitative statements about dialectal grammatical differences and alternative possibilities within a dialect or cluster. These are taken into account together with conclusions about inter-language comprehension made from lexical comparisons, intelligibility testing and sociolinguistic observations.
The purpose of the sociolinguistic questionnaire is to gather an adequate sampling of information about language and dialect use and attitudes relevant to determining needs for separate language/dialect development versus standardization within a language area. (Strictly speaking, the questionnaire was actually an interview schedule since the questions were posed orally and answers noted by the researcher. A true research questionnaire would be answered in writing by the person being questioned.)
Beginning with the results of wordlist analyses, speakers of a dialect or dialect area are questioned in the area of language (and dialect) use and attitudes with reference to languages and dialects surrounding them having greater than 70% lexical similarity. There is value in random sampling and also in sampling special interest groups. The main questionnaire is intended for a broad cross section by random sampling (see Appendix 9). The supplements contain specialized questions for church leaders, educators, and government officials. In order to refer to the significant dialects of an area (in question 17), the researcher elicits dialect names according to 'folk perception' and sees how those relate to the results of the wordlist analyses.
The questions cover five areas: general information, language use, attitudes towards language use, dialect use, and attitudes towards dialect use. It was necessary to take great care in selecting wording in English, French, Arabic, and Bangala because the terms 'language' and 'dialect' are not used in the same way everywhere.
This general sociolinguistic questionnaire (SLQ) was supplemented by two others. By means of formal interview we probed language use and attitudes both in churches and in schools. See Appendix 9 for examples of both the church leadership questionnaire and the Primary School questionnaire.
Wordlists, phrase lists, and sociolinguistic information were gathered in Juba, Sudan between March and June 1988.
Dick Watson gathered a small amount of information on the Ma'di of Moyo and Adjumani during a short trip into Uganda in October 1988 or thereabouts. Some data on Ugandan Ma'di were gathered in Juba at the same time as data on Sudanese Ma'di. Data (wordlists, phrase lists, and sociolinguistic information) on Lugbara and the southern 'Ma'di' dialects were collected by Douglas Boone and Louis Otika in November 1989.
Five multi-day trips were taken in 1988; other data were elicited at Aba, where Douglas Boone and Vern Hein were based. All survey activities, on site at Aba or 'on the road' were organized through local CECA church leaders. The CECA workers who traveled with the surveyors provided invaluable guidance.
The surveyors took part in language committee meetings among the Kaliko-Omi (July 30- Aug. 5 at Adja) and the Logo (June 8-21 at Todro). The bulk of Kaliko-Omi and Logo data were collected as a formal part of these meetings.
Help by Constance Kutsch Lojenga (on wordlists) and Ulla Persson (for Kaliko) supplemented the work of Boone and Hein in Zaïre.
Wordlists were elicited in Sudan from individuals representing the various speech varieties of Moru, Ma'di (Sudanese dialects and that of Moyo, Uganda), Kaliko (Sudanese dialects), as well as one complete list in Ojila, the main Sudanese dialect of Avokaya. Some of the lists consisted of only 100 items, but full 170-item lists were collected for all major dialects. The Moru data are known to have been collected carefully, with all phonetic distinctions noted and all lists double-checked with the person from whom the list was first collected. Tone was noted on the Kaliko lists (and the Avokaya-Ojila list) but not for Moru, nor for Ma'di.
The wordlists gathered in Uganda representing Moyo Ma'di as spoken in Moyo and in Adjumani corroborate the Moyo and Adjumani lists taken in Juba, Sudan. In 1989, eight wordlists of 200 items each were taken, representing the various Ugandan Lugbara subdialects (essentially one per county), as well the Oguko and Okollo dialects of Ma'di. Tone was noted on these lists. (The additional items were collected in order to compare results with those of the survey done for the Languages of Uganda project in 1968.) In some subdialects, two or even three speakers were available to give data; on one occasion, four lists were taken simultaneously, much as was done for the Logo data (see below).
Lexical data in five Logo dialects and in Kaliko-Omi were collected using a distinctive 'group approach' by which speakers of each dialect came to a consensus concerning what word was wanted but any differences in tone, pronunciation, or word choice, even among speakers of the same dialect, were also noted. An advantage of this approach was that ambiguous items on the elicitation list were made clear in the course of the thorough discussion.
Other wordlists were collected from individuals representing some of the varieties of each language. Some of the Kaliko lists were 100-item lists, and lists were not collected in all Lugbara dialects. Tone was always marked.
Tasile, a Logo man skilled in tone differentiation, was usually present when wordlists were collected. His familiarity, not only with Logo, but also with other Zairean Moru-Ma'di speech varieties, allowed the surveyors to regularize the phonetic and tonetic transcription of data collected with his aid. He also helped clarify certain semantic nuances.
Phrase lists were gathered in three Ma'di dialects (including Moyo Ma'di, a Ugandan dialect) from five speakers of these dialects in individual interviews. Data for Kaliko and Avokaya were elicited in a similar way.
Eight phrase lists were gathered in Uganda in 1989, in five Lugbara (sub)dialects, in the two 'southern Ma'di' subdialects, and in Moyo Ma'di. Usually, the same person or persons who offered wordlist data also gave phrase list data.
As was the case for the wordlists, the group approach was used to collect phrase lists at Todro and at Adja. Again, the search for consensus helped ensure that the surveyors elicited what they wanted to elicit while turning up instances of free variation. Two individual phrase lists were taken for Logo-Bari and another for Kaliko-Ma'di.
Sociolinguistic data were often elicited conversationally rather than by means of a question-by-question interview. The researcher spent some time chatting with people about their families, conditions, and language in general. The survey team tried to question wisely in each location, discarding irrelevant questions and questions to which the answers were found to be predictable, and following up on others which proved to be more significant. That is, the interview schedule was not followed in strict order, sometimes questions were omitted, and notes were made of information offered though not explicitly elicited. No claim is made for randomness or representativeness of sampling.
Extensive SLQs were done among Ma'di residents of Juba, mainly refugees. There was no way to sample randomly as one had to interview the people at hand. However, among those interviewed were men and women, young and old, of each social and ethnic group. Other data were gathered among the Kaliko, and two SLQs were done in Avokaya.
In 1989, eleven SLQs were conducted in Uganda, with the same people who provided the lexical and grammatical data. Due to time constraints, this often meant getting information from only one speaker of each subdialect.
In Zaïre, although a good number of SLQs were conducted, particularly in Logo and Kaliko-Ma'di, much of our quality information was obtained by 'bumping into' good sources of information as opposed to formally sitting down to do an SLQ.
A word of explanation is in order concerning reliance on anecdotal data and on the lack of random samples. While planning, the survey team was guided by the statement of purpose and by cost-benefit principles. As in some cases SLQ questions with predictable answers were omitted, so in choosing population we settled for fewer actual SLQs than a sound random sampling would necessitate, and in fewer places. In places we did visit, however, we did seek the typical cross-section of male/female, young/middle age/elder samples. The minimal amount we could have learned by more samples in each of these categories was deemed not to be worth the cost involved (miles, hours).
Avokaya, Kaliko, Logo, Lugbara, Luluba, Ma'di and Moru are the agreed upon members of the Moru-Ma'di subgroup of Central Sudanic Languages within the Nilo-Saharan language family (Greenberg 1966).
Tucker and Bryan (1966) and Caprile and Thomas (unidentified work, 1968, cited by J.-P. Caprile in Barreteau, ed. 1978, pp. 240, 242) have Moru-Ma'di as a sub-group within Moru-Mangbetu of the Central Sudanic group, where the other three sub-groups are Mangbetu, Mangbutu-Efe, and Lendu. Caprile and Thomas group the rest of Central Sudanic as 'sara-Bongo-Baguirmi'. Tucker and Bryan leave unresolved the question of whether the 'larger units' of Bongo-Bagirmi (including Kresh) should be considered two branches of one language group. The listing of seven Moru-Ma'di languages is ours; often Luluba is listed as a dialect of Ma'di and Lugbara is listed as two languages. As the term 'Moru-Ma'di' is well established, the present survey uses the same name.
Speakers of these languages live in the area where the borders of Zaïre, Sudan and Uganda converge (see Summary Chart of subgroups and Maps in Appendix 1). This area in the center of Africa has been in turmoil for centuries; the succession of waves of immigrants and the drawing of national boundaries has contributed to linguistic diversity.
An example of the resultant sociolinguistic complexity is seen in the case of John, a 25-year-old farmer near Didi, Zaïre. John was born in Yendu, Sudan of Logo parents from Kitambala, Zaïre. He grew up speaking Logo-ti at home as well as Kaliko (a Sudanese dialect), Arabic, English and some Kakwa. Driven from his schoolteaching job in Sudan by the war, he has had to polish the Bangala he knew slightly in Sudan. His wife is a Zairean Kaliko-Ma'di and this is the language of their home.
Before reporting the relationships between each neighboring pair of Moru-Ma'di speech forms, it may be helpful to sketch relationships across the whole chain. The matrix summarizes the lexical similarity of ten representative Moru-Ma'di dialects:
| Moru-Miza | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 69 | Avokaya of Sudan | ||||||||
| 65 | 76 | Logo (five main dials.) | |||||||
| 67 | 78 | 86 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Didi | ||||||
| 63 | 71 | 72 | 87 | Kaliko-Sud-East | |||||
| 63 | 73 | 78 | 91 | 88 | Kaliko-Omi | ||||
| 62 | 70 | 69 | 78 | 82 | 82 | Ugandan Lugbara-composite | |||
| 61 | 65 | 65 | 71 | 74 | 73 | 81 | Ugandan Ma'di-composite | ||
| 62 | 63 | 62 | 69 | 73 | 71 | 81 | 99 | Ma'di - Lokai | |
| 64 | 61 | 62 | 67 | 71 | 67 | 73 | 81 | 80 | Lulubo - est. |
Most of these figures are based on a comparison of about 160 lexical items. The estimated percentages for Lulubo are based on a comparison of about 140 lexical items, and there were about 170 items used in comparing Lugbara and Ma'di dialects.
These figures are a statistical estimate of true lexical similarity among all common words in these dialects, based on a sample of fewer than two hundred words. The estimates are subject to sampling error. For figures between 75% and 95%, the estimated possible error is 3-5 percentage points; for figures between 60% and 75%, the possible error is 6-8 percentage points.
The greatest similarity is observed between dialects of the same language (Ma'di and Kaliko), and between dialects spoken in geographically contiguous territories, especially within the same country (Logo and Kaliko-Ma'di, Kaliko-Omi and Lugbara, Lugbara and Ma'di, Ma'di and Lulubo, Avokaya and Logo). Moru and Avokaya are not immediate neighbors, which is probably the reason that their lexical similarity figure is not remarkably high.
Although there is a 'chaining' effect (no simple tree diagram could faithfully summarize these data due to the gradations in the figures across the whole language chain), the figures for non-neighboring languages tend to be less than 75%. Given this degree of dissimilarity in vocabulary, and considering the unlikelihood of widespread contact between people who live so far apart, it would seem reasonable to concentrate our efforts of description on pairs or triples of neighboring dialect clusters (languages) and on relationships among dialects of the same language, rather than every possible pair of speech forms or on all the speech forms at once.
For a snapshot of relative phonetic closeness (or rather distance), we present this matrix of degrees of phonetic difference:
| Moru-Miza | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | Avokaya of Sudan | ||||||||
| 29 | 20 | Logo (five main dials.) | |||||||
| 31 | 21 | 23 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Didi | ||||||
| 32 | 23 | 28 | 16 | Kaliko-Sud-East | |||||
| 30 | 24 | 24 | 13 | 19 | Kaliko-Omi | ||||
| 35 | 28 | 26 | 21 | 21 | 25 | Ugandan Lugbara-composite | |||
| 34 | 31 | 34 | 30 | 31 | 33 | 32 | Ugandan Ma'di-composite | ||
| 41 | 39 | 41 | 36 | 39 | 37 | 36 | 17 | Ma'di - Lokai | |
| 40 | 42 | 41 | 39 | 40 | 39 | 37 | 32 | 27 | Lulubo - est. |
The larger the number given for a pair of dialects, the greater the amount of phonetic difference between words judged similar, that is, the less phonetically similar the word lists. A smaller number of degrees of phonetic difference, on the other hand, means that the lists were more phonetically alike. (For an explanation of how these figures were calculated, see 2.1.1.)
Generally speaking, the phonetic relationships parallel the lexical and geographic relationships. Note that each Kaliko dialect has fewer than 20 degrees of phonetic difference from each of the other Kaliko dialects; similarly for the two Ma'di dialects listed. Some other neighboring languages display between 20 and 25 degrees of difference (Avokaya, Logo, Kaliko; Kaliko, Lugbara); geographically distant dialects tend to be phonetically distant as well.
So, the pairwise comparison of clusters which follows is justified. We observe in turn: Avokaya and Moru (3.1.1), Avokaya and Logo (3.1.2), Kaliko and Logo (3.1.3), Kaliko and Lugbara (3.1.4), Ma'di and Kaliko (3.1.5), and Lugbara and Ma'di (3.1.6). Due to the lack of Lulubo data, Ma'di-Lulubo relationships are considered in the Lugbara-Ma'di and Ma'di-Ma'di sections (3.1.6 and 3.2.5).
The six closest Moru dialects are found almost exclusively in Mundri District of Equatoria Province in Sudan. Avokaya is spoken to the west and south of the Moru area, in several locations in the area between Mundri, Maridi, and Yei. The seventh so-called 'Moru dialect', Wa'di, is spoken at Amaki, north of Maridi. Tucker (1967:9) reported that Wa'di was "almost identical' to one of the other Moru dialects (Moro-ägi) but that it also had "much in common with Avukaya." The survey team, including two people who had worked for several years in Avokaya, wanted to determine whether Wa'di was more closely related to Avokaya than to Moru.
All of the matrices used in this study are the output of WordSurv, the lexicostatistics program used to analyze the Moru-Ma'di word list data. The figures represent percentage of similar vocabulary items for each pair of speech forms, out of a sample of approximately 160 lexical items. (Actual data are found in Appendix 11.) 'Union' Logo is included in addition to the seven Moru and two Avokaya dialects to give a slightly broader perspective.
| Moru-Kädiro | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | Moru-Lakamadi | ||||||||
| 99 | 100 | Moru-Miza | |||||||
| 96 | 98 | 97 | Moru-Ägyi | ||||||
| 91 | 93 | 93 | 95 | Moru-Ändri | |||||
| 92 | 93 | 93 | 96 | 99 | Moru-'Bäri'bä | ||||
| 83 | 85 | 84 | 86 | 85 | 86 | Moru-Wa'di | |||
| 69 | 69 | 68 | 71 | 75 | 74 | 81 | Avokaya-Ojila (Sudan) | ||
| 66 | 67 | 66 | 68 | 71 | 71 | 70 | 78 | Avo-Ajigu (Zaïre) | |
| 65 | 65 | 65 | 66 | 69 | 69 | 70 | 76 | 86 | Logo |
Some of the lists are 99% or even 100% similar for our sample of lexical items. Remember also that because these figures are necessarily based on only part of the lexical inventory of the each dialect, the "true" lexical similarity of two speech forms may be several percentage points higher or lower than figures given above. Combining highly similar lists and adding estimates of possible error, we get another matrix:
| Moru-Kädiro and Lakamadi and Miza (99±1.4) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 97±2.5 | Moru-Ägyi | |||||
| 93±4 | 96±3 | Moru-Ändri and 'Bäri'bä (99±1.4) | ||||
| 84±5.7 | 86±5.3 | 86±5.5 | Moru-Wa'di | |||
| 69±6.4 | 71±6.2 | 74±5.8 | 81±5 | Avokaya-Ojila(Sudan) | ||
| 67±6.1 | 68±5.9 | 71±5.6 | 70±5.7 | 78±3.8 | Avo-Ajigu(Zaïre) | |
| 65±6.2 | 66±6.1 | 69±5.8 | 70±5.7 | 76±4 | 86±2.7 | Logo |
The extent of Moru dialects is fairly well-defined on the lexical level. The Wa'di dialect is set apart from the other six dialects, but is apparently more similar to the other Moru dialects than to Avokaya. (In several cases, the six other Moru forms are similar and the Wa'di form is similar to that of Avokaya and sometimes to even many other non-Moru data; other times, though, the Wa'di form is unlike the data for any other dialect). Tucker's claim that Wa'di is nearly identical to Ägyi is not borne out on the lexical level (but see the analysis of phonetic similarity below).
The Ojila (Sudanese) dialect of Avokaya may have more shared vocabulary with the Wa'di dialect of Moru than with any other non-Moru dialect; otherwise, the highest lexical similarity percentage of a Moru dialect with a non-Moru dialect is about 75%. Miza is the reference dialect already in use for Moru; the other Moru dialects are over 80% similar to it on the lexical level, while all other speech forms display less than 70% lexical similarity to Miza for our sample.
The WordSurv output for phonetic relationships is given below.
| Moru-Kädiro | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Moru-Lakamadi | ||||||||
| 6 | 5 | Moru-Miza | |||||||
| 15 | 15 | 14 | Moru-Ägyi | ||||||
| 18 | 19 | 19 | 20 | Moru-Ändri | |||||
| 15 | 17 | 17 | 18 | 6 | Moru-'Bäri'bä | ||||
| 25 | 26 | 25 | 15 | 28 | 28 | Moru-Wa'di | |||
| 31 | 31 | 32 | 27 | 23 | 25 | 30 | Avokaya-Ojila (Sudan) | ||
| 30 | 30 | 31 | 29 | 25 | 27 | 30 | 13 | Avo-Ajigu (Zaïre) | |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 27 | 29 | 30 | 28 | 20 | 19 | (Logo) |
Lower numbers mean a smaller degree of phonetic difference between forms judged similar: zero would mean all similar forms were in fact judged phonologically identical (there is no absolute upper limit on the highest possible degree of phonetic difference). Once again, we may combine the most similar lists:
| Moru-Kädiro and Lakamadi and Miza (6) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Moru-Ägyi | |||||
| 15-19 | 18-20 | Moru-Ändri and 'Bäri'bä (6) | ||||
| 26 | 15 | 28 | Moru-Wa'di | |||
| 32 | 27 | 23-25 | 30 | Avokaya-Ojila (Sudan) | ||
| 30 | 29 | 25-27 | 30 | 13 | Avo-Ajigu (Zaïre) | |
| 27-29 | 27 | 30 | 28 | 20 | 19 | Logo |
One surprising outcome is the similarity of Wa'di to Ägyi (half the differences observed between Wa'di and other dialects, or between Moru and non-Moru dialects). Also, the ratio of degrees of phonetic difference between Ojila and Ajigu is only half that for Ojila and Wa'di. Although the status of Wa'di (Moru or non-Moru?) is unclear on the basis of phonetic comparisons of word lists, it is clear that Wa'di is set apart from the Avokaya and Logo dialects.
For purposes of comparison, we shall compare the MIZA dialect of Moru (the one used in written materials) with the OJILA dialect of Avokaya (the major dialect of Sudan). There are many structural similarities between these speech forms, but significant differences as well. (The detailed comparison is found in Appendix 10.)
There is no doubt that many more Avokayas speak and understand Moru than vice versa. However, this does not indicate an imbalance in 'inherent' intelligibility; rather, it is a result of the fact that Moru is the dominant language in that area. There are at least five times as many Morus as Avokayas in Sudan, and their territory adjoins. Furthermore, Moru was established as a regional language at the Rejaf Language Conference of 1928. As a result, there was more missionary activity in Moru, and now not only do many Avokayas attend Moru schools but Moru is also used in the churches.
It is safe to say that almost all Avokaya-speaking Sudanese understand Moru. The only known exceptions have lived all their lives in Juba, the regional capital over 150 km from the Avokaya area. Avokayas who use Moru in church say that they understand the preaching well but have difficulty reading written Moru (due to underdifferentiation in the orthography).
On the other hand, it would seem that Morus do not understand Avokaya unless they have made a special effort to learn it, and they see no need to do so because most Avokaya have learnt Moru. It took one highly motivated Moru pastor working in an Avokaya parish about six months to reach a moderate proficiency in Avokaya. He was able to communicate on everyday topics but was never fully comfortable preaching in Avokaya. This shows that the two languages are not really 'mutually intelligible' but rather must be learnt to be understood.
It seems reasonable to conclude, until it can be proved otherwise, that speakers of Wa'di understand Moru better than Avokaya, based on the facts that Wa'di is linguistically more like Moru and that Moru is a language of wider communication.
Avokaya and Moru are distinct languages, not inherently inter-intelligible, spoken by distinct people groups. Avokayas and Morus cannot use a common literature. Moru is the more influential language, and for that reason many Avokaya people understand spoken Moru. (This survey did not establish whether enough Avokayas understand Moru well enough and have a positive enough attitude to it to use Moru Scriptures. There is strong support for Avokaya Scriptures, which are being translated.)
Wa'di is best considered a Moru dialect, not Avokaya.
The Logo and the Avokaya areas meet northeast of Faradje in Zaïre. Three collectivités in the Faradje Zone are involved: those called Mundu, Lolya, and Ogambi. A few (at most 200) Avokayas live west of Misa in the Mundu collectivité (northwest of Aba). The vast majority of Zairean Avokayas live in the Ogambi collectivité north of the Aba-Faradje road. The Ogambi dialect of Logo extends northward slightly beyond the Dungu river but not beyond the Faradje-Aba road; the Lolya collectivité, where the Lolya dialect of Logo is spoken, extends north of this road and thus borders the Avokaya-speaking area. (See the map of Logo dialects in Appendix 1).
The name 'Ogambi' bears explanation at this point, although a fuller discussion appears in section 3.2.3.1.1. Apparently (Tucker 1967:37-38) the Agambi people group were pushed southeast from Sudan in the late nineteenth century and quickly "attained supremacy over the Logo clans" already there. Presumably their influence over the Logo faded out as the influence of the colonialists grew around 1900. If there was a distinct Agambi speech form, it is apparently no longer used. The descendants of the ruling Agambi still remember their noble heritage and retain their ethnic identity, but linguistically they have merged with surrounding groups, viz. Logo and Avokaya.
It is thought that the Moru and the Avokaya once lived south of the Dungu river, later moving northward to Sudan (see Appendix 6). If so, it is likely that the pocket of Avokayas now living in Zaïre are the tail of this movement, and that in remaining just 40-60 kilometers north of the Dungu river, they were separated from the other Avokayas by the Mündü and Baka.
Linguistically this group appears to be about as close to Logo as to Sudanese Avokaya (which they call Ojila). Ethnically they are Avokayas, but they admit various more specific names: Adjigo, Gbalo, and Ogambi. This last group would presumably be descendants of the ruling Agambi who adopted Avokaya rather than Logo. Gbalo is a clan name, and Ajugu (or Ojiga) is what the Sudanese call all Zairean Avokayas. Apparently some Zaireans speak what they call "pure" Avokaya; according to a Zairean schoolteacher, Adjigo, Avokaya, Gbalo, and Ogambi represent a four-way classification of Avokayas who are not Ojila. (At present, there is not sufficient evidence to separate these four as subdialects, and for our purposes, we shall treat them as one dialect.)
A person called "Ogambi", then, may be a speaker of Logo or of Avokaya. In addition, the name may be used merely to refer to someone who lives in the Ogambi collectivité. This is a potential source of confusion. The Logo-Doka who claims Logo-Ogambi is very hard to understand may well be referring to an Avokaya speech form. Politically the man spoken to was (Logo-) Ogambi but linguistically and ethnically he is Avokaya. (It might be mentioned here that the Zaïre survey team thought at first that all Zairean Avokayas were called "Northern Ogambi." This would make sense since Avokayas are found to the north of the Logos, in the northern part of the Ogambi collectivité, but it now appears that this term refers instead to a subdialect of Logo-Ogambi!)
The following matrix is the output of WordSurv, the lexicostatistics program used to analyze the Moru-Ma'di word list data. The figures represent percentage of similar vocabulary items for each pair of speech forms, out of a sample of approximately 160 lexical items. (Actual data are found in Appendix 11.)
| Avokaya of Sudan (OJILA) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 78 | Avokaya of Zaïre (AJIGU) | ||||
| 76 | 86 | Logo (five main dialects.) | |||
| 74 | 86 | 94 | Logo Bari - Kanzako | ||
| 76 | 87 | 95 | 93 | Logo Bari - West | |
| 74 | 73 | 74 | 74 | 77 | Bari Logo-Mandramandra |
The Avokaya and 'Union' Logo (five main dialects which are 99-100% similar, see section 3.2.3.2) lists are fairly well established: the Sudanese data were reviewed and supplemented by Eileen Kilpatrick, who has been familiar with that dialect for several years, the Zairean Avokaya data are based on three lists gathered in a variety of locations, and the 'Union' Logo data are a conflation of the five lists arrived at by a committee of over twenty Logo speakers (at least three of each dialect). The three Logo-Bari lists are less sure; without double-checking, we cannot be sure whether there are one or two subdialects of Logo-Bari or whether Bari-Logo is as divergent form the others as it appears.
A tree representing lexical closeness (not necessarily genetic relationship) would look like this:
The WordSurv output for phonetic relationships is shown below.
| Avokaya of Sudan (OJILA) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Avokaya of Zaïre (AJIGU) | ||||
| 20 | 18 | Logo (five main dials.) | |||
| 23 | 21 | 11 | Logo Bari - Kanzako | ||
| 21 | 19 | 5 | 8 | Logo Bari - West | |
| 25 | 24 | 25 | 24 | 24 | Bari Logo-Mandramandra |
Lower numbers mean a smaller degree of phonetic difference between forms judged similar: zero would mean all similar forms were in fact judged phonologically identical (there is no absolute upper limit on the highest possible degree of phonetic difference). Whereas Ajigu is lexically more like Logo than like Ojila, phonetically it is more like Ojila than like Logo. Again, Logo-Bari and Logo are the most alike of the dialects listed, and the Mandramandra list seems to represent a speech form as distinct as Ojila, Ajigu, and the other Logos.
The two dialects of Avokaya (Ojila and Ajigu) differ grammatically in several areas. When differences occur, Ajigu is much closer to Logo than Ojila is. For this reason, both Avokaya dialects need to be discussed in a comparison with Logo. The discussion in Appendix 10 is based on the limited data afforded by the phrase lists.
As expected, Zairean speakers of Avokaya (apparently both the Ogambi and Adjigo sub-dialects) and speakers of Logo-Ogambi, groups who have frequent contact, speak their respective languages with each other. One Avokaya(-Ogambi) claims to comprehend easily and completely the speech of a Logo-Ogambi.
Logo-Ogambi, however, is spoken over a broad area. Logos who live near the Avokaya area similarly claim ease of comprehension of Avokaya, while those living further south with less contact must resort to Bangala due to the difficulty of comprehension.
Twenty-two Logo language committee men met in Todro, representing five of the six Logo dialects. They were asked:
"When you speak to a Zairean Avokaya from north of Faradje, what language do you use?"
They were offered two choices for response:
A)I use Logo and he responds in Avokaya resulting in good mutual comprehension.
B)Bangala or French (not just because it is the language to use in the relevant semantic domain but because of inability to understand the other's language).
All three Bhagiras chose A. Four of the six Lolyas and three of the six Ogambis chose A, with the rest choosing B. This indicates that either these dialects are closely related to Avokaya, or that these individuals have heard Avokaya frequently enough that they have learned "to hear it." It seems odd that only some of the people from dialects which share a border with Avokaya claim to understand it adequately while all the Bhagira speakers, who are from further away, said that comprehension was good. None of the Dokas and none of the Obilebhas chose A. These are the southernmost dialects of Logo and it is likely that they have little contact with Avokaya speakers. It is not clear whether these individuals use Bangala or French with the few Avokayas they do meet or whether they never hear Avokaya at all.
Since these five Logo dialects exhibit strong lexical and structural similarity to one another, one cannot conclude on purely linguistic grounds that a Logo from Doka or Obilebha and a Zairean Avokaya are less likely to understand one another than a Logo-Ogambi and a Zairean Avokaya would. In fact, cognate percentages with Avokaya are 86% for all Logo dialects and the ratio of phonetic degrees of difference with Zairean Avokaya may actually be lower for the Logo Dokas and Obilebhas than for Lolya and Ogambi. Observed and reported understanding (or lack of understanding) of Zairean Avokaya by Logos appeared to be dependent on exposure (or lack of exposure) alone.
A Zairean living at Lema said that he spoke "Adjigo (Avokaya)" to Logos and they replied in Logo and they understood each other. He said that he understood "Ogambi" speakers and they understood his "Adjigo (Avokaya)." Another man living at Djabir said that he and a Logo could understand each other when he spoke Avokaya and the other person Logo. When asked what language he used when he spoke with an Ogambi, he said that Ogambiwas Avokaya. Both claimed that Ojila and Logo were about equally difficult (or equally easy) to understand, though the man in Djabir thought that Logo might be a little easier. The Lema resident said that grandfathers understand more than children do. This would presumably be due to 'experience' rather than 'inherent' factors.
Although oral mutual comprehension appears to be a matter of contact, just how many weeks or months of exposure are required for good comprehension of the neighboring speech variety is not known. (See Appendix 4, "On Intelligibility Estimates").
Not enough is known of intelligibility between the form(s) of Avokaya spoken in Sudan and the form(s) spoken in Zaïre, nor between Logo and Sudanese Avokaya. For the various Avokaya dialects, testing of oral intelligibility or, better yet, Scripture testing would be required. The two major varieties of Avokaya (i.e. those for which we have lists) appear to share less than 80% similar vocabulary, and most Avokayas of one dialect are separated by many miles and an international border from speakers of the other dialect. Yet, written materials in Ojila could probably be adapted into a standard Zairean dialect— if one were agreed upon (see next section and sections 3.2.1.4 and 3.2.1.6.2).
Since contact between the Avokayas and the Logos is only in Zaïre, the main question here is what Zairean Avokayas think of Logo and what Logos think of Zairean Avokaya. Logo is the dominant language in the Faradje Zone and even in the Ogambi collectivité there are many more Logos than Avokayas. Avokayas seemed reluctant about using any materials to be written in Logo, though they said that they would not want to use Ojila materials either. There was, however, interest in adapting Ojila materials, or, as they put it, "translating them into Avokaya."
There is no evidence that Logo is displacing Avokaya anywhere in Zaïre; the man in Djabir was concerned about the future of his language, but for him the danger was that people would turn to Bangala, and not that Avokaya might give way to Logo.
For their part, Logo speakers do not consider that Avokaya has any effect on their language.
Logo and Avokaya (Ojila) are distinct languages; Logo is spoken in Zaïre and Ojila in Sudan. It is unlikely that these languages are inherently inter-intelligible, and there is little or no contact between Sudanese Avokayas and Logo-speaking people. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that Ojila speakers and Logos cannot understand one another's speech. Separate literature is needed for Avokaya and Logo.
The Avokaya dialect(s) spoken in Zaïre exhibit similarities to both Ojila and Logo; since they consider themselves to be Avokayas, Ajigu can be considered an Avokaya dialect, but with a marked similarity to Logo as well. This is one example of 'chaining' in Moru-Ma'di.
Although neighbors with an acknowledged ethnic affinity, the Kaliko and the Logo peoples maintain a clear ethnic distinction. Politically, they are separated in part by an international boundary (the Logo live only in Zaïre whereas some Kaliko live in Sudan) and, within Zaïre, by a zonal boundary. The Kaliko live in the Aru Zone and the Logo, in the Faradje Zone. The presence of these boundaries significantly decreases the degree of contact.
The following figures represent percentage of similar vocabulary items for each pair of speech forms, out of a sample of approximately 160 lexical items (except for comparisons with the Dodo subdialect, see below). These figures are correct within a margin of three to eight percentage points. (Actual data are found in Appendix 11.)
Recall (section 3.1.2.2) that 'Logo5' and Logo-Bari (Kanzako and Western) are about 95% similar, Ajigu is about 87% similar to these Logo, and Ojila and the Logo-Bari list representing Mandramandra are about 75% similar to Ajigu and Logo. The fifteen pairwise comparisons of Kaliko lists all yield between 86% and 94% lexical similarity (see 3.2.2.2).
| Ojila | Ajigu | Logo5 | L-B-K | L-B-W | B-L-M | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 78 | 90 | 86 | 85 | 86 | 75 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Didi | (Z) |
| 75 | 83 | 77 | 76 | 77 | 69 | Kaliko-Sud-W | (S) |
| 74 | 81 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 66 | Kaliko-Rang'a'ba | (S) |
| 72 | 82 | 78 | 78 | 81 | 70 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Dogo | (Z) |
| 71 | 79 | 72 | 73 | 73 | 66 | Kaliko-Sud-East | (S) |
| 73 | 83 | 78 | 76 | 77 | 68 | Kaliko-Omi | (Z) |
Every Kaliko dialect is approximately 90% similar to all the others but the only form of Kaliko which approaches that degree of similarity to a non-Kaliko dialect is Kaliko-Ma'di (Didi subdialect). This may mean that Didi-Ma'di is as similar to Logo as Ajigu is. Curiously, Ajigu is more like all the Kaliko dialects than Logo is.
The Didi list is one of the 'richer' lists since it is a conflation of two 170-item lists and two 100-item lists taken independently (so that an item overlooked by one source might be included on another component list). The Omi list is the work of a committee of Kalikos and should also be reliable. The Rang'a'ba list, in contrast, is a single 170-item list and the Dogo list, one 100-item list. The Eastern Sudanese dialect is nominally represented by four lists but this is more like one list triple-checked; the western Sudanese dialect is represented by one full list and another only fifty items long.
The WordSurv output for phonetic relationships is shown below:
| Avokaya of Sudan (Ojila) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Avokaya of Zaïre (Ajigu) | ||||||||||
| 20 | 18 | Logo (five main dials.) | |||||||||
| 23 | 21 | 11 | Logo Bari - Kanzako | ||||||||
| 21 | 19 | 5 | 8 | Logo Bari - West | |||||||
| 25 | 24 | 25 | 24 | 24 | Bari Logo - Mandramandra | ||||||
| 21 | 18 | 23 | 24 | 22 | 30 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Didi (Z) | |||||
| 28 | 22 | 27 | 26 | 25 | 31 | 15 | Kaliko-Sud-W (S) | ||||
| 26 | 21 | 28 | 28 | 26 | 31 | 18 | 12 | Kaliko-Rang'a'ba (S) | |||
| 21 | 18 | 23 | 24 | 22 | 29 | 11 | 18 | 21 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Dogo (Z) | ||
| 23 | 20 | 28 | 26 | 25 | 32 | 15 | 10 | 14 | 14 | Kaliko-Sud-East(S) | |
| 24 | 21 | 24 | 26 | 23 | 30 | 13 | 19 | 21 | 18 | 19 | Kaliko-Omi (Z) |
Most of the pairwise comparisons of Kaliko lists yield ratios of phonetic degrees of difference of less than 20 per 100 comparable phones. Likewise, apart from the Mandramandra list, the Logo lists are very similar on the phonetic level. Yet, some of the figures representing the relationships of Logo and Kaliko dialects are not much more than 20 per hundred comparable phones; some Kaliko dialects phonetically resemble the main Logo dialects as closely as 'Logo'-Mandramandra does.
Unfortunately, the Kaliko grammatical data are not available for analysis.
In 1933 Tucker stated that "Kaliko and Logo are, on the whole, mutually intelligible ..." (p. 5). Fifty years later this generalization is very doubtful, based on the testimony of Kaliko respondents. This may be due to diminished contact and separate development over several generations or to increased use of the Bangala trade language in semantic domains where Kaliko used to be the natural choice. For insight on intelligibility between these linguistic groups, it is helpful to consider what language Logo speakers and Kaliko speakers use with each other. Here it is assumed that extremely vigorous use of the local languages is an indicator of intelligibility, whereas non-use suggests difficulty of understanding. (See Appendix 4.)
3.1.3.4.1 Logo comprehension of Kaliko
The twenty-two men on the Logo language committee reported the following on language use:
When speaking with Kaliko-Omis, all Logo men used a common third language, Bangala.
When speaking with Kaliko-Ma'dis there was variance, as follows:
"I speak Logo, he speaks Kaliko-Ma'di, and we understand each other."
- This was reported by all Bhagiras (closest geographical neighbors of Kaliko-Ma'di) and all Lolyas (next-closest neighbors), as well as one Obilebha, two Dokas, and four Ogambis.
"We both use Bangala."
- This was reported by the other two Obilebhas, the other two Dokas, and the other two Ogambis.
3.1.3.4.2 Kaliko comprehension of Logo
Statements on language use among the Kaliko-Ma'di are based on individual responses to sociolinguistic questionnaires.
When conversing with Logo-Bhagira, Kaliko-Ma'dis use Kaliko-Ma'di. Two exceptions were noted, but these were probably due to special sociolinguistic factors rather than to a lack of comprehension between the two speech forms. One case concerned a church musician whose contact with Logo-Bhagira was primarily in churches where Bangala is the appropriate language. The other exception was seen among children at play. Kaliko-Ma'di schoolboys used Bangala with Logo-Bhagira playmates, possibly because heavy Bangala use at school has carried over into their playing.
Some Kaliko-Ma'dis use Kaliko-Ma'di with Logo-Lolya and some do not. With Logo-Bari, Doka, Obilebha and Ogambi, all Kaliko-Ma'dis use a second language (Bangala or French). They consider these other dialects to be "makási"— hard.
All of the Kaliko-Omi interviewed said that they use Bangala with Logo speakers.
3.1.3.4.3 Summary
This indicates that except for Kaliko-Ma'di with two Logo dialects (Bhagira and Lolya), the Logo and Kaliko speech forms in Zaïre are not mutually intelligible. The unanimity of responses indicated that Kaliko-Ma'di and Logo-Bhagira are inherently intelligible. There is no clear indication that the reported mutual understanding is due to learning. Sometimes, of course, one finds that some speakers of a given speech form understand and are understood by speakers of a neighboring language because they have learned it to some degree after prolonged contact.
Some speakers of Kaliko-Omi felt Logo may be displacing their language, although very slowly. Others thought that Omi children "mixed the languages", no longer speaking "pure Omi" but using words borrowed from Bangala, Swahili, and Lugbara (note that Logo was not mentioned). The respondents were interviewed in two groups. Had we been able to question them one at a time a clearer picture of language use would probably have emerged.
Kalikos in the eastern Sudanese Kaliko dialect consider their variety of Kaliko to be the pure form. They consider the western dialect to have heavy Logo borrowing and some easterners call the westerners Logo.
It is not yet known whether the Sudanese distinguish between Zairean dialects of Kaliko.
Similarly Kaliko-Ma'di is reputed to be tainted by Logo while Omi is thought to be tainted by Lugbara. None of the Logo dialects are said to be influenced by Kaliko, however.
Kaliko and Logo are distinct languages: the most influential dialects (Omi and eastern Sudanese) both share less than 80% vocabulary with the main Logo dialects. Kaliko-Ma'di is best considered a dialect of Kaliko on lexical, phonological, geographical, and ethnological grounds; however, the Didi subdialect of Kaliko-Ma'di has a greater degree of shared vocabulary with Logo (and Avokaya) than do any other Kaliko dialects and apparently is more highly inter-intelligible with them. As Ajigu appears to fall midway between Avokaya-Ojila and Logo, so Kaliko-Ma'di appears to fall between Logo, Omi, and Kaliko-Sudan. (This appears to be an area of dialect chaining, but intelligibility testing and grammatical comparison are needed to refine this judgment.) The division between Logo and Kaliko is reinforced by politico-administrative boundaries.
The Zairean dialects of both Kaliko and Lugbara are spoken in the Aru Zone. The survey team in Zaïre did not visit Lugbara-speaking villages, but they did interview three Lugbara speakers living outside the Lugbara area. One of these was a Lugbara-Lu working as a schoolteacher in Didi, among the Kaliko-Ma'di. He said that Kaliko-Omi is closer to his speech form than Ugandan Lugbara is. However, more recent research (by the survey team in Uganda the following year) seems to indicate that Zairean Lugbara is more like "standard" Ugandan Lugbara than like Kaliko. Perhaps this man was thinking of other Ugandan dialects; in any case, his home area is near the edge of the Omi area and he is surely more familiar with Kaliko than with Ugandan speech. (See also 3.2.4.4, "Intelligibility among Lugbara Dialects.")
Ugandan Lugbaras and Kaliko speakers are unlikely to have contact, as their territories are not contiguous.
Each of these two languages exhibits much internal variety, among dialects (Kaliko in Sudan and Zaïre and Lugbara in Sudan, Zaïre and Uganda) One would expect that the relationship between the languages is fairly complicated. Yet, on the lexical and phonetic level, there is not a large degree of chaining.
The figures in the following matrix represent percentage of similar vocabulary items for each pair of speech forms, out of a sample of approximately 160 lexical items (except for comparisons with the Dogo subdialect, see 3.1.3.2).
| Kaliko-Ma'di-Didi(Z) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 94±3 | Kaliko-Sud-W(S) | |||||
| 87±4 | 86±5½ | Kaliko-Rang'a'ba(S) | ||||
| 91±4½ | 87±7 | 86±7 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Dogo (Z) | |||
| 87±4 | 92±4 | 88±5 | 92±5½ | Kaliko-Sud-East(S) | ||
| 91±3½ | 89±5 | 82±6 | 89±6 | 88±5 | Kaliko-Omi(Z) | |
| 80±4 | 79±5½ | 76±5½ | 81±6½ | 83±5 | 86±4½ | ZaireanLugbara |
| 78±4 | 79±5 | 74±5½ | 80±6 | 82±4½ | 82±4½ | UgandanLugbara |
| 76±4 | 78±5 | 75±5 | 81±6 | 83±4½ | 80±4½ | Maracha(U) |
| 74±4 | 75±5 | 71±5½ | 78±6½ | 79±4½ | 78±5 | Terego(U) |
| 73±4 | 74±5½ | 72±5½ | 79±6 | 78±5 | 76±5 | Aringa(U) |
| 75±4 | 75±5 | 72±5½ | 80±6 | 80±4½ | 79±4½ | Ogoko(U) |
| 68±5 | 68±6 | 65±6 | 73±7 | 73±5½ | 71±5½ | Okollo(U) |
There is a fairly clear division of Kaliko from Lugbara on lexical grounds, with slight chaining between Kaliko-Omi and its neighbor, Zairean Lugbara. The lexical similarity figures of most of the Lugbara dialects with the other Lugbara dialects are about ten percentage points higher than the figures given here for their similarity to Kaliko (see 3.1.6.2).
The WordSurv output for phonetic relationships is shown below.
| Kaliko-Ma'di-Didi (Z) | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Kaliko-Sud-W (S) | |||||||||||
| 18 | 12 | Kaliko-Rang'a'ba (S) | ||||||||||
| 11 | 18 | 21 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Dogo (Z) | |||||||||
| 15 | 10 | 14 | 14 | Kaliko-Sud-East (S) | ||||||||
| 13 | 19 | 21 | 18 | 19 | Kaliko-Omi (Z) | |||||||
| 21 | 24 | 26 | 19 | 18 | 21 | 'Zairean Lugbara' | ||||||
| 22 | 26 | 30 | 23 | 21 | 24 | 13 | 'Ugandan Lugbara' | |||||
| 24 | 29 | 31 | 21 | 23 | 28 | 17 | 14 | Maracha (U) | ||||
| 24 | 29 | 31 | 22 | 25 | 27 | 19 | 18 | 11 | Terego (U) | |||
| 26 | 31 | 32 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 22 | 20 | 16 | 9 | Aringa (U) | ||
| 26 | 29 | 31 | 28 | 28 | 29 | 22 | 20 | 23 | 21 | 22 | Ogoko (U) | |
| 29 | 31 | 34 | 29 | 28 | 29 | 20 | 18 | 23 | 25 | 27 | 24 | Okollo (U) |
There seems to be adequate phonetic basis for the division of these speech forms into two major groups.
Because the Kaliko data have not been left with the survey team, this analysis is not presently possible.
Since the Lugbaras interviewed (in Zaïre) lived outside the Lugbara area, their reports concerning intelligibility must be carefully weighed, and not necessarily taken at face value. Furthermore, a number of the Kaliko-Omis interviewed know Lugbara to some degree or another. Ugandan Lugbaras were not questioned concerning their understanding of Kaliko; probably few of them would have any basis for response.
3.1.4.4.1 Kaliko comprehension of Lugbara
Kaliko-Ma'di speakers differed as to whether they would address a Lugbara in Kaliko or in Bangala (or Swahili). However, they agreed that mutual understanding in their mother tongues was very difficult. Kaliko-Omis who did not themselves speak Lugbara (as a second language) tended not to be able to understand it. Apparently, they were of the opinion that even the Sudanese dialect of Kaliko (of which they only distinguish one) is inherently easier for an Omi speaker to understand than Lugbara is.
3.1.4.4.2 Lugbara comprehension of Kaliko
It is said (by Omis) that only if an Omi spoke slowly could a Lugbara understand him. Unless they knew Lugbara themselves, they spoke Bangala when talking to a Lugbara speaker. A Lugbara-Zaki who lives at Adja (near the southern edge of Kaliko-Omi) said that Lugbaras understand Omi (as spoken at Mado) well but not the Kaliko spoken at Ara (which he called Kaliko-Ma'di). Interestingly, he also said that he understood Avokaya well but did not understand Logo well. Meanwhile, a Lugbara-Lu who works as a teacher at Didi (among the Kaliko-Ma'di) claims to "half-understand" both Kaliko-Ma'di and Kaliko-Omi. He says that he himself speaks a little Kaliko, so we would expect other Lugbaras to understand even less.
We don't know if Ugandan Lugbaras can understand any kind of Kaliko, but it is doubtful, apart from itinerant traders, etc.
3.1.4.4.3 Summary
Kaliko and Lugbara are not inherently intelligible. Reported understanding appears to be the result of having learned the other speech form.
More research must be done in this area. Some of the Omis interviewed expressed their concern that the young people "mixed the languages" and among the languages from which words were said to be gained was Lugbara. A number of the Omis interviewed had Lugbara wives, and many others had learned Lugbara. Not enough Lugbaras were encountered to ascertain Lugbara attitudes and usage vis-à-vis Kaliko.
Kaliko and Lugbara are distinct languages, and the only hint of chaining or transitional dialects is the possibility of a slightly greater lexical similarity between Kaliko-Omi and Lugbara-Zaïre (the only pair of geographically contiguous Kaliko and Lugbara dialects). These languages are not inherently inter-intelligible and they could not use a common literature. However, the Omi-Lugbara relationship may be worth remembering if Omi is chosen as a reference dialect and the grammar is not too different for Computer Assisted Related Language Adaptation.
The parts of Sudan where Ma'di and Kaliko are spoken are not contiguous.
The following figures represent percentage of similar vocabulary items for each pair of speech forms, out of a sample of approximately 160 lexical items. (The Lulubo data are a conflation of a 100-item list taken by Dick Watson and Tucker's data, which means that they can be expected to be phonetically more divergent from the other data. The three Ma'di lists are conflations of several lists as well.
| Kaliko-Ma'di-Didi (Z) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 94 | Kaliko-Sud-W (S) | ||||||||
| 87 | 86 | Kaliko-Rang'a'ba (S) | |||||||
| 91 | 87 | 86 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Dogo (Z) | ||||||
| 87 | 92 | 88 | 92 | Kaliko-Sud-East (S) | |||||
| 91 | 89 | 82 | 89 | 88 | Kaliko-Omi (Z) | ||||
| 70 | 72 | 69 | 70 | 74 | 73 | Ugandan Ma'di | |||
| 68 | 68 | 66 | 68 | 72 | 71 | 99 | Ma'di-Lokai (S) | ||
| 67 | 66 | 65 | 66 | 71 | 69 | 96 | 98 | Ma'di-'Burulo(S) | |
| 67 | 68 | 62 | 65 | 71 | 67 | 80 | 80 | 83 | Lulubo(S) |
There is a very strong basis in the wordlist data for dividing these speech forms into at least two and probably three languages. Furthermore, there is no significant chaining. Simply put, the matrix can be reduced to the following:
| Kaliko (~ 89) | ||
|---|---|---|
| 69±4 | Ma'di (97) | |
| 67±3 | 81±1 | Lulubo |
The same point is made by the following display of WordSurv output for phonetic relationships.
| Kaliko-Ma'di-Didi (Z) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Kaliko-Sud-W (S) | ||||||||
| 18 | 12 | Kaliko-Rang'a'ba (S) | |||||||
| 11 | 18 | 21 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Dogo (Z) | ||||||
| 15 | 10 | 14 | 14 | Kaliko-Sud-East (S) | |||||
| 13 | 19 | 21 | 18 | 19 | Kaliko-Omi (Z) | ||||
| 30 | 32 | 33 | 28 | 31 | 33 | Ugandan Ma'di | |||
| 36 | 37 | 37 | 38 | 40 | 37 | 17 | Ma'di-Lokai (S) | ||
| 35 | 38 | 38 | 38 | 41 | 37 | 19 | 12 | Ma'di-Pandikeri | |
| 39 | 39 | 37 | 42 | 40 | 39 | 32 | 27 | 26 | Lulubo (S) |
Since the Kaliko grammar data are not available, this comparison cannot be made.
Since intelligibility testing was not done (not currently possible in the Sudanese Ma'di area), it is not proven that Kaliko and Ma'di are inherently mutually unintelligible. However, it would appear that speakers of these two languages do not understand one another's first language. Ma'dis and Kalikos use Juba Arabic to communicate with each other, particularly in Juba.
It is said that when necessary, Kalikos learn Ma'di and Ma'dis learn Kaliko, with no evidence that one group is more likely to learn the other's tongue than vice versa.
Kaliko is distinct from Ma'di. The dialect called Kaliko-Ma'di simply recognizes its descent from Ma'di.
Lugbara and Ma'di are each spoken primarily in Uganda, and exhibit the greatest degree of chaining of all pairs of Moru-Ma'di cluster pairs. The relationship of these two groups has been presented in a variety of ways. There seems to be agreement that "Standard" (Arua) Lugbara is quite distinct from the Ma'di spoken at Moyo; these are in fact the reference dialects for the Lugbara Bible and Ma'di New Testament, respectively. Furthermore, Zairean Lugbara is very like 'standard' Lugbara, while Sudanese Ma'di dialects closely resemble Moyo-Ma'di. However, the speech forms spoken by Lugbara people somewhat north of Arua (in Maracha, Terego, and Aringa counties) and the 'southern Ma'di' speech varieties on the west bank of the Nile considerably upstream from Moyo (at Ogoko and Okollo in Okollo county of West Nile district) are not so easily categorized.
Ladefoged et al. analyzed wordlist data from seven Lugbara/Ma'di dialects in Uganda. Their conclusion, based on this analysis of 97 elicited lexical items in each 'dialect', was that
[t]here seems to be some form of dialect continuum, with the Aringa dialect of Lugbara actually being closer to the Ogoko dialect of Ma'di than to either of the other Lugbara dialects. (1972:79)
Some Lugbara, like Kaliko, refer to their language as 'Ma'di', but do not mean to imply mutual intelligibility. For this reason, the so-called 'southern Ma'di' dialects in Okollo County are treated as Lugbara dialects here. See section 3.2.4 for further discussion of Lugbara.
Crazzolara (1960) entitled his work A Study of the Logbara (Ma'di) Language. In it, he says "The Logbara language belongs to the Ma'di group of languages.... All Logbara agree... that they are of the Ma'di nation, that they are Ma'di." (p. v) Yet, according to his account, the Lugbara have been a separate people for a very long time, and he suggests that they represent three groups who migrated independently to their present area.
Many other sources (see Appendix 8) state that there are really two kinds of Lugbara, "High Lugbara" and "Low Lugbara", and suggest these form a bridge between Kaliko and Ma'di, perhaps in a continuum of this sort:
This question is discussed in Appendix 8. Suffice it to say here that the researchers approach this claim with skepticism.
Generally speaking, Sudanese Ma'di do not have contact with Lugbara, and Zairean Lugbaras do not have contact with Ma'di.
The following figures represent percentage of similar vocabulary items for each pair of speech forms, out of a sample of approximately 160 lexical items.
| Okollo(U) | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 86 | Ogoko(U) | |||||||||
| 85 | 89 | 'Zairean Lugbara' | ||||||||
| 87 | 90 | 98 | 'Ugandan Lugbara' | |||||||
| 88 | 90 | 95 | 95 | Maracha(U) | ||||||
| 82 | 91 | 89 | 91 | 93 | Terego(U) | |||||
| 80 | 87 | 87 | 85 | 88 | 89 | Aringa(U) | ||||
| 76 | 83 | 84 | 81 | 82 | 80 | 82 | Ugandan Ma'di | |||
| 72 | 81 | 82 | 81 | 79 | 78 | 80 | 99 | Ma'di-Lokai(S) | ||
| 72 | 79 | 80 | 79 | 77 | 76 | 78 | 96 | 98 | Ma'di-'Burulo | |
| 67 | 72 | 74 | 73 | 73 | 68 | 72 | 80 | 80 | 83 | Lulubo(S) |
Additional words were elicited for some of the Ugandan dialects; the following figures (lexical similarity and margin of error) are based on a sample of 190 to 195 lexical items (more details in section 3.2.4.2).
| Okollo | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 85±2½ | Ogoko | |||||
| 86±2½ | 92±2 | 'Ugandan Lugbara' | ||||
| 86±2½ | 92±2 | 96±1½ | Maracha | |||
| 81±3 | 91±2 | 92±2 | 93±2 | Terego | ||
| 78±3 | 87±2½ | 85±2½ | 87±2½ | 88±2½ | Aringa | |
| 74±4 | 84±3 | 82±3 | 83±3 | 81±3½ | 81±3 | Ugandan Ma'di |
There is close chaining in evidence here, but of a radial kind: beginning with 'standard' Lugbara, we can cluster Maracha with Lugbara at 96, then Terego and Ogoko at 92 and Aringa at around 86 or 87. Terego and Aringa, the northernmost Lugbara dialects, are as dissimilar to Okollo as to (true) Ma'di; but Okollo is about as similar to the other Lugbara dialects as Aringa is. There is no clustering of dialects around Ma'di; (except for Okollo) the Lugbara dialects all have about 82% similar vocabulary to Ma'di.
The WordSurv output for phonetic relationships is shown below.
| Okollo | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | Ogoko | |||||||||
| 20 | 22 | 'Zairean Lugbara' | ||||||||
| 18 | 20 | 13 | 'Ugandan Lugbara' | |||||||
| 23 | 23 | 17 | 14 | Maracha | ||||||
| 25 | 21 | 19 | 18 | 11 | Terego | |||||
| 27 | 22 | 22 | 20 | 16 | 9 | Aringa | ||||
| 35 | 34 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 31 | 31 | Ugandan Ma'di | |||
| 35 | 38 | 36 | 35 | 35 | 35 | 35 | 17 | Ma'di - Lokai | ||
| 39 | 38 | 38 | 37 | 37 | 36 | 36 | 19 | 12 | Ma'di-'Burulo | |
| 39 | 41 | 37 | 36 | 37 | 35 | 35 | 32 | 27 | 26 | Lulubo |
Each of the three varieties of Ma'di show less than twenty degrees of phonetic difference from the others. Most of the figures for the comparison of dialects we are classifying as Lugbara are less than twenty-five. The figures for the comparison of Lugbara and Ma'di (or Lulubo) are all more than thirty. On phonetic as well as lexical grounds, the division of these speech forms into at least three languages (Lugbara, Ma'di, Lulubo) seems well-justified.
No grammatical data were collected in Zairean Lugbara, and the Lulubo data are partial and arrived after analysis was already complete. A discussion of the comparative grammatical relationships of the other Lugbara and Ma'di dialects may be found in Appendix 10.
The Sudanese Ma'di have had little contact with the Lugbara, even when they were in Uganda during the first civil war. Fifty-seven people were asked what language they used with the Lugbara; two older women said they could use Lugbara, one man said he knew some Lugbara greetings, three people said they used the trade language (Swahili), and the remaining fifty-one people said that they never had contact with the Lugbara people.
The Ugandan 'southern Ma'di' interviewed, one person each from Ogoko and Okollo, said that they could not understand Ma'di as it is spoken at Moyo or in Sudan. The Moyo dialect is the standard in that it is used for radio broadcasts; it was also the dialect of the 1977 Ma'di New Testament and Psalms. Both of them were students living in the Lugbara-speaking area and said they could speak at least some Lugbara. Unfortunately, they were not asked how well people from their home areas could understand Lugbara. with Lugbara (which reflects the fact that Ogoko is more similar to Lugbara than Okollo).
The Lugbara respondents were not asked how well they understood Ma'di, either. They did not even understand all other dialects of Lugbara. If a speaker of a standard Lugbara dialect cannot understand someone from Aringa, it is unlikely that he can understand someone from Moyo, which is more geographically and linguistically distant than Aringa. If people from Aringa (or even some from Terego) understood Ma'di better than Standard Lugbara, it would only be as a result of proximity and learning. Some Lugbara speakers (of whatever dialect) might possibly learn Ma'di from the radio and thus understand it better than one would predict based on the linguistic data and the lack of social and political contact. However, any such cases would probably be extremely rare, given the language attitudes.
It is reasonable to suppose that Zairean Lugbaras would be even less likely than speakers of the standard Ugandan dialect of Lugbara to understand Ma'di (of Moyo or of Sudan).
Setting aside the question of whether there is more than one Lugbara dialect (see section 3.2.4 and Appendix 8), it is clear that Lugbara is a distinct language from Ma'di, where by Ma'di we mean the varieties spoken in Sudan and in the area of Moyo and Adjumani, Uganda. The 'southern Ma'di' dialects, spoken in the area of Rigbo, Ogoko, and Okollo, Uganda, should be considered Lugbara dialects, and more distant from Ma'di than other Lugbara dialects. Lugbara and Ma'di, in particular the 'standard' varieties, are not inherently mutually intelligible. People of these groups have a strong ethnic identity as Ma'di or Lugbara (except for the 'southern Ma'di' who consider themselves Ma'di but not the same Ma'di as found downriver to the northeast).
There are two main dialects of those who call themselves Avokaya: The Ojila, most of whom live in Sudan, and a group we shall call Ajigu, who are found primarily in Zaïre.
It may be that the southern Ma'di understand Lugbara radio broadcasts better than Ma'di broadcasts, but it is doubtful that they understand Lugbara well. The Okollo man said that the speech at Ogoko and Rigbo is mixed
The Sudanese call the Ajigu by that name. The Ajigu have also been called the Ojiga (Tucker 1967:4). They recognize among themselves four subgroups which they call Avokaya, Adjigo, Gbalo, and Ogambi. Gbalo and Ogambi are clan names. At present, there is insufficient evidence to consider these as separate sub-dialects of Zairean Avokaya.
3.2.1.1.1 Geography, demographic and administrative information
In Sudan the Avokayas (Ojila) live in a triangular area between Maridi, Mundri, and Yei. About five thousand Ojila live between the Naam and Olo rivers along the Maridi-Mundri road and south along the Mambe road to Ras Olo. Another seven thousand or so live around Tore on the Maridi-Yei road, and there is also an isolated village at Bangolo on the road between Tore and Mundri. In 1987, about four thousand Avokaya lived in Juba, the regional capital. In addition, Ojilas are found on the Yei-Aba road, and a few are said to live in Zaïre (see map in Appendix 1). There are 'Ajugu' in Sudan east of Tore at Lulu'ba on the Yei road and at another village on the outskirts of Yei.
In Zaïre the Avokayas (Adjigo, Gbalo, Ogambi) live in an area with an approximate radius of 20 kilometers. They live along the Aba-Faradje road between Kurukwata and Djabir (the approximate southern limit of their territory is the Dungu River south of the Aba-Faradje road) and north along the road from Djabir to Badri and then east as far as Misa. Except for a few reported in the collectivité Mundu further to the north and east, all Zairean Avokayas live in the Djabir groupement of the Ogambi collectivité. No population figures are available, but it is thought that they number about ten thousand.
3.2.1.1.2 History (recent)
Tucker (1967:37) cites the theory of Logan Gray (unpublished ms.) who posits that the Moru-Ma'di peoples were last located all in one area in the seventeenth century, "somewhere to the west of Lake Albert", to the south of their present positions. The Moru and Avokaya left that point and "advanced to the neighborhood of Maridi." Subsequently (in the nineteenth century) they were divided by the eastward drive of the Makaraka and the Baka; the Moru moved further north and east into the vicinity of Amadi, while the Avokaya moved southeastward toward Yei.
Elsewhere (1967:22) he notes what the people themselves tell of their history. The Moru do claim to have come from the south or south-east, apparently remembering the time when they lived among the Lugbara and the Ma'di, but
The Avukaya come, some say from the south-west, others say from the west.
Maridi is northwest of the present Avokaya territory in Sudan.
If we recognize two essential Avokaya dialects (Ojila and Ajigu), they are about 78% similar on the lexical level. (We can be fairly confident that the actual figure is between 74% and 82%.)
Two Zairean Avokaya lists were originally entered into the WordSurv program. These were 97% similar, as they differed on only five items out of 156 compared. These items were #24 'snake', #55 'root', #93 'to stand' (one gave 'to rise to a standing position', the other 'to be standing'), #122 'sky' and #136 'small'. As these lists could not be cross-checked and since calculations of figures of less than 97% are not unusual based on lists elicited in the very same dialect, there is no evidence that the lists represent two different Zairean dialects of Avokaya.
As Zairean Avokayas all tend to call their own dialect "Avokaya", there was no practical way to compare 'Gbalo', 'Ogambi', etc. For the purposes of comparison in the discussion in Appendix 10, any Zairean data which is not Ojila will be called Ajigu.
The Avokaya spoken in Zaïre is lexically closer to Logo than to Ojila (Sudanese Avokaya). The speakers of the Zairean dialect expressed their opinion that "Avokayas" would not be able to understand Ojila literature. Yet, people were interested in Ojila books and some offered to translate them into 'Avokaya'. Testing is needed to see whom the various Zairean Avokayas understand best.
Sudanese Ojilas say that they don't understand Ajigu; Sudanese Ajigus have all learned Ojila.
In Sudan, the Avokaya along the Mambe and Mundri roads belong for the most part to the Episcopal church but are equally divided between the Zande- and Moru-speaking dioceses. On the Tore road and around Yei some are Episcopal but the majority are Catholic; however, in that area the church language of both congregations is Bangala. Generally, the Avokaya seem not to be proficient in paZande, but many do speak Moru. It is not known how well or how many Sudanese Avokaya speak Bangala. War in Sudan or Zaire has resulted in a number of migrations between Sudan and Zaire.
Most of the Zairean Avokaya are affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church and only a small number are Protestants. The Catholic church language in this part of Zaïre is Lingala, while the Protestants use Bangala. The language policies of the churches and the state have promoted the use of Bangala and Lingala over the vernaculars in a desire to see unity. Many younger generation Avokaya speak only Bangala which is a concern to their parents. Another factor in this language loss is that compared to Sudan, Zaïre is more heavily populated and there are more and bigger towns of mixed ethnic makeup.
3.2.1.6.1 Avokaya Cluster as a whole
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT FACTORS
In 1979 the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL-Sudan) and the Institute for Regional Languages (IRL) in their joint literacy program assigned a team to Avokaya to help its development as a minor language for use in early education, and to facilitate Avokaya Scripture translation. The latter has been proceeding well with enthusiastic support from both Protestant and Catholic Avokaya communities. Genesis has been published, as well as various epistles (1989), and other books are in draft form. A primer has also been prepared.
It is interesting to note that the most vigorous use of Avokaya scripture material is in the Avokaya congregations of the Zande diocese because of their difficulty in understanding the Zande Bible. Zande belongs to the Niger-Congo language family; furthermore the Avokaya have no occasion to use Zande except in the church situations.
For political and historical reasons there has always been a strong desire among southern Sudanese to preserve their vernaculars and to have written materials in them. This is in strong contrast to the attitude to colloquial Arabic, the lingua franca, where there is strong resistance to publishing material in it. Consequently there is a high demand for Avokaya literacy materials. Parents in the towns especially see this as a means of helping their children retain their parents' language.
Some Zairians are concerned that Bangala may encroach on the use of mother tongues. These people might support vernacular literacy as a means of slowing the advance of Bangala.
3.2.1.6.2 Between Avokaya dialects
In Sudan, Ojila is by far the dominant Avokaya group, and Ajigu and Wa'di use Ojila when communicating with the Ojila people. All Sudanese Ajigu speakers know Ojila and converse with all other Sudanese Avokayas in Ojila. It would seem fair, therefore, to say that Ojila is the 'vehicular' (most widely used) Avokaya dialect in Sudan. The survey team did not have the opportunity to contact Zairean Ojilas and therefore cannot say whether these people have learned another dialect of Avokaya for easier communication.
Sudanese Ojilas say that Ajigu is not Avokaya. They recognize that it is close, but they say that they don't understand it well. They say that they understand Moru much better than Ajigu even though Ajigu is linguistically much closer. The reason, of course, is that they have much more exposure to spoken Moru than to spoken Ajigu.
For their part, Zairean Avokayas say that Ojila is not Avokaya. When interviewed by the survey team, they seemed to think that it could be more difficult to understand than Logo, in spite of the fact that they said that they could communicate with Ojilas when each spoke his own language.
3.2.2.1.1 Geography ,demographic, and administrative information
Kaliko-Sudan At least 7000 in Sudan (according to SIL figures in 1978)
Kaliko-Ma'di 7500 Kaliko-Ma'di live in the Zone d'Aru, collectivité d'Omi, groupement de Katsa.
Kaliko-Omi About 39,500 Kaliko-Omi live in the Zone d'Aru, collectivité d'Omi in (five groupements)
In 1971 Welmers estimated 18,000 total Kaliko population, of whom at least 10,000 in Zaïre. Note that the above figures total three times that amount, or 54,000.
3.2.2.1.2 History (recent)
It is generally agreed that the name "Kaliko" is derived from the Kakwa language. When the cattle-herding Bari (Nilotic) groups of Sudan, including the Kakwa, migrated southeastward from Juba they encountered the Ma'di in Equatoria Province (present Yei District. Later (or perhaps at the same time), the Fajulu mounted a campaign to drive all of the Ma'di south to Uganda and Zaïre. Except for one group, the Ma'dis were driven into Uganda. After some time, the Fajulu left the Kakwa to drive out those left in Yei District alone. However, so many Kakwa were killed or maimed by the deadly traps of this group of Ma'dis that the Kakwa finally gave up, saying, "Keliko!" which means 'leave them'. Since that time the 'Yei District Ma'di' have been 'Kaliko'.
The Kaliko of Zaïre were probably a fairly cohesive bloc with those of Sudan at the time of the drive south and of their separation from the rest of the Ma'di because they too have referred to themselves as Kaliko. However, the Zairean Kaliko have since diverged from each other to the extent that those nearest the border prefer simply to be called Ma'di (rather than Kaliko-Ma'di as before), and those around Adja further to the south have more recently decided simply to call themselves 'Omi' after one of their notable ancestors. Thus any discussion of the Kaliko must address the situations of those in Sudan, the (Kaliko-) Ma'di, and the Omi.
It is not clear to what extent this agrees with or conflicts with Gray's hypothesis that the Moru-Ma'di language groups lived in Zaïre three hundred years ago and that the Kaliko, the Lugbara, and the Ma'di fanned out in their migrations from that point (See Appendix 6).
These figures, already presented in section 3.1.4.2, are reproduced for convenience of discussion.
| Kaliko-Ma'di-Didi | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 94±3 | Kaliko-Sud-W | ||||
| 87±4 | 86±5½ | Kaliko-Rang'a'ba | |||
| 91±4½ | 87±7 | 86±7 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Dogo | ||
| 87±4 | 92±4 | 88±5 | 92±5½ | Kaliko-Sud-East | |
| 91±3½ | 89±5 | 82±6 | 89±6 | 88±5 | Kaliko-Omi |
The lists on which this comparison is based are of differing degrees of quality. The Didi list is one of the 'richer' lists since it is a conflation of two 170-item lists and two 100-item lists taken independently (so that an item overlooked by one source might be included on another component list). The Omi list is the work of a committee of Kalikos and should also be reliable. The Rang'a'ba list, in contrast, is a single 170-item list and the Dogo list, one 100-item list. The Eastern Sudanese dialect is nominally represented by four lists but this is more like one list triple-checked; the western Sudanese dialect is represented by one full list and another only fifty items long.
It is hard to decide how many dialects of Kaliko exist based on these figures. Each dialect could be 88-92% similar to every other dialect. If the Rang'a'ba and Ma'di-Dogo lists were double-checked, they might prove to be more similar to the western Sudanese and Ma'di-Didi dialects than it now appears. On sociolinguistic grounds, these six subdialects are considered three or four major dialects, whose speakers would prefer three bodies of literature, namely, the (eastern) Sudanese, Ma'di (Didi) and Omi varieties.
The WordSurv output for phonetic relationships is shown below. Much of the apparent variation may be explained by small differences in perception by those eliciting the various lists. Five of the six smallest figures (representing a measure of phonetic distance) represent a comparison of dialects spoken in the same country.
| Kaliko-Ma'di-Didi | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Kaliko-Sud-W | ||||
| 18 | 12 | Kaliko-Rang'a'ba | |||
| 11 | 18 | 21 | Kaliko-Ma'di-Dogo | ||
| 15 | 10 | 14 | 14 | Kaliko-Sud-East | |
| 13 | 19 | 21 | 18 | 19 | Kaliko-Omi |
Unfortunately, Kaliko grammatical data are no longer at hand, and no analysis is presently possible.
Omi speakers understand Kaliko-Omi fairly easily; though Sudanese Kaliko is hard to understand for an Omi, they are said to understand it more easily than Lugbara. Kaliko-Ma'dis may understand both Sudanese and Omi dialects; they seemed to think Omi easier to understand.
Bangala is the language of wider communication (see Appendix 2) for the Zairean Kaliko and is apparently widely used among the Sudanese Kaliko also.
Careful research of who speaks Bangala at what level of proficiency has not been done. Naturally, use of Bangala is more vigorous among those who have high exposure to multi-lingual centers and among children who attend school.
It is not known how widespread proficiency in Arabic and English or other acquired languages would be among Kalikos in Sudan.
3.2.2.6.1 Kaliko Cluster as a Whole
A GENERAL
LANGUAGE USE is vigorous. All Zairean Kalikos interviewed, Ma'di and Omi, use Kaliko exclusively with Kaliko speakers (responses to question 7 on SLQ). (Those with parents or spouse from another language group often use that other language, but this is not a comment on the vitality of Kaliko.) The only exception to this rule was seen in the case 7e, "friends the same age as you", a phenomenon which may be related to the fact that Bangala is used at school or may indicate that Bangala has higher prestige than Kaliko. Likewise in question 8, Kaliko is spoken vigorously in the village (8.c) and when working in the fields (8.e); however, half of all interviewees use Bangala instead of Kaliko at local markets (8.a), possibly because most of those they trade with are not Kaliko speakers. All interviewees use Bangala when at local shops (8.b) and at the hospital (8.d). The use of Bangala then, appears to exist in multi-lingual centers (hospital) or in contexts (domains) where Bangala is the normal choice.
LANGUAGE ATTITUDES are revealed by responses to questions 11 and 12, which language they consider most important and which language they want their children to know best.
11. Which language is most important to you?
Kaliko Ma'dis interviewed individually: 12 people
6 gave Kaliko-Ma'di as first choice, Bangala as second choice.
3 gave Kaliko-Ma'di as first choice, Kaliko-Omi as second choice.
2 gave Kaliko-Ma'di as first choice, Logo as the second choice.
1 gave Kaliko-Sudan as first choice, Kaliko-Ma'di as second choice.
The man who listed Logo as his second choice has Logo parents; the woman who listed Logo second is living and working outside the Kaliko area, in Aba. The man who listed Kaliko-Sudan as his first choice was born in Sudan and now lives in Dogo, Zaire. He was introduced in Didi as a good representative of the Dogo subdialect of Kaliko-Ma'di, which is said to be closer to Sudanese Kaliko than the variety spoken at Didi, the centre of Kaliko-Ma'di. He considers the Sudanese variety "his" language and the language of his village, but he also referred to Kaliko-Ma'di as "our language."
Kaliko Omi: 13 men interviewed in two groups
The first choice of all respondents was Kaliko-Omi, except for a man also fluent in Lugbara, French, Bangala and Swahili who listed French first, with Kaliko-Omi as the second choice. Of those who chose Omi first, ten chose Bangala second while two men listed Lugbara as second choice and Bangala as third. (The mother of one of these was a Lugbara speaker who used Lugbara in the home.) Three other people listed Lugbara as third in importance, while two listed French third.
12. Which language do you want your children to know best?
Kaliko-Ma'di:
Of twelve interviewed, ten chose Kaliko-Ma'di. One chose Logo; his parents were Logo. One chose Lingala; her husband is a non-Kaliko soldier and they live outside the Kaliko area.
Kaliko-Omi:
All thirteen interviewed chose Kaliko-Omi. Note, however, that these men do not necessarily represent the whole Omi population: the vast majority were older males with a desire for local language translation. Note that in contrast to Kaliko, Logos often chose Bangala or French as the language they want their children to know the best.
B EDUCATION
Systems of Education are explained in Appendix 3.
Kaliko-Ma'di: According to Conseiller Onziga of the CECA schools the Kaliko-Ma'dis have a low rate of school attendance. The Catholic schools are included in this estimate. Considerably less than half the children even begin Primary 1 due to the fact that schools are few and far between. Teachers in Didi, however, estimated that three quarters of the children in that area begin school and that most of those stay through Primary 4. (Bangala and French are used as languages of instruction in Primary 3 and 4, but only French is used in Primary 5 and 6.) They thought that about half the children finished Primary 6, the highest level taught at Didi.
Kaliko-Omi: According to Conseiller Onziga, 80% of the children begin Primary 1 and one-half of these 80% complete Primary 6. Similarly, at the Omi committee meeting in Adja, it was estimated that 75% of the children in the Omi area begin Primary 1, 50% finish Primary 3 (i.e., two-thirds of those who start school), and 25% finish Primary 6 (i.e., one-third of those who start school).
Kaliko-Sudan: Figures are not available but it is also the case that few pupils get beyond Primary 4. The language of instruction is English, with some use of Bari.
C RELIGION
(1) Zaïre - System explained in Appendix 3
PROTESTANT LANGUAGE USE AND ATTITUDES: Use of local languages in church meetings was frowned upon. Kaliko language use is vigorous except in Adja, which is multilingual; there only Bangala and Lugbara are used in services, and the latter only when all people present are Kaliko or Lugbara.
In churches where there is only one local language, Kaliko is used almost exclusively in prayers, preaching, announcements, and explanation of Scripture readings. Bangala is generally only used for Scripture reading and hymn singing. When pastors visit Kaliko people, they converse and they pray in Kaliko, although of course any Scripture reading must be done in Bangala.
The church leadership questionnaire also asked, "You already have a Bangala Bible; if you had a Kaliko New Testament, which would be used more?" All those interviewed believed that the Kaliko New Testament would be used more by people of all ages. The interviewees also expressed their desire to use Kaliko exclusively for church work in areas where Kaliko is the only mother tongue.
CATHOLIC LANGUAGE USE AND ATTITUDES: In spite of official church language policy, according to the Catholic father we interviewed, there is a tendency toward vigorous use of Kaliko in their chapels, especially in the more remote locations (see Appendix 3). Liturgy and Scripture reading are done in Lingala (note: not Bangala, see Appendix 3 for explanation of the difference). Officially, however, the entire service is to be conducted in Lingala. Brief local-language explanations are allowed only because this is viewed as a transition period.
(2) Sudan-
In the Episcopal Church among the Kaliko, the English and Bari prayer books are used, and the Bari hymn book is also used. However, the sermons and other discussions are in Kaliko and the pastors and people are working towards having their own prayer book and hymnbook. There is a language committee, the hymn book has been written, and they have even raised the money for printing, but they are asking SIL for translator and consultant help.
3.2.2.6.2 Between Kaliko Dialects
Full discussion of sociolinguistic factors which affect reference dialect choice can be found in Appendix 5B. A summary of the conclusions follows.
Largely because of its size and its location (in Zaïre, where more local people are currently available to work and where Kaliko-Ma'di is also spoken), Kaliko-Omi seems the most promising reference dialect of Kaliko. Other advantages of Omi over Ma'di are also related to its location; Mado and Adja, the politico-administrative and church centers, are in the Omi area, and the Omi appears to be better-educated and have a higher standard of living, which may lend their dialect some additional prestige. Also, written materials have already been produced in Omi.
Since it is likely that Sudanese Kalikos would have difficulty reading and/or accepting written materials in Omi and since there is apparent agreement among the Sudanese that the eastern dialect is their preferred standard, the second priority for translation and language development is the eastern dialect of Kaliko-Sudan.
Ironically, what may be the least difficult dialect to understand throughout the Kaliko area— Kaliko-Ma'di— is only the third priority due to these non-linguistic factors. If written materials were available in the other major dialects, the Kaliko-Ma'di might be willing and able to use them. Alternatively, they could adapt them for local use.
3.2.3.1.1 Geography, demography, and administration
The map of the distribution of Logo dialects (Appendix 1) roughly concords with Tucker's 1933 statement that the Logo live in a "triangle of country between Aba, Faradje, and Watsa", (p.5) except for the south-east bulge towards Adja, making it more of a square. Apparently, Logos inhabit great blocs of territory, unlike some of the other Moru-Ma'di peoples, especially in Sudan, who live along major roads among other ethnic groups.
The following is a description of Logo population by dialect groups.
Logo-Bhagira: 19,709 Bharigas live in the Faradje Zone, Bhagira (Bagela) collectivité. In this collectivité are three groupements: Sagu, Dramba and Malubu.
Logo-Doka: 39,370 Dokas live in the Faradje Zone, Doka collectivité. In this collectivité are six groupements: Kiri, Ndolomo, Makoro, Ambarau, Makasango, and Atima.
Logo-Lolya: 16,333 Lolyas live in the Faradje Zone, Lolya (Lolia) collectivité. In this collectivité are four groupements: Adri, Ali, Pajuru and Asigi.
Logo-Obilebha: 17,777 Obilebhas live in the Faradje Zone, Obilebha (Obeleba) collectivité. In this collectivité are three groupements: Maulo, Alamo, and Asay.
Logo-Ogambi: 130,289 Zaireans live in the Faradje Zone, Ogambi collectivité. In this collectivité are five groupements: Angodro, Tandro, Bhudu, Tadhu, and Djabiri. An estimated 100,000 (or more) Logo speakers live here. Unlike the first four groupements, Djabiri is not exclusively Logo-speaking. A pocket of Avokayas and Mündü live in Djabiri groupement.
Logo-Bari: 28,516 Zaireans live in the Watsa Zone in the Kibali collectivité. In this collectivité are seven groupements: Tora, Kengengo, Mandra Mandra, Maika/Kanzako, Doko/Durba/Kilomoto, Angulayi, and Mangoti.
Before 1948 the Faradje Zone extended south of the Nzoro River. Most Logo-Bari speakers then lived in the Ogambi collectivité in the Faradje Zone. Today Logo-Bari speakers live in four groupements in the Kibali collectivité, in the Watsa Zone. Another map in Appendix 1 shows "who lives where" in the Kibali collectivité. It was drawn in consultation with four (fairly different) maps and is therefore not necessarily reliable in shapes, sizes, and distances.
Based on figures from the Zonal office in Watsa, figures from the office of the Kibali collectivité, and the opinions of local people and government officials we estimate the total population of Logo-Baris at 16,000.
Based on official population figures and assuming that all the people in three groupements and half of those in a fourth are Logo-Bari or Bari-Logo, the calculations are as follows:
| Pop. of groupement | Mandra Mandra | 14,569 |
| Pop. of groupement | Kanzako | 175 |
| Pop. of groupement | Kengengo | 766 |
| Half of pop.of groupement | Tora(887) | 440 |
| 15,950 |
Bangbas and Mayogos live in the Tora, Mangote and Angalayi groupements. The Doko/Durba/Kilo-moto groupement contains a vast number of local languages due to the extensive mining industry. Also apparently in this groupement live the Kazibati; some language maps indicate two pockets of them in this area. (They are reported to be bilingual in Logo as they have lived as an ethnic unit in this area as opposed to the sporadic location of other groups drawn here by mining.)
Total Logo-speaking population is then: 210,000
| Bhagira | 19,709 | |
| Doka | 39,370 | |
| Lolya | 16,333 | |
| Obilebha | 17,777 | |
| Ogambi | 100,000 | - modest estimate of the 130,289 |
| Bari | 15,950 | |
| TOTAL | 209,139 |
Note that a significant number of residents of the cité of Aba (15,574 total) are also Logos. Since Aba is a cité, not part of any collectivité, these Logos are not included in the TOTAL Logo speakers above. On the other hand, some non-Logos may be included in the TOTAL due to their residence among Logos. For simplicity's sake, then, let us estimate Logo population at 210,000.
3.2.3.1.2 History (recent)
The original Logos are posited to have come into being as an ethnic unit in the 1600s (see Appendix 6). The Logos now known as Bhagira, Doka, Lolya, and Obilebha have certainly lived close to their present locations for generations; the evidence, however, is that only recently have some of these groups been considered separate from the others. Hutereau, for example, who tends to mention all major clans, speaks briefly of the Doka and Lolia clans (1921:315-316) as well as the Agambi and Bari, but not the Bhagira and Obilebha.
Vallaeys (1986:IX) remarks that the current division of Logo clans into Ogambi, Doka, Lolia, Bagela, and Obeleba is a result of colonial administration and does not reflect a pre-existing traditional organization. In particular, he notes that the first four are the names of clans of which a member was installed as chief because of service rendered to the colonial administration. Tucker, in citing official population figures for the Logo, divides the 'Logo-Dongo' territory into four sections: Logo-Agambi, Logo-Doka, Bari-Logo, and Dongo-Tedemu (1967:5). It seems fair to conclude that when the Logo people define their 'dialect' boundaries, they follow politico-administrative divisions whether there are major dialect variations or not; it is possible that the incidental separation encourages standardization among those living in the same collectivité and differentiation among those who live in different collectivités.
The Ogambi claim to be from a royal family who once ruled all the Logos. Oral tradition is incapable of providing any more detail. Hutereau (1921:313) says:
La tribu des Logo se divise en de nombreux clans.... Parmi ces clans, le clan des Agambi parvint à tirer parti des événements qui troublèrent le pays, entre 1860, époque de l'apparition des Azande dans le bassin de la Garamba, et le 18 février 1897, date de la prise de Redjaf par les troupes de l'Etat Indépendant du Congo.
Actuellement le clan des Agambi occupe vis-à-vis des autres clans Logo la même situation que les clans Vurngura, Bandia, Mangbetu respectivement vis-à-vis des Azande, des Banginda, des Medje.
Il y a environ cinquante ou soixante ans [vers 1860?], les Agambi vivaient sur le territoire compris entre les rivières Garamba et Aka. Sur la rive droite de l'Aka, ils avaient pour voisins les Boguru, et vers les bassins supérieurs de l'Aka et de la Garamba, les Baka.
"The Logo tribe consists of several clans.... Among these, the Agambi clan took advantage of the events which upset the country between 1860, when the Azande appeared in the Garamba basin, and 18 February 1897, when Rejaf was taken by the troops of the Congo Free State.
"Presently [1921] the Agambi clan enjoys the same dominant role among the Logo clans as the Vurngura among the Azande, the Bandia among the Nginda, and the Mangbetu among the Medje.
"About fifty or sixty years ago [around 1860?], the Agambi lived in the territory between the Garamba and Aka rivers. Their neighbors were the Boguru on the right bank of the Aka, and the Baka to the north."
Tucker paraphrases Hutereau's account, incorporating more details (1967:37-38).
Presumably after the growth of colonial administration, they became just another sub-group of Logos. If they once spoke a separate Agambi language, it has not taken but two or three generations to lose it. Ogambis' oral tradition (1988) supports the claim that they are not ordinary Logos, but Ogambis who speak Logo.
The history of the Bari is less clear. An appendix has been devoted to the subject (Appendix 7). It appears that relative to the other Logo-speaking peoples, the Bari are newcomers, and it is said that certain Bari, living at the confluence of the Nzoro and Kibali rivers (to the west of the others) have never lived near the Logo.
For the Baris interviewed by the survey team, it was important to make clear certain ethnic distinctions concerning 'who is who' in relation to the Bari-Logo cohabitation. The perspective of those living at Sururu (chef lieu de la collectivité) can be summarized by a kind of chain that roughly equates ethnicity with linguistic identity.
Bari: Those who remain at the confluence of the Nzoro and Kibali rivers, in the Tora area (north part of the Tora groupement). These people speak bari pur, and are ethnically pure Bari.
Bari-Logo: This ethnic/linguistic group is centered in Sururu (collectivité headquarters) and extends 8 km west of Duruba (edge of Mandra Mandra groupement) and east 3 km to Obere (the Watsa-Aru road). The identity of this group is more Bari than Logo. To call these people Logo-Bari is a mild insult.
Logo-Bari: This ethnic/linguistic group consists of all 175 people living in the groupement of Maika/Kanzako. These people are considered to be more Logo than Bari.
Logo: This is used to refer to the neighboring Dokas and Ogambis.
OBSERVATIONS: Bari History Interpreted In Linguistic Perspective.
Historical knowledge of similar tribal movements in central Africa add insight as we seek to interpret Bari history. Without choosing one version of history over another, we observe the following.
- The chain effect is typical of one people group moving in on another. The tail is always stronger (ethnic/linguistic purity) than the head. According to this model, 'true' Bari (French bari pur, Bangala bari mpenza) represents the tail (original base) with gradations through Bari-Logo to Logo-Bari at the head of the movement. This head is integrated with the receptor people group to the greatest degree, whereas the tail retains strongest separate identity.
- Whenever Bari men married Logo women, we can assume the Logo mothers spoke Logo, not Bari, to their children in the home. If there were many such marriages (as some commentators suggest), there would have been many children who grew up learning Logo better than Bari. Over generations the languages would converge with the mothers' language (Logo) as the prominent one. If the Bari ancestors spoke a distinctly different language and if they came among the Logo to conquer, as one version of history has it, this would be yet another case of a people group which wins the conflict but eventually loses its language.
- Ethnic self-image. Men interviewed considered themselves Bari and their wives Logo. This appeared disproportionately common, which leads one to suspect that the ethnic identity of the men is Bari while the women view themselves as Logo. Men do not wish to give up their identity as successors of the original conflict in spite of their linguistic conformity to the receptor people group.
- The men claim to understand Logo well, but speak Bari-Logo or Logo-Bari.
It is not unusual for a people group in movement to change their first language. The evidence is that this has happened among the Bari. One man, the father of the chief of the Kibali collectivité, who provided the Bari perspective of the recent history of his people, was born in 1911, the year the Baris are said to have left Sudan. From the viewpoint of any Bari today the 1911 Bari would be bari pur. Yet this man now speaks Bari-Logo. Another Logo-Bari chef de groupement was asked if the Bari language would be lost and he dogmatically replied, "We will not lose Bari."
These factors indicate that there is a strong desire to hang on to Bari ethnic/linguistic purity. This desire is fueled by the linguistic domination of Logo and possibly the awareness that in successfully building a life for themselves near the Logo something irretrievable has been lost - a language called by the two words we hear so often: Bari mpenza - Bari pur - real Bari.
The output of the WordSurv computer program representing the lexical similarity figures for the eight Logo word lists is given below.
| Logo-Ogambi | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99 | Logo-Doka | ||||||
| 99 | 100 | Logo-Obilebha | |||||
| 99 | 100 | 100 | Logo-Lolya | ||||
| 99 | 99 | 99 | 99 | Logo-Bhagira | |||
| 95 | 95 | 95 | 95 | 94 | Logo-Bari - Kanzako | ||
| 95 | 94 | 95 | 94 | 94 | 94 | Logo-Bari - West | |
| 73 | 72 | 73 | 72 | 72 | 73 | 76 | Bari-Logo |
The list marked 'Bari-Logo' is the one elicited in the Mandramandra groupement. The list marked 'west' was elicited at Todro from someone whose home village is identified as "Drulindi Asaka, forty kilometers west of Watsa on the Tora road"; the road in question runs north from Watsa for more than thirty of those kilometers and it is not possible to tell whether his home is the Mandramandra groupement or just west of it, near the Kengengo groupement. This may or may not be the same dialect as true Logo-Bari, represented by the 'Kanzako' list. It was not possible to interview a speaker of bari pur, 'pure Bari', spoken far to the west of all of these dialects.
The following is the matrix of possible error in these figures, in percentage points. When a sample proportion is 1.00 (i.e. 100%), the margin of error is necessarily calculated to be zero. It is likely that in the whole inventory of Logo words there are a few other 'regionalisms', but of course 99.6% similar would still be rounded to 100%.
| Logo Ogambi | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.7 | Logo Doka | ||||||
| 0.7 | 0.0 | Logo Obilebha | |||||
| 0.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 | Logo Lolya | ||||
| 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.7 | Logo Bhagira | |||
| 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 2.0 | Logo Bari - Kanzako | ||
| 1.6 | 1.8 | 1.6 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 2.0 | Logo Bari - West | |
| 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.4 | 4.8 | 4.1 | Bari Logo |
The two items for which not all five main dialects of Logo had similar words were #11 'knee', for which the Ogambi and Logo-Bari forms differed from that for the other four main Logo dialects, and #64 'warm', for which the Bhagira word is an adjectival form of 'fire' while speakers of the other four dialects cited a separate word.
That is, the five main (Faradje Zone) dialects are 99% cognate with each other, and a sixth, Logo-Bari, is 92-96% cognate with them. It is possible that another dialect, Bari-Logo, is only 67-80% similar to these. The strength of the cognate pairings is evident from the 'ratio of degrees of difference' matrix:
| Logo Ogambi | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Logo Doka | ||||||
| 3 | 6 | Logo Obilebha | |||||
| 3 | 3 | 3 | Logo Lolya | ||||
| 4 | 2 | 5 | 3 | Logo Bhagira | |||
| 10 | 13 | 11 | 12 | 12 | Logo Bari - Kanzako | ||
| 7 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 8 | Logo Bari - West | |
| 27 | 28 | 27 | 27 | 28 | 25 | 25 | Bari Logo |
This means that for every 100 corresponding segments in any pair of lists for Logo (and Logo-Bari) dialects, there were fewer than fifteen degrees of phonetic difference (see explanation in section 2.1.1). Since a higher value in this matrix means greater phonetic distance between the two forms, we note that not only does Logo-Bari have less shared vocabulary with the other dialects, but even phonetically similar lexical items in the Logo-Bari corpus are less close to those of the other dialects than these are to each other. The ratio is between 7/100 and 13/100 for Bari with the other five, but among the five, the ratio never exceeds 6/100.
For the comparisons of the Mandramandra list with the other seven lists, the ratio is between twenty-five and thirty degrees of phonetic difference for each one hundred compared phones, setting it apart from the other lists as markedly on phonetic grounds as on lexical grounds.
A note on Logo-Ogambi. Wordlist analysis and observations made by Logo speakers reveal that Ogambi differs from its four closest co-dialects mainly in tones, primarily word final tones. This could be the last remaining influence of an Agambi language. (See 3.2.3.1.2 History).
Grammatically, the five dialects represented at Todro gave near-identical responses on the 35-phrase list.
The first thirty phrases were also elicited in Bari from the same source as the 'Logo-Bari-Western' word list. There were only three differences from the phrases given for the other dialects, none necessarily significant. One of these differences is the form of the future marker: dra in the five more closely related dialects and dre in Logo-Bari. Another had to do with the word order of an object question in imperfective aspect (#6): the five main dialects had SOV and Logo-Bari had VO; however, since two word orders are admitted for the present tense in the five main dialects, the VO word order may also be admitted. Although a quantitative means of comparing these word lists has not yet been developed, it is clear that the six dialects exhibit high grammatical similarity on the levels tested.
However, another phrase list in Bari mpenza ('Bari itself') of Mandramandra differed more markedly from the other six. In sentence #5, the particle ni occurs before the object rather than clause-final as in the other lists. In sentences ##8, 13 and 20, the sentence-final negative particle ko does not occur in Mandramandra. The past also seems to be handled differently in Mandramandra than in the other Logo dialects, which mark past by a particle tá. In the phrases of the form "It is...", the Mandramandra respondent chose a different construction from the speakers of the other six dialects. He also reduplicated the word 'child' to indicate 'the children of the man', while the main five Logo dialects have a totally different word for 'children'. (The Mandramandra data may not be correct, however.) Apparently the word order for possession differs as well. Both Mandramandra and standard Logo have possessor + possessed for inalienable possessions (body parts); however, Mandramandra uses the reverse word order for non-intimate possessions and kin. Standard Logo uses the same form for kin relations as for inalienable possessions and they differ among themselves on the word order for non-intimate possessions. Similarities included clause constituent word order (SVO for perfective, SOV for imperfective) and, apparently, the demonstrative system.
In general, it seems that the Mandramandra speaker's responses included more particles, perhaps because the linguist tried to emphasize differences of tense and demonstratives which the respondent seemed not to be picking up form the Bangala elicitation. One example is his use of dhe budri ya 'fall down' where the others said just dhe 'fall'.
Logo-Bari note: If in fact Logo-Bari is a speech resulting from the Bari of Sudan amalgamating with the Logo (see 3.2.3.1.2 History), we may be missing significant linguistic difference by limiting our comparison to the phrase level. Sentence and discourse level, the world of idioms and other higher-level features may reveal more retention of Bari linguistic qualities than the proportion indicated by the low-level comparison here.
The expressed opinion was that there is no difference in the five main Logo dialects. A recurring theme was that there were "differences of tone." Some used the same expression to distinguish Logo and Kaliko-Ma'di!
The Bari chief at Mbidri said he could speak a little Doka and Ogambi (the neighboring Logo dialects) and attributed his partial understanding of Logo to the fact that his wife was 'Bari-Logo', i.e. Logo. He said that all the speakers of his language understood one another well, but it isn't clear how widely he was defining his language.
The four Logo committee members from Doka all said they used Bangala when talking with Baris. They said they could understand about 10% of a Bari sermon, but the Baris could understand them much better. It seems safe to say that understanding is not symmetric or 'mutual', but that Logos from the Faradje Zone (main five dialects) understand less of Bari speech than vice versa.
Of the Logo committee members, all were able to use Bangala. Nine knew French, three more had some French, and eleven did not know French (of twenty-three total). Five members knew Swahili. Ogambi members knew most languages; some even read English. There was also one Obelebha who knew English. (Note: These figures reflect those who were present to give information. This set of twenty-three people does is not necessarily identical to the membership of the committee.)
The (CECA) pastor of the Aba Section (administrative unit) estimated that practically all the members of the church in the Aba Section knew at least some Bangala; perhaps 3% of adults over 30 years of age and none of the young people knew only a little and those who knew Bangala well would be 90% of women, 95% of men, and all those under thirty. Those responsible for local chapels tended to indicate the presence of varying degrees of proficiency of Bangala among their parishioners. The instrument used was a true questionnaire and so no follow-up was possible on estimated percentages at each level of proficiency. It appears that those with no knowledge of Bangala are few, and that in general the younger people are more proficient than the older ones and men more proficient in Bangala than women are.
3.2.3.6.1 Logo cluster as a whole
All who expressed an opinion on the subject want their children to know Logo best. There is no denying, on the other hand, the importance of Bangala in the daily life of many Logo people.
The DOKA respondents expressed some concern that Bangala would displace their language: "People read and write Bangala and Logo slips away." The LOLIA speakers cited (as factors promoting the spread of Bangala, possibly at the expense of Logo) not only the (missionary) schools where many languages were represented but also the coffee societies. Similarly, one might note for part of the Bari area the disruptive influence of the mines.
BHAGIRA says Bangala will not replace their language. One Bari respondent said that children use both the local language and Bangala when at play but that they will not lose Bari.
3.2.3.6.2 Between Logo dialects
A fuller treatment may be found in Appendix 5A, "Application of Criteria for choice of Reference dialect to Logo dialects."
There is no one purest dialect among the five 'standard' Logo dialects. The committee emphasizes the similarities among their dialects (admitting that Ogambi is a little more distinctive). There is, however, a cleavage between these five and the speech of the Watsa Zone (Logo-Bari, Bari-Logo, and 'true Bari' if any).
The Logo-Bari from Kanzako was dogmatic that Logo-Doka should be reference dialect for Logo. His mother was a Doka, and he speaks both Logo-Bari and Logo-Doka 'well', although he said that he tends to use Bangala when speaking with Logos from Doka. This was said to be the 'habit', perhaps because of the presence in the same area of speakers of Doongo and Lugbara.
One Bari respondent (from Sururu, 22 kilometers north of Watsa) said that the purest Logo-Bari was spoken in Gbere, eight kilometers east of Duruba, and in Bondro, just west of Sururu.
3.2.4.1.1 Geography, demography, and administration
The map in Appendix 1 roughly concords with Tucker's 1933 statement that the Lugbara live "south of the Logo with centre Aru... and extend into the West Nile District of Uganda" (1967:6). He also says that a very few were to be found in Sudan, and that their dialect of Lugbara was "closely akin to Keliko." On the other hand, the Kaliko data he published are similar to his Lugbara data.
According to the Ethnologue (Grimes 1988:335), there are nearly 550,000 Lugbara speakers in Uganda alone (as of 1986). This would represent about 3.7% of the total population of Uganda, as reported by Ladefoged et al. (1972:20). These Lugbara speakers are all represented as speaking one of two dialects, High Lugbara (Terego), spoken in Uganda and Zaïre, and Low Lugbara (Aringa), spoken only in Uganda. This information is not quite correct, as we point out in Appendix 8, 'On 'High' and 'Low Lugbara'.
Ladefoged et al. (1972:79) report that Terego and Aringa are 71% cognate with each other, which would mean that they may be at least as similar to certain dialects of a neighboring language (Ma'di) as to each other. In fact, they state:
There are usually said to be two Sudanic languages spoken in Uganda, Lugbara and Ma'di, each with several different dialects. But there is no linguistic reason why there should be two languages rather than one with a larger number of dialects, or more than two each with a number of dialects.... We have examined what we arbitrarily called three dialects of Lugbara and four dialects of Ma'di.... Standard Lugbara, which we take to be that spoken in Arua, is closer to the Terego dialect than to the Aringa dialect; in fact the Aringa dialect seems to be rather different. Standard Lugbara is closer to the Okollo dialect of Ma'di than it is to the Aringa dialect. There seems to be some form of dialect continuum, with the Aringa dialect of Lugbara being actually closer to the Ogoko dialect of Ma'di than to either of the other Lugbara dialects. (1972:77,79)
(There is a further problem with the notion that there are only two Sudanic languages in Uganda. There are a number of Eastern Sudanic languages and several Central Sudanic languages of the Mangbutu-Efe grouping, see Grimes (1988).)
The following lexical similarity matrix is based on the similarity percentages Ladefoged, et al (ibid) report (based on 97 items):
|
Moyo Ma'di |
|---|
|
75 |
Oyuwi Ma'di |
|---|
|
67 |
74 |
Ogoko Ma'di |
|---|
|
66 |
65 |
76 |
Aringa Lugbara |
|---|
|
67 |
60 |
72 |
71 |
Terego Lugbara |
|---|
|
69 |
58 |
67 |
68 |
80 |
Standard Lugbara |
|---|
|
63 |
52 |
59 |
59 |
63 |
76 |
Okollo 'Ma'di' |
|---|
However, the following similarity matrix is based on our analysis of their lexical data (unpublished) (percentages based on 92 items):
|
Moyo Ma'di |
|---|
|
89 |
Oyuwi Ma'di |
|---|
|
80 |
85 |
Ogoko Ma'di |
|---|
|
78 |
76 |
86 |
Aringa Lugbara |
|---|
|
78 |
75 |
84 |
83 |
Terego Lugbara |
|---|
|
80 |
73 |
80 |
80 |
87 |
Standard Lugbara |
|---|
|
64 |
59 |
66 |
62 |
70 |
76 |
Okollo 'Ma'di' |
|---|
Items were excluded from consideration in this count for two reasons:
Redundancy with other items on the list. This was the case for boy (redundant with child), foot (redundant with leg), and hair (redundant with feather).
Ambiguity, or data of questionable accuracy. This was the case for elbow (also overlapped with arm), to be ill, to run, shield (also overlapped with skin), and shoulder (also overlapped with arm).
Note that due to removing these redundant or ambiguous items from consideration and by recognizing similarities not counted by the 1968 team, the percentages are increased in most cases by from ten to twelve percent (with the exception of Okollo's relation to the other six dialects).
The survey team in Zaïre never went to the Zonal office in Aru and therefore, official population figures have not been collected. However, the Lugbara speakers whom we interviewed suggested six subdialects in Zaïre, corresponding to six collectivités:
|
Dialect/Coll. |
Zaki |
at Nderi/ Oka/ Adja |
|
" |
Abedju-Azaki |
at Abedju |
|
" |
Lu |
at Esebi |
|
" |
Aluru |
at Andranga |
|
" |
Nio |
at Ondolea |
|
" |
Otsho |
at Aru |
One source said that all these dialects were similar with the exception of Abedju-Azaki, the northernmost of the Zairean dialects. Another said that Lu was similar to both Zaki and Abedju, while Aluru was influenced by Ndo, and the other two were more like the Ugandan speech.
The following population figures by county (1983) were provided by the government office in Arua, Uganda:
|
Ma'di-Okollo |
49,123 |
(incl. Ogoko & Rigbo) |
|
Vurra |
45,018 |
|
|
Ayivu |
98,779 |
|
|
Maracha |
60,207 |
(incl. Terego-Omugo?) |
|
Aringa |
27,980 |
|
|
Koboko |
37,359 |
(Kakwa speakers) |
On the basis of these figures, we might estimate very roughly 130,000 speakers of standard Lugbara at the time (not counting Maracha), 80,000 other Ugandan Lugbara, and 40,000 'southern Ma'di'. This would mean 250,000 Ugandans speaking what we classify as Lugbara dialects, out of the total Ugandan population of 12,636,179 in 1983. This is considerably fewer than the figure of 550,000 cited in the Ethnologue and would represent only 2% of the Ugandan population.
3.2.4.1.2 History
It would appear that the Lugbara have occupied approximately the same location for hundreds of years. It is likely that they have a shared history with the Ma'di, and especially with the Lulubo. Tucker cites Hutereau as indicating that the Lugbara had lived up to that time entirely independent of external influences.
The following is the matrix of cognate percentages for the three Lugbara dialects surveyed in Zaïre and the seven Ugandan dialects analyzed by team leader Douglas Boone as being part of the Lugbara cluster. Also included is the margin of error (based on between 158 and 169 items for all comparisons involving Zairean dialects and between 195 and 200 items for comparisons of Ugandan dialects with each other):
|
Aringa |
|---|
|
89±2 |
Terego |
|---|
|
87±2½ |
93±2 |
Maraca |
|---|
|
85±2½ |
91±2 |
96±1½ |
Ayivu |
|---|
|
84±2½ |
91±2 |
96±1½ |
100±0 |
Vurra |
|---|
|
84±3 |
87±2½ |
94±2 |
96±1½ |
95±1½ |
Lug.-Abedzu |
|---|
|
81±3½ |
85±3 |
91±2½ |
96±1½ |
97±1½ |
96±1½ |
Lug.-Zaki |
|---|
|
80±4 |
82±4 |
86±3½ |
93±2½ |
93±2½ |
96±2 |
91±3 |
Lug.-Lu |
|---|
|
84±2½ |
88±2½ |
89±2 |
89±2 |
88±2½ |
86±2½ |
83±3½ |
82±3½ |
Ogoko |
|---|
|
76±3½ |
80±3 |
85±2½ |
85±2½ |
85±2½ |
82±3 |
80±3½ |
78±4 |
83±3 |
Okollo |
|---|
This matrix illustrates the 'spread' of the Lugbara dialects: the central dialects, Standard Ugandan (Ayivu, Vurra), Zairean (Abedzu, Zaki, Lu), and Maracha, are bracketed by less closely related Lugbara dialects, 'northern Lugbara' (Terego and Aringa, in that order) and 'southern Ma'di' (Ogoko and Okollo, in that order). Strictly speaking, Lugbara refers to the central dialects, which are probably inter-intelligible (see 3.2.4.4); neither of the other two groups is homogeneous and one might just as well call the speech of Aringa, Terego, Ogoko and Okollo distant dialects of the single language Lugbara as call them separate languages or dialects of two 'new' languages called Northern Lugbara and Southern Ma'di.
Note that there appears to be chaining among the three Zairean dialects, since one figure is lower than the other two. However, Abedju is far to the north of the other two dialects, not geographically between them. In fact, the Abedju list was elicited after the other two lists and synonyms were found to match both the previous lists, raising the percentages from around 90% to over 95%. This illustrates the need to double-check lists and the danger of judging dialectal differences from single lists.
In light of the fact that some lists (such as the one for Abedzu) are 'richer' than others, the 'ratio of degrees of difference' matrix helps confirm the relative closeness of dialects:
|
Aringa |
|---|
|
12 |
Terego |
|---|
|
18 |
12 |
Maracha |
|---|
|
26 |
23 |
18 |
Ayivu |
|---|
|
25 |
23 |
17 |
6 |
Vurra |
|---|
|
28 |
25 |
20 |
19 |
20 |
Lug.-Abedzu |
|---|
|
30 |
27 |
25 |
18 |
20 |
20 |
Lug.-Zaki |
|---|
|
33 |
32 |
30 |
23 |
21 |
23 |
25 |
Lug.-Lu |
|---|
|
26 |
23 |
25 |
22 |
22 |
28 |
27 |
29 |
Ogoko |
|---|
|
32 |
30 |
27 |
24 |
23 |
28 |
28 |
32 |
25 |
Okollo |
|---|
On the phonetic level, Aringa and Terego are closer than one would guess from the lexical data. The figures representing comparisons between Zairean and Ugandan dialects may be slightly inflated since they were collected over a year apart and they may have been notated differently. The Lu list was taken by a different linguist than took the other lists, and that may have a slight effect on the figures as well. These data do not provide a basis for saying that any of the dialects are not Lugbara dialects like the others.
It is somewhat disappointing not to have data for the other three Zairean dialects. However, it is probable that they also are similar to 'standard' Lugbara (which is based on the Ugandan dialect geographically closest to Zaïre). They would surely be oriented toward the 'standard' and could probably use the same written materials as their Ugandan neighbors unless there were blocking attitudes. What is less clear is whether the northern Lugbara (especially Aringa, but also Terego and conceivably Maracha) and the 'southern Ma'di' (Okollo and Ogoko/Rigbo) are sufficiently similar to the Standard for people in those areas to be able to use Standard Lugbara materials.
A sketch of the comparative grammar of the Ugandan Lugbara dialects appears in Appendix 10 (section 3.1.6.3, comparison also with Ma'di). No grammatical data were collected in Zairean Lugbara dialects.
The entire Bible exists in 'standard' (Ugandan) Lugbara; a (Zairean) Lugbara pastor living among the Logo-Bari had a copy of this Bible. It has not been demonstrated that Zairians read it with understanding, but it is reasonable to suppose that if this Bible is adequate for Ugandans, it is also adequate for Zairians.
The two Ugandans from Vurra and Ayivu counties (where the 'standard' Lugbara is spoken) who were interviewed reported being able to understand the kinds of Lugbara spoken in Vurra, Ayivu, and Maracha counties without any difficulty. One said he understood Zairean Lugbara better than the Terego dialect; the other said he understood Terego well but had difficulty with the Zairean dialect(s). The latter apparently knew some Terego; also he said that Zaireans tend to use Bangala grammar. Neither understood Lugbara-Aringa well: one said he had to use English with a person from there. On the other hand, he said he understood Ma'di-Uleppi ('southern Ma'di') well; the other could understand Okollo but not Ogoko, which is the reverse of what one might expect based on the degrees of lexical similarity (3.2.4.2). Their preferences for reference dialect were, in order, Ayivu, Vurra, and Terego. As the present standard is already the Ayivu dialect, while it is interesting to know how well they understand other dialects, this knowledge may not have a practical value. One might guess that speakers of the dialects they understand would understand their speech at least as well.
The respondent from Maracha county said that he could understand the standard and the Terego dialect, but had only 'average' comprehension of Aringa. (He was not asked about southern Ma'di or the Zairean dialects.) While his first choice for reference dialect would be his own Maracha dialect, his second and third choices were Ayivu and Vurra. Thus it is reasonable to group Maracha with the Ayivu and Vurra when considering translation and literacy needs.
The two Lugbara-Terego speakers interviewed understood the neighboring dialects, Maracha and Aringa, well. One said that there was some misunderstanding when he heard Vurra but not when he heard Ayivu; the other claimed 'average' comprehension of both these Arua-area dialects. Both preferred Terego to Ayivu in their choice of reference dialect: one listed his ordered preferences as Terego, Ayivu, Maracha, and the other listed Maracha, Terego, Ayivu.
The understanding of Lugbara dialects by the three speakers of the Aringa (northernmost) dialect who were interviewed was reported to decrease according to geographical distance, with the Vurra (southernmost) dialect least well understood, Ayivu somewhat better understood, good understanding of Maracha and perhaps a little better understanding of the Terego dialect, whose speakers live closest geographically to their own Aringa area. One explained the reason for his difficulty in understanding the Vurra dialect: "Their pronunciation is connected as though they are singing— like a weaver bird— very fast!" The same man said that he could understand Lugbara radio broadcasts but others from Aringa could not; he could not understand the Lugbara Bible and said that when it was read in church it had to be explained. Two listed Aringa as their first choice for reference choice; the other chose Ayivu as his first choice. Maracha was the second choice of all three; their third choices were Terego, Ayivu and Aringa, respectively.
A discussion with two men from Aringa this year (March 1996) added the following information. First, Aringa was previously closer to Ma'di than to Lugbara, as Ladefoged reported, but since the Aringa have had to attend schools with the Lugbara, there has been some assimilation to Lugbara. Second, the man who provided the Aringa phrase list, though born in Aringa and living in Aringa at that time, had spent most of his life and all of his schooling in further south in Lugbara, so at least part of our data is inaccurate. Third, when the Jesus film with Lugbara narration was recently shown in Aringa, the people were full of questions because they had not understood the language. We are collecting new data for reanalysis.
The respondent from Okollo (the southernmost of all Ugandan Moru-Ma'di speech forms) reported that his comprehension of 'southern Ma'di' dialects decreased with geographical distance, from Okollo to Ogoko to Rigbo. He said he had trouble with both Ogoko and Rigbo because they were "mixed with Lugbara." Still, he thought that people from Okollo understand Ogoko better than people from Ogoko understand Okollo. Yet the respondent from the Ogoko area said he had no difficulty at all in understanding all three of the 'southern Ma'di' speech forms. The preferences of both men for reference dialect were, in order, Okollo, Ogoko, and Rigbo. However, the question was couched in the form: "If you were asked to choose which dialect should become the written (reference) dialect of Ma'di,..." and their comprehension of and attitude toward the various Lugbara dialects was not investigated. The Ogoko respondent did mention, though, that elders in his area preached in Lugbara.
There is no claim that the ten men interviewed in Uganda are representative even of men twenty, thirty, thirty-five and forty years old, much less the whole population. All spoke English, and five reported that they spoke Swahili (four well and one a little). The two 'southern Ma'di' had learned Lugbara and four Lugbara said they spoke a little Ma'di. Two men from Aringa had some knowledge of Arabic (both had lived for a time in Sudan); one person said he spoke Kakwa well, another "a little Kakwa." Five other languages were mentioned by one person each as a language he spoke "a little": Acholi, Alur, Ateso, Luo, and Luganda.
3.2.4.6.1. Lugbara cluster (Uganda) as a whole
A GENERAL
The general language use pattern among Ugandan Lugbara is to use Lugbara at home and in the local markets, and English and Lugbara at work and in the clinics. Those who know English are likely to use it with people their own age and with government officials. Several explained that English is the preferred language for government officials because they are educated. Those who know Swahili may use it with non-Lugbara people. Two Lugbara used Swahili with their parents and their wives (but apparently not with their children). Another reported speaking English with his wife and occasionally with his children. One Aringa man had two Kakwa wives but used both Kakwa and Lugbara with them, saying "I'm training them."
Six of the ten men interviewed said that their language was not being displaced in the village. However, all three respondents from Aringa were of the opinion that Swahili and/or Arabic were displacing the local language in their area; one said this was happening quickly as people tried to use half Lugbara and half Arabic. The man from Ayivu (the county which surrounds Arua town) said that Swahili was slowly displacing Lugbara in the village. Apparently no one sees a threat from English.
Most seemed to be of the opinion that Lugbara (or southern Ma'di as the case may be) was being displaced in the towns. This was not the case for Okollo town, however. In Ogoko, Swahili was said to be gaining ground quickly "because of soldiers speaking it." The man from Vurra saw Swahili displacing Lugbara quickly in town, but the man from Ayivu county offered that it was Arabic displacing Lugbara slowly in Arua. The man from Maracha saw English as the (slowly) growing influence in town. The Terego speakers saw Lugbara as holding fast in their towns, in spite of some English in Terego and some Arabic in Omugo. The Aringa gave the same responses for town as for village.
Language attitudes are indicated by the answers to questions 11 and 12. Most said Lugbara (or southern Ma'di, as the case may be) was the language most important to them (question 11), with English in second place (six responses of ten, including all three from Aringa). The others said English was most important in their daily life: the man from Okollo, the men from Vurra and Ayivu, and one man from Terego. Third most important after Lugbara and English, for those Lugbara who had a third choice, was Swahili (five responses, including all three men from Aringa). The southern Ma'di said that Lugbara was third most important for them.
All but four respondents said they want their children to know English best, full stop. Two (the man from Ogoko and the one from Vurra) said they wanted their children to know their own mother tongue best. The other two (the man from Okollo and one of the men from Aringa) said they wanted their children to know their own mother tongue as well as English. The Aringa man actually wanted his children to know three languages best: Lugbara, English, and Swahili. One Terego man explained his choice of English this way: "The world is changing."
B EDUCATION AND RELIGION
No education or church questionnaires were used in the Lugbara area. There tend to be more Protestants in the south (the AIM mission station is at Kuluva just outside Arua) and more Roman Catholics in the north. Many Lugbara are Muslim, and the Muslim influence may be stronger in the north.
The Lugbara Bible (1966), though considered a Protestant Bible by those at Lodonga, was acceptable as a reference for Catholics, particularly for the Old Testament; the main obstacle to its use in that area is the fact that it is not in the local dialect. There is a New Testament in the northern dialect (1978), which is used by the Catholics. Catholic interest in the local languages has a long history in this part of the world, an excellent example being Fr. Crazzolara, whose linguistic work on Lugbara (1960) has already been cited.
3.2.4.6.2. Among Lugbara dialects
All the respondents said that when they spoke with Lugbaras from other dialect areas, they used their own dialects and if they did not understand each other would switch to another language. Two did claim some knowledge of other dialects, the person from Ayivu who knew a little Terego and someone from Aringa said he greeted people form Maracha and Terego in their own dialects. One of the Terego men had a Maracha wife, but he didn't specify which dialect(s) they used in the home.
In answer to the question about purity of dialects, the Ayivu speaker answered narrowly, listing three villages in Ayivu county; the Vurra speaker answered broadly, listing Ayivu, Vurra, Terego, and Maracha. The Maracha speaker answered just as broadly: Maracha, Ayivu, Vurra, and Terego. One Terego speaker said the purest Lugbara was spoken in the Nyadri Division of Maracha county; the other cited Terego, Maracha, and Ayivu. One person from Aringa said his dialect alone was purest; the other two, like so many of those from elsewhere, listed four "pure" dialects: one said Aringa, Maracha, Ayivu, and Terego, and the other said Ayivu, Maracha, Terego, and Aringa. Both speakers of 'southern Ma'di' listed Okollo alone as the 'pure' Ma'di dialect.
3.2.5.1.1 Geography, demography, and administration
The Ma'di area in Sudan extends from Nimule on the Ugandan border north to Moli. The northern dialect is referred to as 'Burulo and is spoken in Moli, Kerepi, and parts of Opari. Lokai is spoken in Nimule, Loa, Pageri, Kerepi and parts of Opari. In Uganda Ma'di is generally divided between East Bank (Adjumani) and West Bank (Moyo). However, there are dialects in the east, such as Pakele and Zaipi which are quite distinct and could use further comparison. The people around Moyo recognize Metu, in the hills above Laropi, to be the true origin of Ma'di language and culture.
Tucker also calls the southern Sudanese dialect "Lokai Ma'di" but says that those in the north speak "Pandikeri Ma'di", which is more closely related to Moru (the language of greatest interest to Tucker) than Lokai is. He adds (1967:7)
I have heard of a third dialect 'BURULO said to be spoken around Nimule, but was unable to follow it up. The few words I met with were like Pandikeri.
The 'Burulo people in Opari are culturally referred to as the "Bori" people. The Bori people are blacksmiths by trade. According to one source, they originally migrated from the 'Burulo areas of Kerepi and Moli and settled in Opari during a time of famine. Also see section 3.2.5.6.
According to the Ethnologue (Grimes 1988:335), there are over 200,000 Ma'di speakers in Uganda alone (data from 1976). This would be a slight overestimate if Ma'di population is still 1.2% of the total Ugandan population as reported by Ladefoged et al. (1972:20). It is certainly an overestimate for our purposes if it includes "Ma'di" people in Okollo County, whose speech we are treating as a Lugbara dialect. According to 1983 population figures obtained in the government office in Arua, there were 40,922 people in West Ma'di county (near Moyo) and 48,789 in East Ma'di county (near Adjumani, equivalent to the Ladefoged team's "Oyuwi"). Based on these figures, there would be approximately 90,000 Ma'di speakers in Uganda. A 1996 reports more like 120,000 Ugandan and Sudanese Ma'di in the region.
The only population estimate we have for Sudan is 18,000, estimated in 1982 by SIL (op.cit., p. 314). It is not possible to provide accurate Ma'di population figures in Sudan because of the war: not only is their area inaccessible, but many Sudanese Ma'di are displaced and have moved into Juba or Uganda. An undocumented report from the Norwegian Church Aid agency gives the current Ma'di population in Juba as 6300.
The Lulubo are found east of the Ma'di, in Sudan. We are not aware of any in Uganda. Total Lulubo population was estimated at 15,000 in 1985 (Grimes 1988:313).
3.2.5.1.2 History
It would appear that the Ma'di, like the Lugbara, have occupied approximately the same location for hundreds of years (Tucker 1967:25). Tucker says that Calonne-Beaufaict and Czekanowski postulate "a Nilotic strain in the Logo and especially the Ma'di tribal groups" (p. 26), but he himself sees no linguistic traces of this (p. 54 note). Czekanowski "places the final splitting of the Ma'di tribe in the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Azande reached Yei" (pp. 36-37).
The following is the matrix of cognate percentages for the three Ma'di dialects surveyed, as well as Luluba, including the margin of error (based on about 170 items for Ma'di and about 150 items for Lulubo):
|
Lulu'ba |
|---|
|
83±4.2 |
'Burulo |
|---|
|
80±4.6 |
98±1.3 |
Lokai |
|---|
|
80±4.7 |
96±1.8 |
99±0.9 |
Moyo/Adjumani (Ugandan) |
|---|
The Lulu'ba data used for these calculations are a composite of the 100-item wordlist taken in 1988 by Dick Watson and another fifty-five or sixty items form Tucker's data. The second half of Dick Watson's Lulu'ba word list was taken in 1991 and was not entered into WordSurv when the calculations were made. The Lokai and Moyo lists differed on only two items out of 168, the adjectives 'many' and 'full' (##139, 140); the Lokai and 'Burulo lists differed on only three items out of 172, namely #123 'wind', #147 'to show' and #167 'to walk'.
There is strong lexical evidence for the definition of Lulubo as a separate language from Ma'di. On the other hand, there is practically no lexical basis for the division of the Ma'di forms surveyed into three separate dialects.
The 'ratio of degrees of phonetic difference' matrix:
|
Lulu'ba |
|---|
|
26 |
'Burulo (internally 7) |
|---|
|
27 |
12 |
Lokai(internally 10) |
|---|
|
32 |
19 |
17 |
Ugandan |
|---|
Our interpretation is that the Lokai and 'Burulo dialects are a little more phonetically similar than either with Moyo/Adjumani, and a little less similar than two speakers of the same dialect ('internal' figures cited on the diagonal). The distinction between Lulu'ba and Ma'di is upheld on phonetic as well as lexical grounds.
A sketch of the comparative grammar of these Ma'di dialects appears in Appendix 10 (section 3.1.6.3, comparison also with southern Ma'di and other Lugbara dialects). The grammatical data collected in Lulubo are not included in that analysis.
All respondents agreed that not all Ma'di speakers speak the same way, but many described the differences as slight variations in spelling and pronunciation. There is general agreement that they are one people, and all but one respondent agreed with the statement that "all the speakers of Ma'di were able to understand one another well." At other times, however, the Lokai indicated that 'Burulo was difficult to learn. For example, six young town-dwelling Lokai said they found 'Burulo the most difficult Ma'di dialect to understand. Twenty-four people said that they found Ugandan Ma'di hardest to understand, though it appeared that some people said "that's Ugandan Ma'di" of any dialect which was not exactly like their own. The difficulty people had in trying to read the Ma'di New Testament was attributed to the fact that it was in the Ugandan dialect; Dick Watson observed that orthographic problems made it difficult even for Ugandans to decipher. Joan Bomberger concludes: "We definitely have a sociolinguistic problem here and not a linguistic difference" worthy of consideration.
The Ma'di respondents were not asked how well they understood Lulubo.
The majority of young Sudanese Ma'di have learned English in primary school. Ma'dis residing in Juba are also usually comfortable with Juba Arabic, unless they have only moved there recently. The next most frequently known language is Acholi; the Acholis are the Ma'dis' neighbors to the east. Some Sudanese learned Swahili in Uganda during the first civil war in the 1960's.
In response to the question concerning which language(s) a person could read, English and Ma'di were mentioned most frequently. Thirty-one people (60%) said they could read English and twenty-nine said they could read Ma'di. Nine said they could read Acholi, which is unrelated to Ma'di but neighboring it, and seven reported being able to read Arabic. This latter figure is not surprising when one considers that Arabic is not often used in southern Sudan in domains associated with writing such as religion and education. Furthermore, none of the other local languages is written in the Arabic script, and transfer of reading skills between scripts is probably difficult. (Note that there is an Arabic track in the Sudanese educational system, but most of the schools in the Ma'di area follow the English track. See Appendix 3.)
3.2.5.6.1. Ma'di (Sudan) cluster as a whole
A GENERAL
The general language use pattern among Sudanese Ma'di is to speak Arabic in Juba and Ma'di in the village. Even in the villages, of course, Arabic is used as a language of wider communication with traders and non-Ma'di staff at clinics and hospitals. All Ma'di interviewed use Ma'di when speaking with other Ma'di, and tend to use Juba Arabic with non-Ma'di friends. English is used in places of employment or at school.
The general impression of the respondents was that Ma'di is not being displaced in the rural villages. Five said that English is slowly displacing Ma'di because children learn it in school and like to practice it. (One person implied that if Ma'di teaching materials such as those said to have been lost during the first civil war were still available, the situation would be different). Ten people (three from Juba and seven rural Lokai) said that Arabic was slowly displacing Ma'di in the villages, and two more said this was happening quickly. In one case, it was because trucks regularly camped in the respondent's home area. The other reported that this was due to the influx of children who had learned Arabic quickly in Juba and introduced it to the villages. Dick Watson attested to this latter phenomenon: though parents in Juba send their children to the countryside to learn the mother tongue, ironically the effect is often to increase the spread of Juba Arabic.
However, there was a strong impression that Arabic was displacing Ma'di in Juba. All the rural Ma'di, and 80% of all respondents, were of this opinion. One older respondent claimed that Ma'di children resident in Juba would not learn Ma'di unless they were forced to do so. But another older respondent said that even in Juba, although the children are speaking Arabic, when they have a problem, they will use Ma'di. The stereotype appears to be that Arabic is taking over in Juba but that the mother tongue is being maintained in the countryside.
Language attitudes are indicated by the answers to questions 11 and 12. Though most people reported that Ma'di was the language most important to them (question 11), English was most important to five respondents, and second to Ma'di for twelve others. (Arabic was most important to one respondent who was attending secondary school in Juba in Arabic, and second most important to nine others.) The main reason for the popularity of English appeared to be an ambition for education and progress (rather than basic communicative needs) or possibly its use in the workplace. Nearly all (52 of 57 respondents) expressed the desire that their children know the Ma'di language best (question 12), although there was also a desire that they know English because of its importance in education. Three respondents, all married to non-Ma'dis, cited their spouses' languages or Arabic. The other two respondents each had two preferences: Arabic and English, and Ma'di and English, respectively. (Two other interviewees said that it was their children's choice.)
B EDUCATION
The main hindering force in Ma'di education has been the disruption of the two civil wars. Lack of funds is also a problem.
However, when the schools are operating, a fairly consistent pattern exists of using Ma'di for instruction in the earlier primary years and transitioning to English as the medium of instruction beginning in the fifth year. The use of English in the latter years is further reinforced by the need to prepare for the Primary School Examination given at the end of the sixth year. Non-Ma'di teachers do not give classes for the first four grades (apart from teaching English and Arabic as subjects).
One teacher interviewed said that the drop-out rate in his school increased after P4, possible evidence that drop-out rates increase as classroom use of the vernacular decreases.
The consensus of Sudanese Ma'di schoolteachers is that Ma'di should continue to be the medium of instruction in the first four years of primary school. Therefore they showed considerable interest in having school materials in Ma'di, especially since some can remember when those produced in 1958 were still in greater supply. As they tell it, there were schoolbooks in Ma'di when they fled to Uganda, but when they returned form exile after the Addis Ababa peace agreement in 1972, the books were missing. Only a few scattered copies exist presently.
In summary, the Ma'di people hold realistically to the need to learn English in order to further their education. The pressure of the Primary School Examination also reinforces the strong drive for English by P5. However, a strong base for Ma'di vernacular literacy exists. Their schools have always acknowledged the fundamental importance of beginning primary education in the vernacular, and they enjoy books in their own language. It is probable that continued production of both school and other reading materials would further the use of Ma'di literature. In other words, if good Ma'di material could be developed and promoted, the general attitude indicates that it would be used and appreciated.
C RELIGION
Protestant language use and attitudes: Leaders of three different Protestant groups were interviewed: the Seventh Day Adventists (SDA), the African Inland Church (AIC), and the Sudan Pentecostal Church (SPC). One person was interviewed who had attended a chapel run by a fourth denomination, the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS), in Nimule for two years.
In Juba, services are held in English and Arabic; however, various language groups, including Ma'di, present songs in their own (local) languages. In some congregations, vernacular songs are apparently reserved for "special" occasions such as Christmas. This was reported for the Sudan Pentecostal Church.
In the rural Ma'di areas in Sudan, Ma'di is used for most of the service. Where Acholi neighbors attend, some prayers are said in Acholi (SDA) or both Ma'di and Acholi are used in the service (AIC). The man who had attended the ECS church in Nimule said that sermons were preached in Arabic and translated into Ma'di (the pastor was a non-Ma'di). Bible reading there was in English and interpreted into local Arabic, and the Ma'di New Testament was also read. The pastor prayed in English and Arabic and the Ma'di people prayed in Ma'di.
The SDA pastor reported that most of the singing is in Ma'di, with other songs in Acholi, English, Swahili, and Arabic. At the Nimule ECS chapel, some simple songs had been translated into Ma'di. One Pentecostal Bible school instructor said that singing in Ma'di is a problem because most Christian songs in Ma'di are from the Roman Catholic Church and reflect extreme pre-Vatican II doctrines.
A Pentecostal group meeting in Loa for worship, fellowship and prayer has attempted to translate some simple English songs into Ma'di. The prayers and teaching were in Ma'di and both the Ma'di New Testament and English Bible were read, although only some of the members knew English.
The Ma'di SDA pastor interviewed said that people often ask for the Old Testament in Ma'di, and also struggle to translate songs into Ma'di from Swahili, Arabic, and English.
A Ma'di AIC Bible student interviewed thinks that English and Ma'di should be used equally in services in the countryside, in case there are visitors who don't understand Ma'di. He also believes that within the next ten or twenty years, English should be used: by this time, he says, the people will have progressed in education enough to make this possible. The SPC Bible school instructor agreed.
The SDA pastor said that he is able to read the Ma'di New Testament with understanding because he is educated and familiar with the message, but he is not sure how well the people understand it when they read on their own at home. Similarly, the SPC Bible school instructor said that with his educational background he was comfortable with either the English Bible or the Ma'di New Testament, but that for others in the countryside a New Testament in the Lokai dialect would be best. The AIC Bible student has a ministry in the Ma'di refugee camp and says that when he reads the Ugandan New Testament to people there, he changes it to the Lokai dialect so that they can understand it.
Catholic language use and attitudes: The majority of churches in the Ma'di area are Roman Catholic. Catholic priests have been responsible for most of the Ma'di language development. Various Catholic materials have been printed in Ma'di, most of it in Moyo. However, an Italian priest in Juba reported that materials were edited in Loa for the Sudanese. A Ma'di mass exists in Juba, conducted completely in Ma'di by both Italian and Sudanese priests.
Dick Watson visited Moyo, Uganda, in 1988 to investigate whether the Ugandan Ma'di are much better able to read the Ma'di Scriptures than the Sudanese. He concluded that "comprehension is lost by the great number of ambiguities created by failure of the orthography to distinguish tones and ATR vowel quality." An anecdote is relevant here. Once committee members in Moyo realized the importance of tone, they demonstrated that they were well aware of minimal word pairs and even minimal sentence pairs in speech. "One man suddenly thought of the probable meaning of a nonsensical sentence read in the mass each Sunday— the Ma'di reader had continued to read it with the wrong tones used by an expatriate priest years before. One man said he had begged the senior priest to only hold services in English because the Ma'di readings were so poor."
3.2.5.6.2. Among Ma'di dialects
Of thirty-four "young" Sudanese Ma'di (under 40 years of age) interviewed, all but one had spent some time in Uganda. Many of those over 40 had also spent some time in Uganda. Yet this does not imply contact with Ugandan Ma'di; many of the Sudanese interviewees could not think of a concrete incident when they spoke with an Ugandan. Many of them were refugees in a non-Ma'di speaking part of Uganda.
This was not the only reason the question concerning which speech form they used with Ma'dis of a dialect different from their own did not yield much helpful information. The SIL researcher (Joan Bomberger) postulated that speaking Ma'di was a subconscious act for many people and some found it difficult to recall which dialect they used in particular situations.
Among those interviewed in Juba, there were many cases of intermarriage between Lokai and 'Burulo people in all segments of the adult population, but few Sudanese Ma'di had Ugandan Ma'di spouses. As would be expected, 'Burulo families spoke 'Burulo in the home and Lokai families spoke Lokai; there was no clear trend as to which Ma'di dialect was preferred in "mixed" homes. Arabic was often used in the home, especially if the parents had different mother tongues.
In answer to the question as to what language Ma'di people used with their friends, 'Burulo speakers said they would speak Lokai to Lokai Ma'dis. On the other hand, the Lokai speakers said they did not use 'Burulo to speak to their 'Burulo friends but only spoke Lokai to them. One schoolteacher who had taught in the primary school at Opari in the mid-70s said that the Ma'di used in the schools at that time was always Lokai, and even 'Burulo-speaking pupils were discouraged from speaking their dialect.
3.2.6.1.1 Geography, demography, and administration
Moru is spoken in the Mundri district of the Equatoria Province in southern Sudan. The population in 1982 was estimated at 70,000 (Grimes 1988:314). This was said to include 1200 Agyi, 2500 Andri, 5000 Kadiro, 9000 Miza and 400 Wa'di; there is no explanation of what dialects are spoken by the other estimated 52,000 Moru!
Tucker's figures suggest that Miza constituted at least one-third of the population at the time he surveyed; probably 70% of the Moru were either Miza or Kadiro, 15-20% Andri, and less than 10% 'Bari'ba.
3.2.6.1.2 History (not reported)
Here we reproduce the matrix of cognate percentages for the seven Moru dialects surveyed (already presented in 3.1.1.2), including the margin of error (based on 161-165 items):
|
Moru-Kädiro |
|---|
|
100±0.0 |
Moru-Lakamadi |
|---|
|
99±1.4 |
100±0.0 |
Moru-Miza |
|---|
|
96±2.8 |
98±2.0 |
97±2.5 |
Moru-Ägyi |
|---|
|
91±4.3 |
93±3.8 |
93±3.8 |
95±3.2 |
Moru-Ändri |
|---|
|
92±4.1 |
93±3.8 |
93±3.8 |
96±2.9 |
99±1.4 |
Moru-'Bäri'bä |
|---|
|
83±5.9 |
85±5.6 |
84±5.7 |
86±5.3 |
85±5.6 |
86±5.4 |
Moru-Wa'di |
|---|
There is a small amount of chaining. Kädiro, Lakamadi, and Miza have nearly identical lexicon, as do Ändri and 'Bäri'bä. The one exception in both cases is on item #138 'all', where Kädiro and Lakamadi have one word while Lakamadi, Miza, and 'Bäri'bä have another word, and Ändri has yet another. Wa'di probably has less similar vocabulary to any of the other dialects than one finds between even the two most dissimilar among them.
Virtually the same picture emerges from the 'ratio of degrees of difference' matrix:
|
Moru-Kädiro |
|---|
|
4 |
Moru-Lakamadi |
|---|
|
6 |
5 |
Moru-Miza |
|
15 |
15 |
14 |
Moru-Ägyi |
|
18 |
19 |
19 |
20 |
Moru-Ändri |
|
15 |
17 |
17 |
18 |
6 |
Moru-'Bäri'bä |
|
25 |
26 |
25 |
15 |
28 |
28 |
Moru-Wa'di |
The most remarkable fact in this matrix is the unexpected relative similarity of Wa'di to Ägyi. The phonetic similarity of the other groupings of dialects (which were 99-100% similar on the lexical level for our sample) is also clear.
Nothing is known about variations in grammar among the Moru dialects.
A Moru translator says that he can understand speakers form all over Moru-land and uses his own Miza dialect to address them. However, it is not demonstrated that all Moru people can understand all other Moru speakers, or that they understand different dialects equally well. The key question, given that Miza is the present reference dialect, is whether all Moru (including the Wa'di) can read the Miza dialect, providing it is properly written.
Nothing is known about proficiency in other languages, language use patterns, or language attitudes among Moru people.
Concerning the Moru-Ma'di cluster as a whole, the first question is whether it is desirable to vigorously encourage convergence among all the Moru-Ma'di languages. In a word, no, for the following reasons:
- There are several viable dialect clusters already in the process of being developed separately.
- Languages of wider communication are already in place, and these meet most present communication needs.
- Most important, no government, church or educational institution, nor the people themselves, are interested in promoting a single Moru-Ma'di speech variety.
This is not to say that convergence should not be encouraged at all. If in the course of language change and through the process of language development, convergence can be incidentally encouraged, this should be done, since reducing unnecessary variation among written materials helps the language development task to be easier and more focused. However, it does not seem desirable to undertake a program to actively promote convergence; the effort on the part of the language development agents and the inconvenience to readers would not be justified by the apparent savings derived from producing fewer kinds of literature (including 'coverage' of the chain with a smaller number of Scripture translations).
Still, principles of standardization should not be ignored by those working on the various projects. We believe that cooperation is still a good thing, and ideally, the written forms of the various languages should be as compatible as practically possible. We hope that this principle will guide orthography choice in each language.
Except for the question of orthographies, it would seem that the standardization called for in the Moru-Ma'di languages is of two kinds, standardization of one cluster spoken in one country and standardization of one cluster spoken in two countries. The former is rather straightforward and has been or would have been done without a whole-chain survey. In the case of clusters which cross national boundaries, more considered decisions need to be made, based on careful recommendations.
Bearing in mind the above discussion, more specific recommendations are made according to cluster, with the six-way grouping already established in this report.
The Avokaya-Ojila project, begun in Sudan, will be continued with the help of Ojila speakers in Zaïre. Some translated materials are already available in that variety of Avokaya; others should be available in Logo in the future. Efforts could be made to distribute Ojila and possibly Logo materials among Zairean Avokayas. The situation could then be evaluated to see whether Zaireans would be willing and able to use either the Avokaya-Ojila or the Logo materials.
In the light of the fact that no project can be started in Sudan at present and the fact that there is a translation committee in Kaliko-Omi, we would recommend that a program of language analysis, orthography design, primer making, vernacular literacy and translation be initiated in Omi.
The Kaliko-Ma'di also live in Zaïre, and may be interested in the Omi project. If so, we recommend that the Omi committee invite one or two Kaliko-Ma'di observers and include them in their programming and distribution. We recommend that the translation be done in pure Omi and not in a mixture with Kaliko-Ma'di.
Once the Omi program is well established and some materials have been produced, the Kaliko-Ma'di situation can then be evaluated.
As for Sudanese Kaliko, the feasibility of a program of computer-assisted dialect adaptation (CADA) from Omi might be investigated, if the political situation is such that regular contact is possible.
According to the application of criteria for choice of a reference dialect (see Appendix 5), we recommend that a Logo translation project be initiated, based mainly on the Lolya dialect, as planned by the church and implemented by a working committee.
As stated in the appendix, we recommend that Logo-Bari be represented on the Logo translation oversight committee. Once Logo materials have been printed, a special effort may need to be made to encourage their use in the Bari area, especially in the churches. The initial production of separate written materials in Logo-Bari and, if necessary, transitional literacy materials should be considered as a means of easing the use of standard Logo materials by Logo-Baris.
The existence of the apparent seventh dialect suggested by the 'Mandramandra' word and phrase lists should be further investigated. A community of speakers of a dialect as distinct as that one appears to be might need the kind of attention that has already been recommended for Sudanese Avokaya and Logo-Bari.
It is recommended that a study be made of how widely the Lugbara Bible (published in Uganda) is used in Zaïre and whether it is understood. If it is not understood by Zaireans, Ugandans may have difficulty reading it also; those in Vurra, Ayivu, and Maracha counties, at least, should be consulted. If the present 'standard Lugbara' Scriptures are considered inadequate, it is recommended that any new work be done by a joint committee of speakers of the Zairean and Arua (standard Ugandan) dialects, or, if this is not feasible, that speakers of all these dialects be consulted by the translation committee, be it based in Uganda or Zaïre.
For the northern Lugbara dialects, we recommend that a more representative sample of Lugbaras from the Aringa and Terego-Omugo areas be surveyed to assess their comprehension of both the 1978 New Testament and the 1966 Bible. If the New Testament written in the northern dialect is not suitable, the feasibility of encouraging standardization toward the Arua dialect (i.e. helping northern Lugbaras learn to read the standard dialect) could be studied.
The southern Ma'di are unlikely ever to be able to use (Moyo) Ma'di written materials. We recommend that a representative sample of people from the Okollo, Ogoko, and Rigbo areas be surveyed to assess their comprehension of the Lugbara Bible. The feasibility of encouraging standardization toward the Arua dialect could also be studied. If comprehension of Lugbara is inadequate and it is not feasible to help southern Ma'dis learn to read Lugbara, we recommend that a survey be undertaken to determine translation need. If proficiency in Swahili, English, and Lugbara is insufficient for widespread use of Scriptures in those languages, a reference dialect might be chosen (perhaps Okollo), giving particular attention to the opinions of the government and the churches in the area.
Because of the similarity of the Sudanese forms of Ma'di (especially Lokai) to Moyo Ma'di (spoken in the Moyo and Adjumani area), we strongly recommend standardization of these dialects. We recommend that the Moyo dialect be chosen as reference dialect for the following reasons:
- The people of Uganda are by far the more populous. They are also better educated and, due to greater financial, technical, and human resources, more fully equipped to undertake a project of literature production and literacy and see it through to completion.
- Books already exist in Moyo Ma'di.
On this last point, it is important to note that the existing Ma'di books are in an orthography which unfortunately under-represents both tone and vowel harmony. We hope that a solution to this problem can be found, perhaps through language awareness seminars.
We recommend that the Ugandan and Sudanese Ma'di keep in touch with each other so that there is no duplication of work already done in Uganda. The Sudanese should be trained and helped to prepare materials for themselves, but in a standard orthography; literacy materials customized to their own dialects and nationality could also be prepared.
It would also be helpful to verify that the choice of the Moyo (sub)dialect is suitable even for readers from Adjumani and the whole 'Oyuwi' area.
We recommend that further study be made of Luluba to evaluate the prospects either of standardizing Luluba with Ma'di or of a program of dialect adaptation from Ma'di (or another Moru-Ma'di language for that matter) into Luluba.
No recommendations are made concerning the development of the Moru dialects. However, Avokaya materials as well as Moru materials could be made available to the Moru-Wa'di and literacy help given until the Wa'di situation can be better evaluated.
It is time now to review the goals of the Moru-Ma'di Chain Survey and to evaluate how well they were met. It must be kept in mind that data have not yet been collected in a few places, and to that degree some goals have not been completely reached.
We believe that our recommendations do in fact "suggest the best means of ensuring that every speaker of these speech varieties has access to Scripture which they can understand." Specific dialects have been proposed or affirmed for translation in each cluster. Although it remains to be seen how speakers of some Moru-Ma'di dialects will best be assisted, these people will not be left out if further evaluations are done as recommended. This will preclude redundant translation projects being undertaken.
This survey did not "provide comparable linguistic and sociolinguistic data for all Moru-Ma'di speech varieties." Some clusters were more thoroughly researched than others. Constraints of personnel, finance, and time meant that sociolinguistic data in particular were not rigorously pursued in a number of locations. On the whole, however, sufficient information was collected for decisions to be made. One clear benefit of a coordinated survey was that some "new" dialects within clusters have come to light: notably, the Logo-Bari and the Kaliko-Ma'di. As a result, not only is knowledge of the Moru-Ma'di language family enhanced, but care can be taken in the processes of language development and translation to serve these minority speech forms. In a similar way, more was discovered about the degree of variation or of uniformity within dialects already known to exist: Zairean Avokaya, Sudanese Kaliko, Zairean Lugbara and Sudanese Ma'di. Although some questions about Ugandan dialects remain, much light has been shed on the relationships between Standard Lugbara, northern Lugbara and 'southern Ma'di'.
The Moru-Ma'di Chain Survey was intended "to serve as a model for future surveys among other multi-dialect language chains." A number of extra-linguistic factors played a major role in this survey. Some Scripture translations were already in existence. Projects were underway in others. Reference dialects had already been chosen for still others. Differing orthographic traditions combined with zonal and national borders to produce barriers to standardization. At first, we thought that because these extra-linguistic factors reduced the options for project recommendations, the Moru-Ma'di survey would not be as useful as we had hoped as a model. However, most language chain surveys have to deal with similar constraints, and the relative value of this survey as a model for future surveys will only be determined after more such surveys have been done.
The third major goal was "to suggest guideline options for the language planning in the regions where these speech varieties are spoken." In the cases where a reference dialect must be chosen (Logo, Kaliko, and, to a lesser degree, Ma'di), adequate research has been done for a language committee to make an informed choice. For some dialects (for example, Wa'di or Zairean Avokaya), it has not yet been determined by which standard any written materials will be covered. Our recommendations outline what steps must be taken before these questions can be addressed.
The issue of standardizing orthographies must still be addressed, especially in Zaïre, where two conflicting ideals will shape choice of orthography: the ideal of minimum variance throughout Moru-Ma'di (which would favor conformity to the largely compatible writing systems already in use in the other two countries) and the ideal of consistency throughout Zaïre, especially for Central Sudanic languages (where an orthographic tradition different from that in Sudan has developed). The final choice, however, will need to be made by the language committees themselves based on an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of each orthographic option. Interestingly, the fact that these countries have different languages of wider communication seems to have had little effect on orthographic choice.
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¾———.1986. Use of Genitives in Avokaya. OPSL 5:73-80.
Sadembouo, Etienne.*1989. Constitution and function of a language committee and the choice of a reference dialect. In Proceedings of the Round Table on Assuring the Feasibility of Standardization within Dialect Chains. (T.G. Bergman, ed.). Nairobi: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Tamaru, S. Essai d'onomastique Logo. Travail de Fin d'Etudes, Bunia, (Zaire): Institut Supérieur Pédagogique (ms.).
Tsandi, E.E. Eléments de morphologiques lugbara. Travail de Fin d'Etudes, Bunia, (Zaire): Institut Supérieur Pédagogique.
Volebe, Akudhi Mahulo. 1987. Esquisse Morphologique de Obilebha: Dialecte de Logo Ti. Travail de Fin d'Etudes, Bunia, (Zaire): Institut Supérieur Pédagogique.
Watson, Richard.1989. Moru-Ma'di Orthographies. In Proceedings of the Round Table on Assuring the Feasibility of Standardization within Dialect Chains. (T.G. Bergman, ed.). Nairobi: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
————. 1991. Moru-Ma'di orthographies. Proceedings of the Fourth Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium (Nilo-Saharan: Linguistic Analysis and Documentation Vol. 7) (Bayreuth, Aug.30 - Sep.2, 1989.) (Ed. by M. Lionel Bender). Hamburg: Buske.
————. SVOV Word Order in Ma'di. To appear in OPSL 7.
————. Moru-Ma'di Standardization: Is it feasible? To appear in Proceedings of The 3rd Language Conference in Sudan (Language Situation in Sudan) 5-7 December 1995, IAAS, University of Khartoum, Sudan.
*References marked with an asterisk (*) are cited in the report.
Moru-Ma'di Survey Report
1996