"humanities.language.comparative.african"

This a formal Request For Discussion concerning the creation of a new moderated newsgroup called humanities.language.comparative.african. This is not a Call For Votes (CFV). Please do not vote at this time.

RATIONALE: humanities.language.comparative.african

Research on African Languages; all with the exception of Bantu, is at present non- existent in discussions carried out within Newsgroups or on mailing lists. This is also true of comparative research on African Languages.

It is for this reason that a group of comparative linguistics specialists dealing in African languages of the Sahel region (http://lolita.unice.fr/~rn/GDRE_orig.html) proposes to create a newsgroup entitled:

humanities.language.comparative.african

The group formed as a network around a research project concerned with lexical distribution in the Sahel-Sahara zone, as well as with the study of linguistic connections among languages in the region. It is a French CNRS research organism

CHARTER: humanities.language.comparative.african

As a moderated group, humanities.language.comparative.african would be open to topics where comparative linguistics in african languages are the subject of discussion, this would include :

- languages and language families present in the Sahel-Sahara zone: Mande, Chadic, Berber, Nilo-Saharan...
- Analysis of results obtained in the research on genetic relationships.
- Problems related to the description of changes in the context of languages of oral tradition.
- Understanding linguistic changes and all the relevant factors concerning language transformation.

Research workers who do not specialize in the above-mentioned languages, but who nevertheless are interested in general issues of theoretical or methodological value for the work carried out or research tools involved, are welcome to contribute.

Issues of the following type will thus be discussed:
- Empirical issues (Particular facts pertaining to a language or a group).
- Methodological issues (Procedures and methods of description).
- Theoretical issues (Principles of language change).
- Epistemological or cognitive issues (The validity of established facts and how these are obtained).

Contributions can be posted either in English or in French.

Moderation Policy:

Contributions liables to be refused :

1) off-topic articles
2) gross profanity and indecency
3) binaries
4) advertising
5) non-specialist articles

END CHARTER.

MODERATOR INFO: humanities.language.comparative.african

humanities.language.comparative.african will be a moderated group. The group has designated Robert Nicolai, initiator and director of the project, as Moderator.

Moderator: Robert Nicolai <nicolai@unice.fr>

END MODERATOR INFO.

PROCEDURE:

This message initiates a discussion period to consider the creation of a humanities.language.comparative.african newsgroup. Discussion will take place on news.groups. If discussions are made in other newsgroups, they should always be cross-posted to news.groups.

* This is not a call for votes. Please do not attempt to vote now.

A call for votes (CFV) will be issued approximately 4 weeks after this RFD. When the CFV is posted, there will be instructions on how to mail your votes to the independent vote-taker.

DISTRIBUTION:

This RFD is in accordance with the Guidelines for Newsgroups Creation, and has been cross-posted to the following relevant newsgroups:

news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,sci.lang,soc.culture.nigeria, soc.culture.africa.

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Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 15:29:05 -0500 Message-ID: v0151014dacd680ab82b0@[134.59.129.65] From: nicolai@unice.fr (Robert Nicolai) Subject: moderated group humanities.language.comparative.african