Portal:Language/Language of the month/March 2006

The Laal region in Africa

The Laal language is a still-unclassified language spoken by about 300 people in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of Chad on opposite banks of the Chari River, called Gori, Damtar, and Mailao. It may be a language isolate, in which case it would represent an isolated survival of an earlier language group of central Africa. It is unwritten (except in transcription by linguists). According to SIL-Chad missionary David Faris, it is in danger of extinction, with most people under 25 shifting to the locally more widespread Baguirmi language. This language first came to the attention of academic linguists in 1977, through Pascal Boyeldieu's fieldwork in 1975 and 1978. His fieldwork was based for the most part on a single speaker, M. Djouam Kadi of Damtar. Find out more...