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Cawyaŋ Zarma Sanni

map of the river Niger

Background : Credits and account

The Zarma website and the Zarma language course still are 'under construction'. Nevertheless, the result of almost ten years of development, with ups and downs, would not have been possible with the help of others and materials that are the work of others. To give account and credits to those who contributed to this project, I have specified their contribution by topic:

Website development

The current lay out is created in 2012 and 2013 using Dreamweaver and other Adobe software (CS5.5, CS6.0 and Creative Cloud) as several people commented on the somewhat outdated look and feel of the website. The imbalance between the quality of content, which visiters found to be excellent, and that of the lay out became to big. Javascripts from Henk Mengerink's website are still used to make the photo session and popups. The current video player software comes from Longtail. The design and set up of an interactive test book for this Zarma language course has been made by my son Menno Fraters. He still intents to improve the current version to get a different and more attractive form of training. The code for floating menu in the dictionary came from DWUser.com.

In 2003-2004 I created a first version of this site using frames. I got help from people who had already experience in making websites. Kees Schotten provided some valuable tips for lay out and web sites that provide tools for making websites. The basic principle of the menus used in the left frame of the website came from Thomas Brattli (SlideMenu 2.0). I used Microsoft Frontpage 2003 as main webdesign tool till 2012.

Most of the photos published on this site were taken by my wife Marianne Dortants and myself in the 1983-1986 period, when we worked in Niger. Some were taken by my mother, To Schoor, when she and my father visited us in 1985.

Screen dump of Zarma site April 2012

Sound recordings of a native Zarma speaker in Lesson 11 are provided by Een Vandaag (Channel 1 Today). The video of the 30th final of the national traditional wrestling games comes from Bonferey.TV (does not longer exist on the web) and was broadcasted on 10 March 2009. As far as pictures of animations are used made be others a reference is given and link to the original website is provided. Pictures without references are derived from three CD-ROMs sold by a toystore Bart Smit. If one of your pictures is used and you want it to be removed from this website, please, let me know.

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Language course

The loose-leaf volume "Practical method for the study of the Zarma language", a very extensive work presented by Evangelical Baptist Mission of Niamey from 1970, forms the base of this course. In addition to the above mentioned work a loose-leaf volume of a "French - Zarma" course provided valuable information; no author or year or publisher is given in the student volume, there is reference to a teacher volume and a "special lessons volume", but I do not posses these. An overview of literature used to improve the Zarma course is given below. However, first, I would like to thank Sandra Bornand for providing one of her books and some of her scientific articles and Alhaji Somaco Pastor for his willingness to correspond in Zarma, checking texts, and providing some of the material I have published on this website.

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Main literature and internet resources

In addition to the above mentionedd loose-leaf volume "Practical method for the study of the Zarma language", and the loose-leaf volume of a "French - Zarma" course, the following literature has often been and are used as reference and check:

  • Bornand, Sandra (2006) Parlons Zarma. Une Langue du Niger. A book about Zarma language and culture.
  • Ducroz, Jean-Marie, and Charles, Marie-Claire (1978) Lexique Soney (Songhay) Français. Parler Kaado du Gouroul. L'Harmatan, Paris, France.
  • Heath, Jeffrey (1998) Three dictionaries regarding different Songhai dialects published in the series 'Langues d'Afrique' by l'Harmattan:
    • Heath, J. (1998a) Dictionnaire Songay - Anglais - Français. Tome I Koyra chiini.
    • Heath, J. (1998b) Dictionnaire Songay - Anglais - Français. Tome II Djenné chiini.
    • Heath, J. (1998c) Dictionnaire Songay - Anglais - Français. Tome III Koroboro senni.
  • Parker, Philip M. (editor; 2008) Webster's Zarma - English thesaurus dictionary. Publish by ICON Group International.

A full list of of book titles can be found here.

Important and useful internet resources are:

  • Dictionary English - Zarma and Zarma - English of the USA Peace Corps.
  • Notions elementaires pour apprendre le Zarma, webite by a Frenchman, Denis, as part of his website about Niger.
  • La Bible en Zarma, Visionneuse, La Bible multilingue.
  • The Bible in Zarma, Etabetapi, webstite made by Emil Bengtsson For other information available on the internet see links. 
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Tips

Site Search Site Search

Word with Ŋ or ŋ
Type first a &, then a #, and then the number 330 or 331 on the place of the letter concerned,
e.g.: &+#+330+wari = Ŋwari.

Word with Ɲ or ɲ
Type first a &, then a #, and then the number 413 or 626 on the place of the letter concerned,
e.g.: &+#+626+umay = ɲumay.

 
 

 


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      Dico Fraters, the Netherlands © 2004-2016      
     
Last updated: 20 Januari, 2016