The documentation and ethnolinguistic analysis of Modern South Arabian: Harsusi
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| Language | Harsusi |
| Depositor | Domenyk Eades, Miranda Morris |
| Affiliation | University of Salford |
| Location | Oman |
| Collection ID | 0314 |
| Grant ID | |
| Funding Body | Leverhulme Trust |
| Collection Status | Collection online |
| Landing Page Handle | http://hdl.handle.net/2196/c2e3b68e-146f-4573-8370-79e11530aac5 |
Summary of the collection
This is an audio and audio-visual documentation of the Harsusi language spoken in Jiddat al-Harasis in Oman.
Group represented
The Harasis, mainly located in Jiddat al-Harasis, Oman.
Language information
Harsusi is spoken by members of the Harasis and ‘Afar tribes. The number of speakers is estimated at between 600 and 1,000.
Special characteristics
The whole documentation will include audio and photographic material collected during the 1970s and 1980s by Miranda Morris as well as material collected during the lifetime of the project. All the Modern South Arabian languages are as yet unwritten. Part of the objective of the whole documentation project is to encourage use of an Arabic-based script for the Modern South Arabian languages, and to encourage SMS and email communication between speakers in the languages.
Collection contents
Data from speakers of Harsusi. Naturalistic and narrative data collected. Cultural topics covered: personal (wedding, birth, death, clothes), trade, stories, games, occupation, material culture, environment, animal husbandry. Audio data saved in WAV format. The complete collection will include photographs, audio and audio-visual data, transcriptions and translations, and a comparative cultural glossary.
Collection history
The documentation project emerged from work by Watson on Mehri since 2006, work by Morris on the culture and languages of the Modern South Arabian communities since the 1970s, linguistic documentation by Eades in Oman between 2003 and 2010, and enthusiasm on the part of the Modern South Arabian language communities. The languages and culture of the communities are severely endangered due to modern technology, communications, literacy in Arabic, travel and the increasing employment of workers from south-east Asia. The project is funded by a Leverhulme Trust project grant.
Other information
This PDF file entails a bibliography of the Modern South Arabian languages.
Acknowledgement and citation
Users are requested to cite the depositor, Domenyk Eades, Miranda Morris, the Harsusi language community, and the Leverhulme Trust when using resources from this deposit.
To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:
Eades, Domenyk & Morris, Miranda J. 2016. The documentation and ethnolinguistic analysis of Modern South Arabian: Harsusi. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-000F-0522-6. Accessed on [insert date here].
