Brent Henderson University of Florida

Chimiini Language Project

My major research focus for the past three years has been the documentation and description of the Chimiini language. The project is funded by the NEH via the NEH/NSF Documenting Endangered Languages program (ID #PD-50009-09). Chimiini is a Bantu language of Somalia with fewer than 15,000 speakers, most of whom are scattered across the globe in ex-refugee immigrant communities due to Somalia's continuing civil unrest. I have spent several summers of fieldwork in Columbus, OH, Atlanta, GA, London, Manchester in the UK and Mombasa, Kenya working with native speakers of the language.

 

Outcomes of the project include a grammar, dictionary, and volume of proverbs as well as a collection of digitally archived audio texts with dense linguistic annotations. You can see/hear some outcomes of the project and other information on Chimiini at our project website:  www.chimiini.org.