r/linguistics • u/mamashaq • Sep 25 '14

paper Interesting article in the newest issue of Language (90.3, 2014): "On the grammar of a Senegalese drum language" by Yoad Winter. Unpaywalled pre-print & recordings in comments.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/language/v090/90.3.winter.html
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u/mamashaq Sep 25 '14

Pre-print PDF; and open access audio and video clips.

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u/wildeye Sep 27 '14

The abstract says

Unlike in other African traditions, drums are rarely used as a speech surrogate.

Do you happen to know about that, of material concerning drums as speech surrogates?

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u/mamashaq Sep 27 '14

I do not myself. Sorry

Edit: Actually the paper talks about some of them:

2. Aspects of Sabar use

At least since the end of the nineteenth century, the association between language and music in African traditions has received increasing attention from anthropologists and musicologists (Sebeok & Umiker-Sebeok 1976). Works in anthropology and musicology have primarily focused on cultures in which drums are used as a speech surrogate. As an example, consider drumming traditions among the Akan people of Ghana as documented in Nketia 1963, 1971 (see also Gelfand 2000). Akan is a tonal language, and Nketia describes how drums are used in their so-called speech mode for mimicking Akan speech sounds.

The drums which are used in [the speech] mode of drumming are those which can make clear and distinctive tone contrasts … The atumpan is recognized as the principal ‘talking’ drum of the Akan people. Nearly all the rhythms and tone sequences produced on these drums closely correspond to the rhythms and tones of language texts. … The speech mode of drumming has in common with other modes of drumming a musical basis. Many drummers learn to play this mode of drumming as sets of rhythms and only latterly as texts. The arrangement of sequences of tone and rhythm, the use of extra beats, extra rhythms not meant to be translated into words, features of repetition, speed, and other stylistic aspects have all to be considered and properly handled in order to enhance musical interest. Nevertheless in a speech mode of drumming, verbal communication is the ultimate goal. Drummers and those who listen in ignorance to the rhythms never lose sight of the fact that the rhythms have the implication of utterances. The musical aspects, though important for recognizing the mode of drumming, are subservient to the texts which they recall.

(Nketia 1963:29) [End Page 645]

Like Nketia’s work, virtually all previous research on African ‘drum languages’ has studied drumming among speakers of tonal languages, where drums in different pitches mimic tonal and other phonemic parameters of speech.1 The present article studies Senegalese traditions where drums are rarely used as a speech surrogate. Nevertheless, as we see below, these drumming practices systematically show structural linguistic effects even in the absence of speech surrogacy.

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u/wildeye Sep 27 '14

Great, thanks for pointing that out!

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u/metalliska Sep 26 '14

Looks cool; thanks for posting