Writing BA thesis on a Cushitic language?

[sirdanilot]

Okay so I have to write my BA-thesis this semester, specializing in Descriptive Linguistics. And I have absolutely no idea what to do. As fieldwork isn't really an option, the idea was to look for some kind of poorly described language, look for some texts in that language, then choose some fun subject to talk about using the text data. For example, if reduplication would be a fun thing in said language, analyze that using the texts that are available.

The problem is that I have absolutely no idea what to do. I had no idea what language to choose from, so I just when to a teacher who proposed a Highland Cushitic language (Gedeo). I only have a couple of sources for this:
- a bad grammar written by an italian missionary, but with quite a few texts as well. Also Bible texts which are obviously less interesting (translated), but also traditional tales which are quite a good source I think.
- some papers on phonology and morphology of Gedeo as well as related languages
- a book about text structures in various related languages and Gedeo. I don't really understand this, I'm not familiar with text structures and things like that, but at least it contains three sthort texts...
- The related language Sidamo is very well described in a lengthy grammar.

Does anybody have some idea as to what aspects of Cushitic languages would be interesting to write something about? Preferably something on which not much has been written before yet.

I have been looking into this thing called 'gender polarity' (and these langs do weird things with gender in general) so perhaps that's something to explore? There's been plenty written about that though, though perhaps not in HEC (highland east cushitic).

Wow I hate, hate, HATE coming up with things to write a paper or thesis about. As soon as I have something I think I'll be fine, but that first step just kills me every single time that I have to write something.

[marconatrix]

My first thought is that if this is an honours thesis then you may have bitten off more than you can chew in the time you have available. You need to pick a fairly self-contained topic that you can say something interesting about fairly quickly, avoid anything that's going to spiral out and out into endless possibilities. Maybe something that's typical of Cushitic but not common elsewhere. Are there directional verbal affixes like in Somali (soo, sii) and I've just discovered, Sumerian (LOL).

[sirdanilot]

I'll look into directional verbal affixes, thank a lot ! Of course the thing is that HEC (highland east cushitic) languages differ quite a bit from the better known chusitic stuff like Somali; the HEC langs do resemble each other very much though.

Another topic that I was looking into is gender polarity, which is a thing in other cushitic languages (with plurals having another gender than singulars, and the related language Sidamo has unspecified, singular and plural forms, and I also read something about collective or even paucal forms which seems quite a nice thing).

The verb is something I have good sources about which may be intereting though.

I have found a bit more sources: a very long word-list (thesaurus style) and an old, 1937 Italian grammar of Darasa/Gedeo (that's the same lang) which was very hard to find but I managed to get anyway.

Any more ideas? Even the slightest idea can be of help to me ! I am really devoid of inspiration here. Pretty much the only thing that I can't do is phonology due to lack of recordings. On one hand, it's a shame because it has a cool phoneme inventory (ejectives and also a retroflex implosive d which is cognate with some flap/r kind of phoneme in related langs), on the other hand there's not too much going on in the language phonologically and it's been described pretty well already. So anything morphological or syntactic, throw it at me !

[sirdanilot]

Holy shit that Somali system is insane !

Sadly I don't see anything as cool as that in these Highland East Cushitic languages. But I'll continue to look.

[Gulliver]

I agree that your topic is to big for a BA thesis. You mention Bible translations being "obviously less interesting" but folk tales being "good". Why don't you contrast the language used in the two? Describe how L1 writers write differently to L2 writers? That's still quite a big topic, though.

[sirdanilot]

Hmm that's a pretty interesting idea, considering there's a new testament in Gede'o. I would need to find that somehow though.

I thought there were no recordings, but that was bullshit; there's an entire Jesus film (that movie is the single most translated movie in the world by the way) narrated in Gedeo...

I

[Drydic]

better project: dub Life of Brian into G'e'd'e'''o'.

[marconatrix]

The problem with translations, Biblical or otherwise, is that they often carry over characteristics from the source language. That of course can be something worth studying in it's own right, but maybe only once there's a good description of the 'natural' target language to compare it with. You couldn't tackle anything like this broadside on in a short project. You'd want to pull out something fairly clearcut, like say the use of tense and aspect in narration, concentrating maybe on some particular form(s). Or if they exist, the use/ non-use of emphatic forms, flexibility of word order etc. Are the translations more rigid than native compositions, do they fail to use (or use correctly) some of the native forms ... But essentially just pick something clear, simple and easy to analyse. Remember "Everything takes Longer!"

Edit : Thanks for the link btw. I love this, "Chapter 11 -- The Prepositions. Prepositions do not exist in Somali". Makes me wonder how many so called theoretical linguists have actually looked at any of these "seriously weird" languages

[hwhatting]

You'd want to pull out something fairly clearcut, like say the use of tense and aspect in narration, concentrating maybe on some particular form(s).

I did my master's thesis on the periphrastic future in the OCS gospel texts. That alone took half a year to write. So I'd agree, better not to take a topic that's too broad.

[sirdanilot]

Yes those were exactly the kind of things I was thinking about.

About broadness: of course you narrow down to a couple of things as you write. I could look at tense/aspect in general at first, then narrow down to 'use of the future tense in texts' or something.I can't just arbitrarily narrow something down right at the beginning though, perhaps the future tense is always used in a certain environment and never elsewhere which would be less interesting, for example. I do think I'll have to apply anything I'm gonna do to the texts that are available, as I think that's the most interesting, rather than being pure theoretical.

I am not too worried about time constraints, I just want to have something to start on. If worst comes to worst and I don't finish this semester that wouldn't even be a big disaster (though I do save some money in the long run if I can start my MA in february, as the times that the goodie ol' government paid everything are over even in Holland).

Now I;ll try to get hold of a copy of the New Testament in Gede'o which will be quite a task in itself. Until that time I have two stories from the NT plus a fair share of folk stories, and also lots of loose sentences (and I mean lots).

It's most important that I get this thing going sooner rather than later, as I have to have the titile of my BA project to apply for finishing my BA (you have to fill out a form with all your classes and the title of your BA project, even if you haven't finished the latter yet).

Thanks a lot and any ideas are werlcome. I am thinking verbal stuff is the mot elaborate, but there are also things like 'location nouns' (close to, next to, that sort of thing) of which there's a fair set.

[roninbodhisattva]

Of course the thing is that HEC (highland east cushitic) languages differ quite a bit from the better known chusitic stuff like Somali; the HEC langs do resemble each other very much though.

Depending on how many grammars you could get a hold of, you could do some kind of survey of features distinguishing HEC from other better known groups, or pick some kind of interesting feature among them (say, if it's present, a directional system). You wouldn't even need extensive text data for that, just solid descriptions and maybe some text data to back it up. But that would really be if you were doing something that involved a lot of syntax or discourse stuff. Morphology you really could do from a bunch of paradigms.

Also that gender polarity system sounds interesting. A comparative look at that in the subfamily might be something really cool to do, and something that you could definitely do from grammars and word lists.

Also, you say fieldwork isn't an option, but have you considered doing fieldwork with someone from your area? If you're near a large urban area there is bound to be an interesting language spoken by someone. I'm doing work with a speaker from a language in Senegal right now in the comfort of my department's lab. If you have any faculty in your department who do fieldwork they might have connections.Hell you might even find a Cushitic language.

Finally- Don't pick something just to pick something. I would say pick something that jumps out at you and seems interesting in a broader context. That is, these languages probably haven't contributed to a larger theoretical literature of any sort, so if you could find some debate that data in these languages could bear on, that would be good. Are you interested in any kind of phenomena more generally, as in something that just...really grabs you about languages in general?