The Ik Language

This book is a dictionary and grammar sketch of Ik, one of the three Kuliak (Rub) languages spoken in the beautiful Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda. It is the lexicographic sequel to A grammar of Ik (Icé-tód): Northeast Uganda's last thriving Kuliak language (Schrock 2014). The present volume includes an Ik-English dictionary with roughly 8,700 entries, followed by a reversed English-Ik index. These two main sections are then supplemented with an outline of Ik grammar that is comprehensive in its coverage of topics and written in a simple style, using standard linguistic terminology in a way that is accessible to interested non-linguists as well. This book may prove useful for language preservation and development among the Ik people, as a reference tool for non-Ik learners of the language, and as a source of data, not only for the comparative study of Kuliak but also the wider Afroasiatic and Nilo-Saharan language families. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

This book is a dictionary and grammar sketch of Ik, one of the three Kuliak (Rub) languages spoken in the beautiful Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda. It is the lexicographic sequel to "A grammar of Ik (Ice-tod): Northeast Uganda's last thriving Kuliak language" (Schrock 2014). The present volume includes an Ik-English dictionary with roughly 8,700 entries, followed by a reversed English-Ik index. These two main sections are then supplemented with an outline of Ik grammar that is comprehensive in its coverage of topics and written in a simple style, using standard linguistic terminology in a way that is accessible to interested non-linguists as well. This book may prove useful for language preservation and development among the Ik people, as a reference tool for non-Ik learners of the language, and as a source of data, not only for the comparative study of Kuliak but also the wider Afroasiatic and Nilo-Saharan language families.

This book is a dictionary and grammar sketch of Ik, one of the three Kuliak (Rub) languages spoken in the beautiful Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda. It is the lexicographic sequel to \textit{A grammar of Ik (Icé-tód): Northeast Uganda’s last thriving Kuliak language} (Schrock 2014). The present volume includes an Ik-English dictionary with roughly 8,700 entries, followed by a reversed English-Ik index. These two main sections are then supplemented with an outline of Ik grammar that is comprehensive in its coverage of topics and written in a simple style, using standard linguistic terminology in a way that is accessible to interested non-linguists as well. This book may prove useful for language preservation and development among the Ik people, as a reference tool for non-Ik learners of the language, and as a source of data, not only for the comparative study of Kuliak but also the wider Afroasiatic and Nilo-Saharan language families.

The Ik language (Icé-tód), spoken in northeast Uganda, forms the Kuliak (Rub) subgroup along with So/Tepeth and Nyang’í. These latter two lects have already succombed to assimilative pressures from neighboring Nilotic pastoralists like the Karimojong, Turkana, and Pokot. Despite similar sociolinguistic circumstances, Ik has so far held up and still remains vital as the mothertongue of hundreds of young children. Since Ik is the last member of a waning subgroup, its documentation and description may provide key pieces to the puzzle of East African linguistic and ethnic prehistory. The complexity of this prehistory is embodied in Ik grammar which shows many traits shared with languages in both Afroasistic and Nilo-Saharan language families. And so a full grammatical treatment of Ik can shed some needed light on the classification of other language groups. 0To that end, this study offers a comprehensive but balanced grammatical analysis of Ik. It covers the basics of the Ik sociolinguistic milieu, genetic classification, phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. Of particular typological interest are Ik’s unusual systems of vowel harmony, tone, and case, as well as the syntax of subordinate clauses, the grammaticalization of case in the verbal system, and sequential and simultaneous clause chains. Other fascinating topics include prepause devoicing, frozen prefixes, tensed modifiers, non-canonical passives, and an irrealisrealis modal distinction. Lastly, between the grammar and lexicon is provided a collection of five culturally relevant Ik texts as holistic examples of Ik in its natural context.

This work was developed as a cooperative effort between the writers cited above, Peter Brook and his actors from the International Centre for Theatre Research, the two anthropologists who had worked with the Ik, and Joseph Towles. The process is described by Colin Turnbull in his introduction.

Youth Culture and Linguistic Survivance documents a decade of life and language use in a remote Alaskan Yup?ik community. It illuminates how schooling and migration shape complex linguistic ecologies; how youth broker sociolinguistic transformation; and how Indigenous peoples? wide-ranging forms of linguistic survivance sustain unique lifeways in an interconnected world.