Three languages are widely used in schools in Kenya English, Kiswahili and Kenya Sign Language. Many pupils with hearing impairments are taught separately from the mainstream, in specialist settings. The fact that most of the formal teaching, assessment and examination processes in Kenyan schools rely upon spoken and written English compounds the…

Schaeffer (1997, 2000) argues that children lack knowledge of specificity because Dutch children omit determiners and fail to scramble pronouns. Avrutin & Brun (2001), however, find that Russian children place arguments correctly according to whether they are specific or non-specific. This paper investigates object agreement and specificity in…

Much of the research that contributes to understanding how bilingual children become literate is not able to isolate the contribution of bilingualism to the discussion of literacy acquisition for these children. This article begins by identifying three areas of research that are relevant to examining literacy acquisition in bilinguals, explaining…

This paper focuses on the role of codeswitching (CS) by isiZulu (Zulu) native language (NL) junior secondary learners in English first language (EL1) multilingual classrooms in South Africa. In spite of the educational transformation in South Africa, and the recognition of CS (by education policy documents) as a means of fulfilling pedagogical…

Afrikaans and Sesotho are two of the 11 official languages of the Republic of South Africa. Data on the acquisition of these languages are scarce. It is interesting to compare the acquisition of the two languages because they are very different in grammatical structure. In addition, cultural differences may possibly be visible in the style of…

The implication of reading competence in developing reflection and thinking is an important issue for student teachers to consider. Reading is also a competence, in which the language at the disposal of a person is included, to use for social development and mutual understanding. This article is based on a case study and is concerned with how some…

This bibliography contains over 500 citations of journal articles, research reports, essays, and papers on the writing systems of a variety of African languages. Items cited were published between 1900 and 1990, are in either English or French, and most are annotated in French. A postface discusses the social and historical context of written…

The formation of plurals in the three classes of nouns in 'Afar is discussed, as well as vowel changes in particular environments. (SC)

THE ONLY GROUP IN SOUTH AFRICA TO HAVE DEVELOPED A NATIONALISM BASED, AT LEAST PARTLY, ON ETHNICITY AND LANGUAGE ARE THE AFRIKANERS. DUE TO AFRIKANER FEELINGS OF NATIONALISM, ATTEMPTS HAVE BEEN MADE TO SEGREGATE AFRICANS AND NON-AFRICANS OF DIFFERENT LANGUAGE GROUPS FROM THE AFRIKANERS AND FROM EACH OTHER. MOTHER-TONGUE INSTRUCTION IS STRESSED AT…

Swahili, a Bantu language, is a lingua franca serving an estimated 45 million inhabitants in Africa as "the language of culture, education, and communication." The author, who has spent 35 years in East Africa, notes the regional variations in Swahili, and the standardization which is taking place throughout East Africa. The Institute o…

More than 4,500 entries are included in this Ibibio dictionary which is intended for general use by field workers in the Ibibio (Nigeria) area or by professional linguists and anthropologists. Most noun entries include the following subentries: (1) noun phrases in which the head noun is qualified, resulting in a change or clarification of meaning,…

THE APPLICATION OF TAGMEMIC AND MATRIX TECHNIQUES TO SOME PROBLEMS IN AFRICAN DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS, AND THE ILLUSTRATION OF THIS APPLICATION WITH DATA SOURCES (RESTATED IN TAGMEMIC TERMS) WERE PRESENTED. (TAGMEMIC AND MATRIX TECHNIQUES REFER, RESPECTIVELY, TO THE STUDY OF (1) ONE-WORD OR MULTIWORD GRAMMAR UNITS AND THE FUNCTIONS OF THESE UNITS…

This bibliography is a guide to studies of the languages belonging to three branches of the Congo-Kordofanian stock found in Liberia. Many works done before the end of the nineteenth century have been omitted, along with works that only briefly mention Liberian languages, and publications in these languages on nonlinguistic topics. (DS)

Discusses the teaching of Afrikaans and English to speakers of Xhosa, with semantics as the point of focus. The purpose is to aid the teaching of Afrikaans and English by introducing componential analysis in order to compare the relative/identical aspects of semantic structuralization in these languages with those in Xhosa. (Author/RM)

This paper describes the evolution of African language instruction at the University of Wisconsin, examining how faculty and staff have utilized state and federal funding to promote the national capacity in African language proficiency. Six sections describe the program's evolution: "Language Instruction at Wisconsin"; "Origins of…