Kitaveta Language Research Between Community, Documentation and Linguistic Ecology

Kitaveta is a community language of about 27,000 speakers in Taita-Taveta County in Southern Kenya. The Taveta area is characterised by a high degree of multilingualism and cultural diversity, with widespread use of Swahili and English, and younger speakers are often less fluent in Kitaveta than the older generations. There is a sense of language pressure and endangerment with respect to Kitaveta. Against this background, the Taveta community has taken a number of steps to promote the language, as well as the culture and history of the community. There is an active Bible translation group, which has developed an orthography for the language. While not currently used in formal educational contexts and national schools, Kitaveta is taught in extra-curricular contexts such as Saturday schools and on a private basis. The community is also planning to set up a community radio station to promote the language further. There are close links with Taveta literature and culture, with activities promoting Kitaveta poetry, songs and music and there are active cultural dance groups. In 2019, a language documentation project was set up by community activists and linguists from both Kenya and the UK, including Jimmy Kihara, Clara Monanji, Hannah Gibson and myself. We attracted some funding from the British Academy to develop an initial description and language materials and after delays due to Covid-19 the project started in April 2022. Later in the year, we also ran a small crowd-funding project to help with printing costs of Taveta language materials. In this talk I introduce the project and the approach we have taken to documentation and description. I will then outline and summarise some early results and forthcoming publications and finally discuss plans for developing the project in the future. Note: This talk has not gone through a process of peer review, and findings should therefore be treated as preliminary and subject to change. Acknowledgement and citation: Marten, Lutz. 2023. Kitaveta Language Research Between Community, Documentation and Linguistic Ecology. Talk given at the Rift Valley Network Webinar Series. 05/04/2023.