Papers in Honour of R. C. Abraham 1890-1963 African languages & cultures

170 Pages·1992·2.85 MB·English

by  Philip J. Jaggar

AFRICAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES SUPPLEMENT 1
PAPERS IN HONOUR OF R.C.BRAHAM (1890–1963)

PAPERS IN HONOUR OF
R.C.ABRAHAM (1890–1963)
Edited by
Philip J.Jaggar
School of Oriental and African Studies
Papers from the Symposium on R.C.Abraham (1890–1963)
at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
September 14–15, 1990
African Languages and Cultures, Supplement 1
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
1992
Published by the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of
London, Thornaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
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© School of Oriental and African Studies 1992
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-203-98997-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0 7286 0210 5 (Print Edition)
Contents
Preface vii
Roy Clive Abraham: A biographical profile and list of writings 1
Philip J.Jaggar
Afroasiatic
Amharic
R.C.Abraham’s work on Amharic 4
David L.Appleyard
On R.C.Abraham’s view of Amharic as a ‘tone language’ 12
R.J.Hayward
Bole
R.C.Abraham: the Bolewa and Bolanci 24
John E.Lavers
Hausa
Hausa orthography and Abraham’s transcription 30
J.Carnochan
A note on Hausa literature and R.C. Abraham 34
Graham Furniss
R.C.Abraham’s early insights into Hausa pre-datival verb forms 40
Philip J.Jaggar
The previous reference marker in Hausa: R.C.Abraham’s insights and new analyses 55
Paul Newman
Lexicographic method in R.C.Abraham’s Hausa Dictionary 64
Roxana Ma Newman
Somali
Reflections on R.C.Abraham’s Somali English Dictionary 80
B.W.Andrzejewski
African Languages and Cultures, Supplement 1, 1992
vi
R.C.Abraham and Somali grammar: tone, derivational morphology and information structure 89
John Ibrahim Saeed
Niger-Congo
Idoma
The contribution of R.C.Abraham to Idoma studies 1 01
Shamsudeen O.O.Amali
Igbo
R.C.Abraham and D.Alagoma: their contribution to Igbo studies 1 05
Kay Williamson
Tiv
R.C.Abraham’s books on Tiv 1 14
D.W.Arnott
R.C.Abraham and The Tiv People 1 18
Frances Harding
Linguistic studies on Tiv—before, by, and after R.C.Abraham 1 30
Heinz Jockers
Yoruba
R.C.Abraham: a link between two periods in the Yoruba written tradition 1 39
J.Gbenga Fagbọrun
Abraham’s ‘magnetised tone’ in Yorùbá 1 49
Benjamin Akíntúndé Oyètádé
General
Fond recollections of Roy 1 57
P.E.H.Hair
Guidelines for contributors
inside back cover
PREFACE
The year 1990 marked the centenary of the birth of Roy Clive Abraham, a household name to anyone
working within the field of African linguistics. To honour the event, a Symposium on R.C.Abraham (1890–
1963) was held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, on September 14–15,
1990, and a group of distinguished scholars were invited to present papers assessing Abraham’s
contribution to our knowledge and understanding of a range of African languages (and cultures) within the
Afroasiatic and Niger-Congo families. He worked on about 12 different African languages over a period of
more than 30 years, publishing grammars and dictionaries on seven (Amharic, Hausa, Idoma, Igbo, Somali,
Tiv, Yoruba), and his wide-ranging and careful scholarship has served as a model and catalyst for many of
the papers here (one can only guess at what he could have achieved had he been born into the age of word-
processing and databases!). This celebratory volume is the product of that Symposium and contains 18 papers
arranged alphabetically by language-family, according to the particular language and author (the papers by
David Arnott, Paul Hair and Paul Newman are included although the authors were unable to attend the
Symposium).
Whilst Abraham’s prodigious output did not always attain the same consistently high overall quality—
hardly surprising given the adverse circumstances in which he was sometimes forced to work—his language
publications were without doubt the product of some original and perceptive linguistic research. A number
of the papers in the collection—those by Fagbọrun [Yoruba], Hayward [Amharic], Jaggar [Hausa], P.Newman
[Hausa], Oyètádé [Yoruba] and Saeed [Somali]—evaluate Abraham’s description and analysis of various
language-specific phenomena, and reveal that in some areas he had imaginative and original insights which
were to be the springboard for later treatments. The more general surveys by Amali [Idoma], Appleyard
[Amharic], Arnott [Tiv], Jockers [Tiv] and Lavers [Bole] take a broader look at Abraham’s contribution to
the study of various languages, against the backdrop of other relevant works. The remaining review-papers
assess Abraham’s work in several areas and include: Andrzejewski and R.Newman on his Somali and
Hausa lexicography respectively; Williamson on the techniques and methods he used for his Igbo research
(together with Dagogo Alagoma); Carnochan on his orthographic representation of Hausa; Furniss on his
translations of fragments of Hausa literature; and Harding on his ethnographic portrayal and perception of Tiv
culture (colonial prejudices and all). The volume concludes with some of Hair’s personal reminiscences of
Abraham.
Some of the linguistically-oriented papers highlight similarities in Abraham’s approach to language
description, and his methodology and presentation, e.g. his admirable thoroughness and meticulous attention
to detail, features which, however, sometimes produced over-complicated and abstruse descriptions
(certainly of interest to the serious linguist, but of limited pedagogical value). And in several papers,
especially Hair’s, we get glimpses of an enthusiastic but at times abrasive and egocentric personality who
was often at odds with the academic community. Above all, however, the collection of papers in this
viii
volume is vivid testimony to Abraham’s impact, especially in the field of African languages, and on behalf
of all the contributors, this work is dedicated to the memory of an extraordinary scholar who advanced our
knowledge and understanding so much.
R.C.Abraham’s son Donald sent the following message to the Symposium:
As someone with an intimate personal knowledge of the skill and single-minded perseverance that my
father devoted to his African language studies over a period of many years, I extend, on his behalf,
and for my family and myself, warmest greetings and a deep sense of appreciation to the gifted
participants from far and wide, in the Centenary Symposium now opening at the Centre of African
Studies, SOAS, under the guidance of Dr Philip Jaggar. I greatly regret my inability to be with and
among you, and thank you one and all.
Donald Abraham
Columbia, South Carolina, USA
September 13, 1990
As organiser of the Symposium, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the SOAS Research and
Publications Committee, the A.G. Leventis Foundation, the British Academy, and the Ove Arup Partnership
for their generous assistance in funding the Symposium. I would also like to thank Joyce Hutchinson who
keyed in some of the papers, Anna Debska and Diana Matias for carefully proofreading the entire
manuscript, and Michael Mann for technical assistance.
Alphabetical list of contributors at the Symposium:
Shamsudeen O.O.Amali, University of Jos
Bogumil Andrzejewski, SOAS, University of London
David Appleyard, SOAS, University of London
Jack Carnochan, SOAS, University of London
Gbenga Fagbọrun, University of York and Ife
Graham Furniss, SOAS, University of London
Frances Harding, SOAS, University of London
Dick Hayward, SOAS, University of London
Philip Jaggar, SOAS, University of London
Heinz Jockers, Universität Hamburg
John Lavers, Bayero University, Kano
Roxana Ma Newman, University of Indiana
Benjamin Akíntúndé Oyètádé, SOAS, University of London
John Saeed, CSNL, Trinity College, Dublin
Kay Williamson, University of Port Harcourt
London, August 1992
Philip J.Jaggar
ROY CLIVE ABRAHAM: A BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE
AND LIST OF WRITINGS
Philip J.Jaggar
Roy Clive Abraham was a major figure in the field of 20th-century African language scholarship. He was
born on December 16, 1890 in Melbourne, Australia, and first educated at University College London
Preparatory School, Clifton College, and Heidelberg College, Germany. He was a Brassey Italian Scholar at
Balliol College, Oxford (1922–1924), where he obtained a first class degree in Oriental Languages (Arabic
and Persian), and also offered Ethiopic which he had studied in Leipzig in 1920, but there was no examiner
available at the time. In 1927 he received a Certificate in Anthropology from University College London,
and in 1930 a Diploma in Arabic from the then School of Oriental Studies, University of London (his
lowest mark was 73%!).
During and after the First World War, Abraham served in the British Army (1914–1923) in Arabia, and
also on the North West Frontier where he learned Hindustani. He was a member of the Nigerian
Administrative Service between 1924–1944, during which time he was an Administrative Officer,
Government Anthropologist, and was then seconded for language research for six years. As far as we know,
his first independent research was on Bole (=Bolanci), a West Chadic (Afroasiatic) language spoken in
northern Nigeria (see Lavers in this volume). He then assisted the Reverend G.P.Bargery, from whom he
learned the principle of phonemic tone in West African languages, in the compilation of the latter’s
monumental A Hausa-English Dictionary (1934).
Abraham’s first published works were The Grammar of Tiv (1933) and The Principles of Hausa (1934),
and in 1935 he published, in mimeograph form, The Principles of Idoma, the first detailed grammar of an
eastern Kwa language. Between 1941–1942 he was Instructor in Hausa to the Royal West Africa Frontier
Force, after which he served in Abyssinia, teaching Amharic and Somali. Later on in the Second World
War, he served in Kenya, South Africa, France, Italy, and with the Military Mission to Russia where he
learned Russian. He finished his service with the rank of Major.
In 1945, Abraham received a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to study the modern Semitic languages of
Ethiopia and Eritrea. Although in late 1946 he failed in his bid to be appointed as Bargery’s successor in
Hausa at the School of Oriental and African Studies, he was subsequently appointed to the newly created
Lectureship in Amharic, a position he held from 1948 until his retirement in 1951. During this same period
he began research into Berber and Somali, and in 1949 he successfully supplicated for the DLitt of the
University of Oxford on the basis of three of his published works on Tiv.
Abraham’s Dictionary of the Hausa Language (with Mai Kano) appeared in 1949, and in 1951 The
Principles of Somali (with Solomon Warsama) was published in mimeograph form. In 1952, he made his
African Languages and Cultures, Supplement 1 (1992):1–4