Documenting the Dowe language
| Language | Dowe (ISO639-3:doe), Chidowe (ISO639-3:doe) |
| Depositor | Karsten Legère |
| Affiliation | Institute of African Studies, University of Vienna |
| Location | Tanzania |
| Collection ID | 0269 |
| Grant ID | SG0213 |
| Funding Body | ELDP |
| Collection Status | Collection online |
| Landing Page Handle | http://hdl.handle.net/2196/7cfda163-ab96-4fa5-ab0c-027af8127fdd |
Summary of the collection
The collection includes material from fieldwork among Dowe people of Msata and Miono Ward (Bagamoyo District, Coast Region, United Republic of Tanzania) conducted in 2012-2013. Dowe is a small Bantu language spoken in the hinterland of the Indian Ocean. The audio and video data deposited here are samples of rich oral traditions that were traced all over the Dowe area. In total, a wide range of speech events was recorded by the depositor as well as committed assistants such as Mr. Peter Mkwan’hembo in close cooperation with Mrisho Mkawa of Mkoko village. Mzee Mkawa transcribed the recently deposited Dowe recordings using an orthography which for practical reasons is close to the Swahili orthography. He was also responsible for a Swahili translation of the texts thus facilitating the access to the collection for those who are competent in the Tanzanian national language. A map drawn by Ms. Monika Feinen who is a professional cartographer illustrates the distribution of the Dowe language. In addition, photos of plants collected among Dowe people shed light on traditional knowledge that will be further documented in forthcoming plant use descriptions.
Group represented
Dowe.
Language information
The Dowe language (autonym Chidowe, xenonym Kidoe, Doe) is a small Bantu language of Guthrie’s G zone. It is spoken in the hinterland of the Indian Ocean coast in some villages of Msata and Miono Ward (Bagamoyo District, Coast Region) of the United Republic of Tanzania. “Ethnologue” claims that there were 24,000 Dowe speakers in 1987. The Language Atlas of Tanzania (MLT=Mradi wa Lugha za Tanzania. 2009. Atlasi ya Lugha za Tanzania. Dar es Salaam: Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam) p. 3 lists 7,944 Dowe speakers. The Dowe language is vibrant in villages like Mkoko, Gongo, Mtupeni, partly Matipwili and more, but under heavy Swahili influence for the meanwhile multi-ethnic and multi-lingual composition of originally typical Dowe villages along the tarmac road Msata – Bagamoyo (under construction), where still a number of excellent Dowe speakers can be found.
Acknowledgement and citation
This collection is the result of generous ELDP funding and committed fieldwork as well as text editing in close cooperation with Dowe language experts.
To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:
Legère, Karsten. 2014. Documenting the Dowe language. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-0000-A91D-4. Accessed on [insert date here].
