Dialects ; bva096 ; Recording and archiving Barayin (Jalkiya) language data

Ramat Khamis (Jalkiya) and Oumar Touka (Jalking) compare how to say certain things in each others dialects with some input from Bourma Tchoroma (Jalkiya) ; Barayin (or Baraïn) is a Chadic language spoken by about 5000 people in the Guera region of the Republic of Chad. There are approximately 30 to 40 Barayin villages in the Melfi area. There are four groups within the Barayin: Jalkiya, Giliya, Jalking and Komi. These groups all accept the name Barayin for the language group as a whole, although the origins of this name appear to be Arabic. The Jalkiya and Giliya are geographically and linguistically very close to each other. The Jalking and Komi are more isolated. This work focuses on the Jalkiya dialect. In 2010 the Barayin community began working with linguists and literacy specialists to develop an orthography and a mother-tongue literacy program. This project is a collaboration with the language association to produce more audio and video recordings of the language with transcriptions and translations. The recordings and transcriptions have a three-fold application: to produce more material for the mother-tongue literacy program, to provide data for ongoing linguistic analysis, and to preserve unique cultural and linguistic traits against the danger of extinction. ; Primary investigator