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I report on fieldwork and offer a survey of the temporal system of Foto Dschang (Grassfields Bantu), taking as its starting point Hyman’s early (1980) study of Dschang tense. Dschang is a language which exhibits an elaborate system of graded temporal distinctions. In this thesis, I begin by presenting some background on the language and the methodology for data collection in this project. I then present an overview of temporal configurations found in the language – those for past, future, as well as present and other aspectual forms, together with a number of their key morphosyntactic properties and interactions with negation. The final section concludes with desiderata for future work to stem from this project.

The paper as part of a long-running series is devoted to the etymological analysis of a new segment (namely that with initial dental *d-) of the Angas-Sura root stock, a small group of modern languages remotely and ultimately akin to pharaonic Egyptian and the well-known Semitic languages or Twareg in the Sahara etc. Doing so, I wish to continue the noble tradition initiated by J.H. Greenberg (1958), the founding father of modern Afro-Asiatic comparative linguistics (along with I.M. Diakonoff), who was the first scholar ever to have established by Neo-Grammarian the methods regular consonantal correspondences between Angas-Sura and ancient Egyptian in his pioneering (painfully isolated) paper on the ancient trichtomomy of the word-initial labials in both branches. Nowadays our chances in following this path are substantially more favourable being equipped with our gigantic comparative root catalogue system of the Egyptian etymologies ever published (ongoing since 1994) and of the Afro-Asiatic parental lexical stock (ongoing since 1999).

Dyula ISO 639-3 [dyu] (Niger Congo, Mande) is one of the major linguae francae of West Africa and it is spoken as a second language by at least 5 million people in Burkina Faso, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire (according to the most overcautious estimates). Spread along with Islam through the missionary work of the merchants of the Mali Empire after the conversion of Emperor Mansa Musa in 1324-26, it has been the major vehicular and commercial language of the entire region ever since, and is still passed down exclusively in oral form. In Burkina Faso, a highly multilingual country, 69 different living languages are currently spoken (Ethnologue 2005), most of which belong to the Mande and Gur families of the Niger- Congo phylum. In the province of Houet, whose capital is the city of Bobo Dioulasso, Dyula would seem to be the only useful tool for mutual understanding among speakers with little or no schooling (the average literacy rate among the 15+ population is around 41%). On the basis of these elements, it seems obvious that Dyula could represent in some way the future of intra- and inter-national relations in the country. If this is true, it should not be forgotten that a lingua franca, by its very nature, can be a simplified or a mixed language and that in order to make the most of it, it is necessary to consider both its potential and its limits. The aim of this contribution will therefore be to propose some applicative reflections on the actual possibilities and weaknesses that the choice of Dyula as an instrument of communication or mediation in Burkina Faso, in a specific field, such as that of development cooperation, may entail. In particular, critical factors that emerged during a basic research linked to a project related to mental health, which is currently still in progress (2019-2022), funded by AICS and coordinated by the NGO CVCS of Gorizia, in which the University of Trieste is a partner, will be discussed.

The papers in this volume were presented at the 50th Annual Conference on African Linguistics held at the University of British Columbia in 2019. The contributions span a range of theoretical topics as well as topics in descriptive and applied linguistics. The papers reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa and also represent the breadth of the ACAL community, with papers from both students and more senior scholars, based in North America and beyond. They thus provide a snapshot on current research in African linguistics, from multiple perspectives. To mark the 50th anniversary of the conference, the volume editors reminisce, in the introductory chapter, about their memorable ACALs.

Review of the book "The Akie Language of Tanzania. Texts and dictionary (East African Languages and Dialects 29)" by Christa König, Bernd Heine, Karsten Legère and Ingo Heine, edited by Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2020.

Verbal lexical aspectual structure is a domain in which infinite meaning possibilities meet a closed set of grammatical categories. It is therefore a fruitful area for investigations of subtle cross-linguistic semantic differences, as well as of contact-induced semantic change. Bantu lexical aspectual systems typically include "complex" lexicalizations denoting both a coming-to-be phase and a resultant state (e.g. the same verb in different frame can encode both 'get angry' and 'be angry'). At least some Bantu lexical aspectual types are, therefore, difficult to account for using traditional classifications (e.g. Vendler 1957), and the tests frequently used to arrive at classifications may also not be applicable. In this paper, we describe our pilot study of lexical aspect in isiNdebele, a Bantu language of South Africa, and our comparative with a related South African language, Sindebele. We describe some of the tests we used, and suggest general guidelines for developing and applying tests of lexical aspect within and across languages. We also describe and illustrate the semi-structured interview process we used, showing that hybrid elicitation/ethnographic discussions are helpful in developing and appropriately applying tests for lexical aspect.

This paper discusses the contribution of Prof. Marianna W. Visser to African linguistics. I present the academic and professional trajectory of Prof. Visser and her research achievements, focusing on publications in three branches of language science: formal linguistics (morpho-syntax and semantics), applied linguistics (language policy and multilingual education), and text-linguistics (appraisal theory and discourse analysis). These three areas and their respective themes are subsequently reflected in the selection of articles included in the volume, which this article also introduces.

This study provides a comprehensive look at the tonal system of a Kwa language, including an examination of lexical underlying tone patterns as well as intonational boundary tone and tone which signals grammatical meaning without the aid of segmental information. While a number of Kwa languages have been analyzed as having two underlying tones, the author shows that Saxwe has a three-tone system—likely a result of the historical contact between a two-tone Gbe language which had depressor consonant-related lowering effects and a three-tone Yoruboid language.Included in the analysis is a series of phonetic studies of the details of tone implementation in Saxwe. The author examines the phenomena known as automatic downstep and non-automatic downstep and notes the variation that is observed among speakers as they implement downstep. This research will be of interest to Africanists, as well as to those interested in tone and intonation studies.

International audience; Like many Niger-Congo languages, all Upper Guinea Creoles (UGCs) spoken in Africa (i.e. except Papiamentu) make use of a specific set of adverbs which specifically intensify various verbs of the language. These ideophones have already been studied in some details for Guinea-Bissau Creole (Couto 1994, 1995, Doneux & Rougé 1988, Scantamburlo 1981, 1999, Kihm 1980, 1994) and briefly mentioned for Capeverdean (Quint 2000, 2008) and Casamance (Biagui 2018). However, quite often, the material published mainly consists of lists of items accompanied by rather short comments. In this presentation we intend to provide a broader overview of intensive ideophones across Upper Guinea Creoles, basing ourselves on first hand and published sources.First, drawing on typological references (Creissels 2002, 2006, Dingemanse 2012, 2018, Samarin 2001) and available data (in particular two unpublished lists of respectively 90 Casamance and 15 Capeverdean ideophones), we will endeavour to define the main phonological, syntactic and semantic characteristics of UGC ideophones. Second, we will develop a comparative approach, insisting both on what the different varieties have in common or not. Third, we will provide some insights about the origin of this interesting category which, like many other components of UGCs, has a double African and Portuguese provenience (e.g. Capverdean álbu < Portuguese alvo ‘white’ (variant of branco) and finu < Mandinka fǐŋ ‘black’). Finally, we will delve into the functional relationship between UGC ideophones and their Niger-Congo counterparts, with special emphasis on the substrate languages of UGCs, ie Mandinka, Wolof and other Atlantic languages.

Language practices have been seen through frameworks - such as translingualism, code mixing, superdiversity, and metrolinguism - motivated by the intent to capture some of the contemporary sociolinguistic diversity or capture the diversities that have occurred historically - but lost because of the analytical frameworks used - underlining the need to expand the “epistemological repertoires”. This article follows this search logic by expanding epistemological analytical repertoires to describe sociolinguistic diversity, focusing on socio-historical contexts of Africa, analyzing how indigenous languages ​​were appropriated as the first languages ​​by African speakers, as well as it explores the implications of a human linguistic perspective in linguistic planning. As práticas linguísticas têm sido vistas através de enquadramentos – como a translinguagem, mistura de códigos, superdiversidade e o metrolinguismo – motivados pela intenção de capturar algumas das diversidades sociolinguísticas contemporâneas, ou capturar as diversidades que ocorreram historicamente – entretanto perdidas por causa dos quadros analíticos usados – sublinhando a necessidade de expandir os “repertórios epistemológicos”. Este artigo segue essa lógica de busca por expandir repertórios epistemológicos analíticos para descrever as diversidades sociolinguísticas, tendo como foco contextos sócio históricos da África, analisando como as línguas indígenas, foram apropriadas como primeiras línguas por falantes africanos, bem como explora as implicações de uma perspectiva linguística humana, no planejamento linguístico.

The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL.

The systematic comparison of the different types of progressive Vowel Height Harmony (pVHH) attested within the Kikongo Language Cluster (KLC) leads to the conclusion that this common Bantu process of long-distance assimilation cannot be reconstructed to Proto-Kikongo. The ‘(a)symmetric-pVHH’ and ‘back-pVHH’ patterns, the two main and structurally different kinds of pVHH within the KLC, emerged independently and relatively late within two distinct subgroups, viz. South Kikongo and North Kikongo respectively. Moreover, the ‘(a)symmetric-pVHH’ pattern further spread from a South Kikongo focal area coinciding with the heartland of the Kongo kingdom to other parts of the KLC through contact-induced dialectal diffusion. Furthermore, the historical-comparative evidence from the KLC suggests that neither symmetric nor asymmetric pVHH should be reconstructed to Proto-Bantu, the most recent common ancestor of all Bantu languages.

Ogiek is a Nilo-Saharan, Satellite-Core, Core, Eastern Sudanic, Southern, Nilotic, Southern, Kalenjin language spoken by a community of Hunters and Gatherers living in the region of the Eastern Escarpement of the Mau Forest in Kenya. In the framework of a still very poorly described linguistic family, this work represents a first, non exhaustive and tentative descriptive grammatical sketch of the dialect spoken by the circa 15.000 Ogiek belonging to the 7 clans of the Morisionig family. The book contains also a short vocabulary of the language, where 646 Ogiek entries are recorded. The vocabulary is completed by a corresponding English-Ogiek wordlist.

International audience

African linguistics on the prairie features select revised peer-reviewed papers from the 45th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, held at the University of Kansas. The articles in this volume reflect the enormous diversity of African languages, as they focus on languages from all of the major African language phyla. The articles here also reflect the many different research perspectives that frame the work of linguists in the Association for Contemporary African Linguistics. The diversity of views presented in this volume are thus indicative of the vitality of current African linguistics research. The work presented in this volume represents both descriptive and theoretical methodologies and covers fields ranging from phonetics, phonology, morphology, typology, syntax, and semantics to sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, language acquisition, computational linguistics and beyond. This broad scope and the quality of the articles contained within holds out the promise of continued advancement in linguistic research on African languages. &nbsp

International audience; The aim of the present paper is to sketch a state of the art regarding the Bualanguages of Chad, a genetically related linguistic group that remains relativelylittle-known. Section 1 presents and lists the different languages that belong to thisgenetic unit. A historical review of the documentation is presented in Section 2.Section 3 lays out a lexicostatistical approach to the internal relationships of thelanguages, complemented by some other discriminating features. Some salientphonological and morphological features are discussed in Section 4 that gives aparticular attention to the crucial noun class system of Kulaal. Section 5 deals withproblems of comparison, correspondences and reconstruction within the Group.Lastly a word will be said about the current Bua languages comparative project inSection 6.

International audience; Le présent ouvrage constitue la première grammaire descriptive du pidgin-créole à base lexicale arabe nommé árabi júba (fr. arabe de Juba). À ce jour, l'árabi júba est à la fois la principale langue véhiculaire du Soudan du Sud et la première langue vernaculaire de Juba, la capitale du pays. Bien que cet idiome fournisse un important élément d'identification nationale, il ne fait l'objet d'aucune planification linguistique par l'État. Cette description est destinée à délimiter une série de catégories grammaticales susceptibles de donner lieu à des comparaisons typologiques fructueuses et elle est développée en conformité avec une approche empirique basée sur l'analyse des données originales collectées sur le terrain. L'étude adopte une perspective de synchronie dynamique qui prend en considération un ensemble de facteurs sociaux intervenant sur la variabilité des structures linguistiques du pidgin-créole Sud Soudanais.

International audience; Le présent ouvrage constitue la première grammaire descriptive du pidgin-créole à base lexicale arabe nommé árabi júba (fr. arabe de Juba). À ce jour, l'árabi júba est à la fois la principale langue véhiculaire du Soudan du Sud et la première langue vernaculaire de Juba, la capitale du pays. Bien que cet idiome fournisse un important élément d'identification nationale, il ne fait l'objet d'aucune planification linguistique par l'État. Cette description est destinée à délimiter une série de catégories grammaticales susceptibles de donner lieu à des comparaisons typologiques fructueuses et elle est développée en conformité avec une approche empirique basée sur l'analyse des données originales collectées sur le terrain. L'étude adopte une perspective de synchronie dynamique qui prend en considération un ensemble de facteurs sociaux intervenant sur la variabilité des structures linguistiques du pidgin-créole Sud Soudanais.

Trascrizione in Ogiek, traduzione in inglese e note linguistico culturali di un racconto tradizionale della comunità Ogiek di Mariashoni, Mau Forest, Kenya

This study is the first-ever attempt at a comprehensive grammatical description of Hamar, a language spoken in South West Ethiopia by approximately 46.500 people. The study is based on 9 months of fieldwork carried out between 2012 and 2014 in Hamar territories. Language data was gathered from 14 native speakers in Hamar villages, and it amounts to 50 texts of varying lengths and genres. The grammar investigates the phonology, the morphology, the syntax and some pragmatic and discourse related features of Hamar and it is organized in 13 chapters followed by three appendices: appendix A and B consist of a selected lexicon of circa 1400 entries, appendix C includes three annotated Hamar texts. Hamar is a fascinating language and it has revealed unique typological features: the noun classification system of Hamar for instance is a rare example of ʻnon-fixedʼ gender system, i.e. a system in which gender is not an inherent property of nouns, but optional. The grammar is of interests to typologists but also to linguists interested in comparative Afro-Asiatic studies: the grammar offers an overview of the classificatory issue of Hamar and South Omotic languages, and it includes an updated comparative list of South Omotic lexicon.

The present paper provides a detailed description of the semantic potential offered by the si-construction in Basse Mandinka (a regional variety of the Gambian Mandinka language), by enumerating all temporal, aspectual, taxis and modal values which this verbal form may convey. The study demonstrates that the si-construction offers a wide range of senses. Most commonly, the construction introduces the idea of futurity, regularly accompanied by modal tones of necessity and obligation. More specifically, in the first person, it expresses desires and promises, obligation and necessity, as well as, permission and deliberation; in the second person, it functions as an imperative; and in the third person, it approximates the category of a jussive. The si-construction also introduces modal ideas of obligation and necessity situated in a past time frame, being additionally able to function as a future in the past category. The si-construction can likewise convey the sense of epistemic possibility with no evident future undertones. Finally, it can denote present habitual and customary activities. A profoundly modal nature of the si-construction additionally justifies its common use with the verb noo "be able, can". In such cases, it introduces various modal nuances, typically bereaved of any future sense.Keywords: African linguistics; Mande family; Mandinka; verbal system; lexical semantics

This work aims to present the results of a documentation project on the Siwi language (a Berber language spoken in the Siwa oasis, Egypt by 25,000 speakers) through the analysis of selected aspects of the language, concerning mainly syntax and semantics, that come from the exploitation of a corpus composed of oral data, recorded by both male and female speakers. The thesis is divided into ten chapters (1. Aspect and Mood in the Verbal System of Siwi; 2. Verbal Grammaticalisation; 3. Negation; 4. The -a Suffix and the Resultative Perfect; 5. Preposition n; 6. Demonstratives; 7. Relative Clauses; 8. Other Subordinated Clauses; 9. Accent on Nouns; 10. Word Order and the Information Structure). In each chapter, the linguistic issue is introduced in a typological perspective, then within Berber, before it is analyzed in details in Siwi. Several phenomena that had hitherto remained undescribed, or had not been analyzed, are studied in this research thesis. The appendices at the end are composed of five texts (transcribed and translated during fieldwork) and their metadata. They provide a varied sample (two folktales and three narrations by male and female speakers of different ages) of the language under examination., L’objectif de ce travail est de présenter les résultats d’un projet de documentation linguistique sur la langue siwi (langue berbère parlée dans l’oasis de Siwa, en Egypte, par environ 25.000 locuteurs) à travers l’analyse de certains aspects de syntaxe et de sémantique intéressants pour la typologie et les études berbères, issus de l’exploitation d’un corpus de données orales, enregistré auprès de locuteurs hommes et femmes. La thèse est divisée en dix chapitres (1. L’aspect et la modalité dans le système verbal du siwi ; 2. La grammaticalisation verbale ; 3. La négation ; 4. Le suffixe -a et l’accompli résultatif ; 5. La préposition n ; 6. Les démonstratifs ; 7. La proposition relative ; 8. Les propositions subordonnées ; 9. L’accent nominal ; 10. L’ordre des mots et la structure informationnelle). Dans chaque chapitre, on commence par introduire la thématique au niveau typologique, puis dans la branche berbère, pour ensuite l’aborder en détail en siwi. Plusieurs phénomènes encore non décrits ou analysés sont traités dans ce travail de recherche.

Antipassive constructions are commonly associated with languages with a predominantly ergative alignment. In this article, we show that antipassive constructions can also occur in predominantly accusative languages such as Cilubà, a Bantu language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is expressed by the verbal suffix-angan-, deriving an intransitive clause from a transitive one by omitting the object noun phrase. This suffix functions canonically as a reciprocal marker and is also used to express sociativity/reciprocity and iterativity. An analysis of the suffix’ polysemy is provided on three levels: We argue that (i) plurality of relations is the underlying concept that semantically accounts for its different meanings, (ii) that its use in an antipassive clause is syntactically derived from its use as a canonical reciprocal marker by the demotion and omission of the second participant, and (iii) that the suffix is diachronically bimorphemic and originally consisted of two suffixes that still exist in Cilubà today, with the sum of its individual meanings not straightforwardly reflecting the synchronic polysemy of-angan-.

International audience; Book review of:Anderson, Gregory D. S. 2011. Auxiliary verb constructions in the languages of Africa. (Numéro spécial). Studies in African Linguistics 40(1&2). http://sal.research.pdx.edu/PDF/400Anderson.pdf; Compte-rendu de l'ouvrage :Anderson, Gregory D. S. 2011. Auxiliary verb constructions in the languages of Africa. (Numéro spécial). Studies in African Linguistics 40(1&2). http://sal.research.pdx.edu/PDF/400Anderson.pdf

The systematic study of African languages emerged in the 19th century as a scientific field alongwith other European projects of information-gathering, religious proselytizing, and establishing animperial presence on the continent. This paper considers how the conditions – ideological, social, andmaterial – of linguistic research in the early colonial encounter influenced the resulting descriptionsof African languages and the delimitation of linguistic boundaries. Frameworks and precedents fromthose early projects have remained influential in African linguistics, for example in the identificationof ‘ethnolinguistic groups,’ in the shape of grammatical descriptions, and in the politics oforthography, L'étude systématique des langues africaines surgit au XIXe siècle en tant que domaine scientifique parallèlement à d'autres projets européens de collecte de données, de prosélytisme religieux et d'établissement d'une présence impériale sur le contient. Cet article examine comment les conditions – idéologiques, sociales et matérielles – de la recherche linguistique dans les premières rencontres coloniales influencèrent les descriptions des langues africaines et de leurs frontières géographiques. Les cadres et les précédents issus de ces premiers projets influencent toujours la linguistique africaine, par exemple pour ce qui est de l'identification des groupes ethnolinguistiques, de la qualité des descriptions grammaticales, et de la politique orthographique.

International audience; Book review of:Anderson, Gregory D. S. 2011. Auxiliary verb constructions in the languages of Africa. (Numéro spécial). Studies in African Linguistics 40(1&2). http://sal.research.pdx.edu/PDF/400Anderson.pdf; Compte-rendu de l'ouvrage :Anderson, Gregory D. S. 2011. Auxiliary verb constructions in the languages of Africa. (Numéro spécial). Studies in African Linguistics 40(1&2). http://sal.research.pdx.edu/PDF/400Anderson.pdf

Le wolof est une langue sénégambienne appartenant à la famille atlantique du phylum Niger-Congo. La bibliographie sur le wolof est relativement abondante, surtout en ce qui concerne la morphologie verbale et le système verbal en général. L'objectif de notre présentation est de tenter de dresser un bilan critique de l'histoire de la production et de la transmission de savoir scientifique sur le wolof, en nous centrant sur l'étude du système verbal.

International audience; The Daju language group (Nilo-Saharan, Eastern Sudanic) consists of nine distinct languages scattered on a vast longitudinal area running from the Guera region (Chad) in the west to the Nuba Mountains (Sudan) in the east. At the present time, there is a wide agreement on the individuation of two main branches within Daju (Thelwall 1981a, 1981b): the Western Daju languages, including Daju Mongo, Daju Sila, Daju Nyala, Daju Logawa and Njangulgule, and the Eastern Daju languages, including Laggorí, Soborí, Tillew and Shatt Damam. The two branches are defined by important dissimilarities in the domains of phonology and nominal morphology (Bryan & Tucker 1956). Given that verbal morphology has been largely disregarded in the definition of aninternal classification of Daju, this paper primarily aims at drawing a comparative overview of the Daju verbal morphology in order to better assess the mechanisms of internal change and to compare the different typological features characterizing the Daju languages. After a morphological outline of the Daju verbal roots, the paper goes through differences and similarities in the verbal inflection and the verbal derivation of Daju languages. Particularattention is paid to the morphological and semantic comparison of personal affixes, which give us significant causes of reflection for a redefinition of the internal classification of Daju (e.g. presence/absence of a gender distinction for the 3rd persons, presence/absence of inclusive/exclusive affixes for the 1PL person). The comparison is based on original fieldwork data on Laggorí (Manfredi) and Shatt Damam (Boyeldieu) as well as on a review of the existent literature on Daju verbal morphology (Alamin forth; Palayer 2011).

Contrary to what sustained in Ethnologue 2015, the sociolinguistic survey conducted by the Author interviewieng 146 adult speakers in the region of Mariashoni, Mau Forest Complex, Kenya, Ogiek is still a very lively language in the district. The transmission of the language to the younger generation is still practiced and the community still hosts elder people who are monolingual in Ogiek. The competence in kiswahili is relatively high, but school attendancy is very low and the competence in English does not reach 10% of the young population. The article includes many tables referring to the context of use of the different languages spoken in the region, comprehensive of the languages of neighboring peoples (Maasai, Nandi and Kipsigis for example) and all data are presented considering gender and age sets.

The Ogiek of the Mau forest are a hunter-gatherer group speaking a Kalenjin language very close to Nandi. Aim of this paper is to describe their extreme flexibility as a conscious choice to avoid a total fusion with neighbouring, more prestigious people (Maasai and Nandi). In this perspective, flexibility must be intend- ed as the key characteristic of the Ogiek’s linguistic, ethnic and cultural identity. In the era of globalisation and under the pressure of thousands of new immigrants attracted in the region by fertile lands, the histori- cal Ogiek strategy of adaptation appears insufficient to avoid a final dissolution in what Baumann () defined a fluid society. The only strategy for them to survive as a distinct ethnic group, seems to be a claim for indigenousness, which, however, bears the risk of crystalizing the Ogiek original flexibility in an improb- able mythological uniqueness.

In the last century, and above all from the second half of the nineties, cognitive studies on sensorial and emo- tional experiences multiplied themselves, gaining them the attention of a number of different disciplines. This contribution doesn’t aim to discuss the international theoretical frame of the problem of human cognition, but intends to present an anthropological linguistic example of a concrete case study: that of the Kulango of Ivory Coast. It will be demonstrated how an accurate analysis of the use of those words which describe a sensory experience, can reveal a wider comprehension of the world. The same words can in fact be used in other contexts, with a metaphorical sense, and attribute positive or negative qualities to subjects or situations which are very distant from sensory experience itself.

Figlio della radice è il risultato di una ricerca sul campo durata 12 mesi nel villaggio Kulango (Gur-Volta) di Nassian, in Costa d’Avorio. La ricercatrice, autrice anche della prima grammatica della lingua Kulango, si è dedicata al mondo della medicina tradizionale e della caccia, una pratica che sta rapidamente scomparendo dalla regione, seguendo il filo dei racconti spontanei di Djedwa Yao Kuman, un anziano guaritore tradizionale. Accanto alla discussione antropologica dei problemi, il lettore troverà una ricchissima raccolta di testi in lingua originale, tradotti e commentati.