The acquisition of abstract categories of language (such as tense, aspect and agreement among others) has commanded much of the attention of the field of language acquisition for many decades now. How early do children show knowledge of these abstract properties of language, and how do they acquire them? One such abstract property of language is nominal specificity. In some languages a noun is ...

We investigate modeling strategies for English code-switched words as found in a Swahili spoken term detection system. Code switching, where speakers switch language in a conversation, occurs frequently in multilingual environments, and typically deteriorates STD performance. Analysis is performed in the context of the IARPA Babel program which focuses on rapid STD system development for under-...

Au sein des mondes swahili, les sociétés insulaires Comores ont conservé, malgré l’adoption de l’islam, une règle résidence conjugale matrilocale et même, pour deux d’entre elles, groupes filiation matrilinéaires. Ce n’est pas le cas à Anjouan où la est indifférenciée. Dans cette île, l’intégration régulière dans familles dominantes marchands lettrés, membres réseaux commerciaux maritimes l’océ...

The Uganda/Tanzania Branch of SIL conducts an orientation course for new members coming to work in East Africa. One of the components of the course is a scheduled lecture about African Traditional Religion (ATR). In 2006, ten expatriates attended the course. There were also five Tanzanian nationals present. The Tanzanians fulfilled various roles such as interpreters, Swahili language teachers a...