Women's songs Documenting Isimjeeg Datooga

Women from Dugwamuhosht singing traditional songs and clapping. Each song has a leader who sings different verses and improvises, while the rest of the singers respond with a refrain. Recorded with a Panasonic HC-X920K camcorder and Rode NTG-2 shotgun microphone. Bundle includes high resolution video file (.MTS), and low resolution video file (.MP4). Isimjeeg (endonym Asimjeeg) is an undocumented language variety of the Southern Nilotic family, spoken in North-Central Tanzania. Fewer than 5,000 people continue to speak Isimjeeg and its future is threatened by the loss of traditional grazing land and increased use of Kiswahili and Iraqw. The goals of this project include the development of an annotated audiovisual corpus consisting of natural speech data and elicited linguistic forms, a collection of vocal musical performances and commentary, an Isimjeeg-Kiswahili-English dictionary, and a sketch grammar that covers a variety of linguistic aspects and incorporates socio-cultural information about speakers and communities involved in the project. Richard is the primary researcher of the IGS0229 grant and did most of the recordings.