Language identification for South African Bantu languages Using Rank Order Statistics

Language identification is an important pre-process in many data management and information retrieval and transformation systems. However, Bantu languages are known to be difficult to identify because of lack of data and language similarity. This paper investigates the performance of n-gram counting using rank orders in order to discriminate among the different Bantu languages spoken in South Africa, using varying test and training data sizes. The highest average accuracy obtained was 99.3% with a testing size of 495 characters and training size of 600000 characters. The lowest average accuracy obtained was 78.72% when the testing size was 15 characters and learning size was 200000 characters

Folklinguistic perceptions and attitudes towards Kenyan varieties of Swahili

This paper examines the perceptions of Kenyans towards the way other Kenyans speak Swahili from a Folklinguistic perspective. The study involved two main tasks. In the first task, informants were provided with blank maps of the country and asked to identify areas where they thought there was a distinct way of speaking Swahili. In the second task, they were provided with the same map showing Kenyan’s eight provinces and asked to rank them in terms of correctness, attractiveness and closeness to the way they speak Swahili. The results show little or no difference between the rankings of correctness versus pleasantness of Swahili varieties. The study also shows that Kenyans do not identify with the normative variety modeled on the standardized or Kenyan coastal Swahili which is used in the schools or mass media. Similar to other studies in perceptual dialectology, the informants’ judgments were influenced by their background knowledge and stereotypes about different regions that have little or no relationship with linguistics factors per se. Unlike other studies in perceptual dialectology however, languages that are not the object of study have a strong influence on respondents’ perceptions. Beside the ethnic stereotypes that characterize Kenya’s multilingual discourse, Kenyans’ attitudes towards varieties of Swahili seem to be filtered through the lens of a competitive hegemonic language that has enjoyed historical advantage. As a result, the promotion of an idealized variety of Swahili in light of the dominance of English and the continued use of local languages is not likely to increase its acceptability as a national and official language

The compilation of corpus-based Setswana dictionaries

The aim of this thesis is to describe how corpus-based Setswana dictionaries should be compiled. The challenge to the modern Setswana lexicographer is to compile very practical descriptive and user-friendly dictionaries. A detailed evaluation of existing Setswana dictionaries will be performed in terms of the macrostructural and microstructural aspects: Coverage of frequently used words. Effective use of dictionary space. Use of standard dictionary conventions. Choice, ordering and composition of translation equivalent paradigms. The focus will be on material collection and corpus building. Informants will be used to compile an oral corpus of 100,000 tokens. All ethical requirements such as informed consent requirements (See Appendix 1) will be honoured. Since the text corpus is an organic corpus, thus not a designed corpus aimed at balance and representativeness, the oral corpus will be constructed in the same way i.e. only basic selection criteria: Mother tongue speakers of Setswana. Adults (to be on a par with authors of the written sources in the text corpus). Age: ranging from 20-60 years. Male and female. Critical analysis of all currently available Setswana dictionaries will be done with special reference to the dictionaries of Brown (1987) (SESD), Snyman, et al. (1990), Matumo (1993).(MSED), Kgasa (1976) (THAND) and Kgasa and Tsonope (1995).(THAN) In all these cases the strategy would be in terms of the theoretical criteria and best practices in terms of a broad theoretical survey of core aspects of dictionary compilation. Finally, the study will be concluded with an analysis of corpus integrity and stability of Setswana corpora based on the model introduced by Prinsloo and De Schryver (2001a).Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2009.African LanguagesUnrestricte

IziNambuzane: isiZulu names for insects

We provide a tool for communicating about insects in isiZulu to facilitate research and knowledge sharing in the fields of indigenous knowledge, cultural entomology, environmental education and community extensioninvolving isiZulu speakers. A total of 213 different names for 64 insect specimens were encountered among a sample of 67 respondents in 11 communities distributed across the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This list includes 93 names that can be considered core isiZulu vocabulary and which are widely used to identify insects that are agriculturally, medically, domestically, culturally or ecologically common or significant. Substantial variation was found regarding the names for particular insects, especially between regions, suggesting dialectal differences between isiZulu speakers. Grammatical and social variation in names was also recorded. This study highlights interdisciplinary teamwork in the field of indigenous knowledge research and the influences affecting the standardisation of South African languages for technical and scientific work

Language as barrier to communication among black African students at the University of Johannesburg, Soweto Campus (Gauteng, South Africa).

Abstract: This paper explores the inadequacy in expressive language of undergraduate (diploma) students. It adopts a communication systems approach and data was collected through one-on-one and focus group interviews with 120 black African students at University of Johannesburg Soweto campus and analysed qualitatively. The findings revealed that if African student’s language does not fit the cultural norm of a group, society or nation, they easily “disown” or reject it and this obviously inhibits an individual’s potential which becomes a cause of dysfunctional interactions

Some repair strategies in Xitsonga

A dissertation submitted to the University of the Witwatersrand in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Linguistics, March 2018Every language has its own unique set of preferred phonological structures, along with an array of strategies that it can employ to ensure that these structures are maintained. This study examines repair strategies used in Xitsonga in relation to syllable structure and Prosodic Word (PWord) minimality. Evidence gleaned from loanword adaptation supports claims by previous work (Vratsanos and Kadenge, 2017) that Xitsonga prefers a CV syllable structure. When words from English and Afrikaans are adapted to suit the Xitsonga phonological structures, several repair strategies may occur: segment substitution ensures that the phonemic inventory of Xitsonga is adhered to; vowel epenthesis is used to eliminate codas and break up consonant clusters; diphthongs are repaired using glide epenthesis and, in some cases, monophthongisation; and prenasalisation resolves NC consonant clusters. Secondly, Xitsonga requires words to be minimally disyllabic, and uses the epenthesis of a semantically null morpheme in order to achieve this. The analysis is couched within Optimality Theory (OT: Prince and Smolensky, 2004), with additional insights gleaned from Feature Geometry (FG: Clements and Hume, 1995). OT allows for strategies to be accounted for by means of constraint interaction, and for variation to be accounted for by means of constraint rerankings. The aim of this study is to present what is thought to be the first comprehensive account of repair strategies used in Xitsonga syllable to maintain preferred phonological structures, highlighting the importance of the syllable as a level of phonological analysis in this language and others like it. Additionally, the results of this analysis are compared to iv those of other Southern Bantu languages in an effort to situate Xitsonga within its language family, thereby contributing to linguistic typology. Key words: repair strategies, loanwords, rephonologisation, prosodic word minimality, Optimality Theory, Feature Geometry, constraints, candidates, input, output, Bantu languagesGR201

Language variation in the Transkeian Xhosa speech community and its impact on children's education

Bibliography: leaves 149-160.This study investigates language variation in the Transkei Xhosa speech community, focusing on the different dialects spoken in this geographical area and their impact on the education of children. As the study focuses on children's education, it is hypothesized that there is a possible correlation between the dialect spoken and the student's academic achievement and life's chances. It is the sociolinguistic view-point that there exists an intimate relationship between the relative status of a speaker's language and his socio-political status. The Transkeian Xhosa speech community comprises various tribes with different speech patterns (i.e. Gcaleka, Bomvana, Tembu, Cele, Ntlangwini, Baca, Hlubi, Mpondo, Xesibe). In the educational context some of these speech forms are labelled as dialectal or as deviations from the norm and therefore stigmatised. This implies that children enter the school setting as winners or losers depending on the dialect or variant they speak

Cross-cultural differences in the character strength of citizenship in South Africa

Abstract: The psychological conceptualisation of the character strength of citizenship as a trait ubiquitous across cultures is examined within the context of a diverse South African sample. The theoretically supposed elements common to the definition of citizenship as a dispositional trait (rather than a situational or cultural phenomenon) are examined by means of considering Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) conceptualisation of citizenship as espoused in their work on character strength and virtues. Using the Rasch model of item response theory the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) Value in Action Inventory (VIA) Citizenship scale was examined for fit and differential item functioning (DIF). A diverse sample of 902 South African university students who completed the Citizenship scale was examined for DIF as a function of self-asserted ethnicities and home language groups, which serve as indicators of culture within the South African context. The findings of the study suggest that while certain conceptual aspects of trait-based citizenship as espoused by Peterson and Seligman (2004) are common across the heterogeneous cultures (as defined by ethnicity and language group) examined, there is sound evidence that there are also qualitative distinctions that are exclusively a function of cultural grouping, suggesting difficulties with the exclusive conceptualisation of citizenship as an individual trait. The implications of these findings speak to the importance of considering citizenship as a nuanced and complex notion that requires further consideration in terms of the philosophical, theoretical and empirical qualification of its conceptualisation