Re: slaroche - r31436 - in abiword/trunk/src/af: util/xp xap/xp

Yes, in Songhay, the spelling ends with "y". Written in the language as
"soŋay".

The spelling "soŋay" should designates the macrolanguage, if an
agreement can be found on this. The main countries for the language,
Mali and Niger, use it to cover the whole language family. Mali has
developed written "Soŋay" from the Gao dialect; Niger has standardized
the main Zarma dialect spoken in Niamey and other major cities in
western Niger. In Niger they use either "Soŋay Zarma" or simply "Zarma".

"Songhay" is also frequent in German too - in publications (like the
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, history books). And in French. Though you have
"Songhai" too in German and "Songhaï" also in French.

"Soŋay" is the spelling in the language, which reflects the very
phonetic orthography used for the language since the early French
publications in the 1890s. It has been fairly constant since the 1950s.
Spelled "soá¹…ay" in Prost's work in 1956.

--
More on the dialectal "labels", it's obviously overly complex for many. 
In everyday life people use local references for the language.
Again, it's worth pointing out that each region uses a term for its idiom:
1) Koyra ciini (c = ch in English) in Timbuktu means the "language of 
the land/region/village". "koyra" means something close to "Heimat" in 
German. (Heimatssprache)
2) Koyraboro senni / Koyraboro Å¡enni, the "language of the people of the 
land/region/village". (Sprache der Heimatsleute/Landsleute, more or 
less). Term used in Gao.
3) Jenne ciini, "language of Jenne / Djenné"
4) Zarma sanni, "language of the Zarma" of Niger
5) Dendi / Dandi, literally "east", eastern dialect spoken in a border 
area of Niger and Benin. The Niger River flows west to east. "ka dandi" 
means "to flow", "dandi" also means "east" (direction), that's why we 
have "dandi" as the name for this eastern dialect.
6) Soŋay kiini, in the hill region between Burkina and Mali. Also called 
"tondi kiini", "language of the hill". Overlaps with "Hombori senni".
7) Hombori senni by itself doesn't really make sense. The idiom of the 
valley in the village of Hombori is practically the same as that of Gao 
(koyraboro senni). Dialects in the hills of Hombori beyond the village 
may sound very different even though geographically close.
8) Kaado senni, "language of the farmer" on the Niger side of the 
Mali-Niger border. Close to the Gao idiom. Etc.
Not to mention the complex situation with the four northern dialects 
heavily inflected by Berber idioms like Tamashek, the "Tuareg language".
See the s/c/k phonetic variation: senni/sanni, ciini, kiini.
I mention these complexities to hint at the problem with the usual 
classification. Some major dialects (Bourem / Buram, Bamba, etc.) are 
hardly ever mentioned though they are spoken by more people than many 
dialects with SIL/Ethnologue codes. Also because these dialects can be 
very different and it takes some effort and compromise to communicate 
across them. It's close to the Swiss German (Mundart) dialectal 
fragmentation. However, communication is done on a daily basis just 
because people are used to each other's idioms and each can speak his or 
hers and be understood to some degree. Should these local and regional 
idioms be called languages as in "Songhay languages"? That's less than 
certain. Equally unsettled the measurement of mutual intelligibility as 
it appears in certain publications. A lot of time, we are stuck with 
data collected decades ago and carried over without taking into account 
dialectal leveling between cities like Gao and Niamey, through radio and 
now Internet-based entertainment across borders. What may look like 
impressive quantitative data has in reality little bearing on the actual 
ability to communicate across regions. And with time, the studies need 
to be renewed to keep even a marginal level of relevance.
So much for that. And again sorry for this torturous route.
Mohomodou Houssouba
Songhay localization team
On 28.06.12 12:11, Ingo Brückl wrote:
> Mohomodou Houssouba wrote on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 10:28:01 +0200:
>
>> Indeed we prefer "Songhay".
> Does this apply only for the English transcription or is "Songhay" the name
> of the language in "Songhay" itself (i.e. the letter y part of the language
> and its name)?
>
> I'm just asking, because the German name (according to Wikipedia) seems to
> be "Songhai", but "Songhay" wouldn't differ in pronunciation and could be
> my German translation as well.
>
> Ingo
>