General Problems of Classification of African Languages

Domain:

natural language processing

Record type:

paper

Creator:

Wil

Publisher:

Cam

Host:

On principle, there are no language classifications which are right or wrong, but only classifications which are more or less useful or useless. This statement at the beginning of my paper is intended to indicate the teleological perspective in which I want to view the more general problems involved in the classification of African languages. I shall discuss these within a framework which I derive from the four main components of any language classification, namely: 1. the aims and objectives of language classification, 2. the basic units to be classified, 3. the criteria of classification, 4. the models of language classification.

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