27.2003, Review: General Ling; Lang Doc: Gehr (2015)

Mon May 2 15:44:05 UTC 2016

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2003. Mon May 02 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.2003, Review: General Ling; Lang Doc: Gehr (2015)

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Date: Mon, 02 May 2016 11:43:46
From: Franz Dotter [franz.dotter at uni-klu.ac.at]
Subject: Die Bakokosprache

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-4873.html

AUTHOR: Chr.  Gehr
TITLE: Die Bakokosprache
SERIES TITLE: LINCOM Gramatica 154
PUBLISHER: Lincom GmbH
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Franz Dotter, Universitat Klagenfurt

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

The publication reprints a German article from a Berlin journal (Mitteilungen
des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen 17/3 (1914), p. 118-133), probably the
first ever notice about Bakoko. It contains a short preliminary notice on the
speakers, followed by 4 pages concerning nouns which are subdivided into 6
classes. For every class it gives 12 nouns and an example sentence. The
sentences are interlinearly translated, keeping the serialization of Bakoko.
Two pages are devoted to lists of diverse pronouns (personal, possessive,
demonstrative, indefinite, question, relative) also ordered into 6 classes.
Cardinal numerals follow in the same form (half page). Three and a half pages
offer information on verbs: the equivalents of ''be'', ''have'' and ''cook''
are conjugated for present, past and future (including all respective negative
forms; for ''cook'' also a ''conditional'' is presented). About twenty verbs
are listed with their first singular form for present, two past forms and
imperative. A following page lists adverbs. Then two tales are reproduced in
interlinear translation: ''The leopard and the turtle'' (2,5 pages) and ''The
flying dog and the leopard'' (1 page).

EVALUATION

The publishers did not add any information to the reprinted 16 pages. They
could have added:  Christian (Otto) Gehr belonged to the protestant Basel
missionaries who started their work, specialized to health care, in the coast
areas of Cameroon in 1886 (for the history, cf. Altena 2003: 39-44). Gehr has
also published two fairy tales from Douala and appears 1915 as a witness
concerning the warfare of the Germans in Cameroon during World War I
(Schulte-Varendorff 2011: 181). A photograph of Gehr is available in the
mission archive at http://bmpix.usc.edu/bmpix/controller/view/impa-m45954.html
, others show the missionary station and some events).

The locations for the Bakoko speakers which he reports, can be found as actual
names (Edea, Douala and the Sanaga river), only the main location of his stay,
''Lobetal'', is an example for transferring German names to missionary
locations in Africa. Very probably it is identical with  contemporary
''Mouan(g)ko'' at Sanaga river.

Bakoko is a Bantu language spoken by 50-130.000 people (according to different
sources); a detailed map can be obtained from Joshua Project
(https://joshuaproject.net/); the most comprehensive information can be found
at OLAC (cf. also Njock no year: 36f, 40f).

The linguistic quality of the material is related to the author's historical
and social context: It is a talented missionary's notebook for practical use,
representing a language from the perspective of translation from German and
the understanding of ''(Latin-oriented) grammar'' of this time. The text may
serve as partially useful diachronic information about the language for
typologists or Africanists.

Critique against the publishers: To sell 16 reprinted pages without any
further information for 27,80 Euros is not fair and devalues the reputation of
the LINCOM Gramatica series.

REFERENCES

Altena, Thorsten. 2003. ''Ein Häuflein Christen mitten in der Heidenwelt des
dunklen Erdteils''. Münster etc.: Waxmann

Joshuaproject: Bakoko, Basoo in Cameroon. Available in the internet under
https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/10593/CM

Njock, Pierre-Emmanuel. no year.  L'univers familier de l'enfant africain.
Quebec (available in the internet under
files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED192580.pdf)

OLAC resources in and about the Bakoko language. Available in the internet
under http://www.language-archives.org/language/bkh#language_descriptions 

Schulte-Varendorff, Uwe. 2011. Krieg in Kamerun: Die deutsche Kolonie im
Ersten Weltkrieg. Berlin: Links

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

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