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1/08/2012

Njyem in a state of language change

The problem with the Njyem is that they have 3 neighboring languages causing their language to shift: Fang, Nzime and Bekwel. We think that we know there is a village that is out of the range of any of these: Djadom. I imagine that we’ll be staying in that village and that we’ll be processing all the vocabulary and verbal constructions we can, using FLEx, and maybe standardizing the language better.
It is a real problem to have such a language-in-change. The people sense that it is really endangered.
A lot of them are leaving the center of the language area and going to the peripheries, where they experience more language-change. Others leave the area entirely.
We will probably find that Djadom has only a small population.
We hope that what we are doing will speak to their hearts.

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