Outline of Cinyanja grammar

✍ Scribed by Lehmann Dorothea A.

• Leaves: 29
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Publisher: Bookworld Publishers
Publication date: 2002
Pages: 29

There has been a lack of up to date descriptive grammars of Zambian languages suitable for use, either as teaching or as learning aids, at all levels of the Zambian education system. This lack has been keenly felt by teachers and learners alike. Many of the grammars that are available could be said to be inadequate or inappropriate in several respects. The oldest ones were written at a time when Latin or European languages generally were considered to be the prototype of all grammars, and thus they tended to be patterned in their arrangement, description and the terminology employed on Latin-based grammatical rules. Others were written in a style and language which presented serious problems of comprehension even to teachers. In a good many cases, the actual examples cited were unnatural, forced or not in accord with accepted usage. At the present moment many of these works have long been out of print.
In order to put in the hands of the teachers and learners grammatical descriptions which reflected more nearly the structural facts of their language, during 1970-71, the Survey of Language Use and Language Teaching in Zambia attempted to provide comprehensible grammatical descriptions of the seven Zambian languages officially prescribed for use in education, broadcasting and literacy programmes. The authors who volunteered or were approached to write them were specifically instructed to employ a comprehensible style and to keep technical terminology to the absolute minimum.

✦ Subjects

Языки и языкознание;Африканские языки;Языки банту;Ньянджа (Чева)