Report on Round-Table Mande - October 2003 / tb - 14.04.19 - 1
SCOPES project: Lexicology of Eastern Mande languages
Round-Table on Mande languages
Abidjan (Ivory Coast), October 2003
NFS subsidy - IB 7610-103197
Report
The Round-Table on Mande languages took place as planned from Oct. 15 to 17, 2003. It was hosted by the Institute of Applied Linguistics (ILA) at the University of Abidjan. It was well organized and well attended by staff and students of the ILA and a few guests, between 30 and 40 persons in the average. It was followed by a Workshop on the same subject which continued until 31st October.
The opening ceremony was honored by the presence of Pr. Séry bailly, former Minister of Scientific Research, the representative of the Rector, the Dean of Faculty, Prof. François adopo, and the 3rd secretary of the Embassy of Russia, Mrs. Galina. (The Swiss Embassy had also been informed but was not represented.)
The Ivorian speakers emphasized how much the continued co-operation with the Swiss research agency and the Russian researchers meant to the country at this time of crisis.
The ceremony was followed by a media conference. RTI 1 (1st channel of Ivorian television) and Ivorian radio covered the event on various occasions, giving public resonance to the underlying concern for national languages and their integration into national life and development.
A reception organized by the ILA allowed the participants, the researchers from the different countries and the representatives of the agencies involved to get in contact.
The closing ceremony took place in a similar vein, followed by an apéritif again offered by the ILA, in late afternoon of Oct. 17. It was marked by a resolution read by the representative of the participating Ivorian researchers in support of an extension of this kind of research co-operation to other language groups, and in particular, of a formalization of the research co-operation with Switzerland and Russia. This point was also stressed by the authorities of the University who made it a special point to thank the Swiss National Science Foundation for making the joint research between the University of Zurich and the Russian partners possible, and the results which had become manifest during the Round-Table.
Notwithstanding the fact, that the ILA has had no ongoing work in any of the Eastern Mande languages, the Round-Table has in my view fulfilled its main purpose by providing a platform for amalgamating the Swiss-Russian joint enterprise with the scientific community of the host country, allowing the natural bilateral bias within the SCOPES framework to evolve towards an effective trilateral relationship. This was in partly achieved by opening the platform to researchers from the ILA working on Jula which, being a Northern Mande language, shares many features with the Eastern Mande group.
While the main focus of the Round-Table was on the results of the joint research carried out on the specific language group as defined by the theme of the project, the organizers had decided to enlarge its scope so as to underline the relevance of this research to the emerging new coherent language policy, with its particular emphasis on the integration of national languages, not excluding smaller entities, into formal education (Programme d'Education Intégrée), as well as the relation of language to the cultural heritage in the context of the current socio-political situation.
Of the 20 papers, 5 focused on this general aspect, while at the same time juxtaposing multilingualism and language policies in the participating countries, i.e. Russia (with an additional special on Far Eastern Siberian languages), Ivory Coast and Switzerland,. 10 papers presented findings from research on Mande, whereas the remaining 5 focused on methodological issues. Details are listed in the appendix.
The majority of the papers (10) were read by members of the Russian group, 6 by Ivorians, and 4 by Swiss participants (T. Bearth, H. Hirzel). All the papers were followed by discussion.
The Proceedings will be published as a special issue of the journal Mandenkan. An editing committee with Dr. Valentin vydrine as its head has set itself to work.
Summary report on the Workshop on Mande languages (20-31 october 2003)
The main results of the Workshop may be summarized as follows:
- With technical advice from H. Hirzel (programmer ICT projects, University of Zurich), a first level of synthesis was reached by conflation of the individual databases into a single database allowing for systematic comparison between entries from all languages. The conflated database will be made available to the research community.
- The workshop provided new impetus to the local language assistants most of whom had been cut off from the work through the rebel invasion. The working relationship was enhanced in all cases. In some, the Ivorian partners are now, as a result of the workshop, ready to do research on their own, while remaining in contact with the expatriate researchers.
- Work towards production of the CD for several languages was significantly advanced. Further work on this will be done in February 2004.
- A new project could be started: Elena Perekhvalskaya (PhD, associate professor at the St. Petersburg State University, Dept. of Philology) for the Mwan language. Continuity is ensured through 2004 thanks to a small follow-up subsidy granted by a Swiss NGO working with SIL which has been involved in literacy work in some of the Eastern Mande languages and has been highly supportive of the Russian research, explicitly recognizing the benefit which this kind of basic research brings to the local constituencies.
- From a recent report from V. Vydrine, I understand that continuity beyond the limits of the project funding seems to become a reality in most if not all of language groups in which lexicographic work had been started through the project. In some cases (I know it in the case of the Tura) at least, this has come about as a direct consequence of the interest triggered by the Round-Table and the Workshop.
Esslingen, 24 January 2004. Signature: ......
Appendices:
- Program (papers effectively presented)