The Sara Language Database Project: Phase 1

FAIN: FN-50074-10

John M. Keegan
Unaffiliated Independent Scholar (Sunnyvale, CA 94086-4915)

The Sara Languages form a group of approximately 17 languages of the Sara-Bagirmi branch of the Nilo-Saharan family, and are spoken primarily in southern Chad. Most of these languages are at risk of disappearing over the course of the 21st century. This project will create a database for 14 of these languages using existing written sources, published and unpublished. This data will then be used to generate a lexicon for each language. Sound recordings will be made from native speakers and the sound files added to the database. Lexicons for languages with sufficient data will be published as individual volumes. Other languages will be gathered into collections of smaller lexicons. A single volume, organized by French word, will unite the data from all project languages. Copies of the lexicons will be provided to educational institutions and local language groups interested in furthering this work. (Edited by staff)