Introduction LCDD 15 Lumun Stirtz final

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0. Introduction

Lumun is a Niger-Congo, Kordofanian language in the Talodi group, located immediately adjacent to two other Talodi languages, Acheron and Tocho. There are about 30,000 speakers, most of which live in the Lumun hills, east of Kadugli in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. This narrative discourse description uses four texts as its data set: Boy and GoatB, a true, third-person narrative; ArrantheliA, a historical narrative; Hedgehog and RabbitH and Dog and PigD, two animal folk tales. Text references using the associated letters follow examples throughout the paper, and the full text of the first narrative is listed in Appendix A, since a majority of examples are from that text. The write-up covers discourse grammar topics roughly following Stephen Levinsohns recommendations for write-ups 2009. Each section concludes with a summary of the grammatical tools available to translators that are discussed in the section. A summary of each of the texts is now given. Boy and Goat is a true story about a boy named Loti that takes place in autumn when it is common for Lumun boys to care for animals. One evening, after going home and receiving food from his mother, Loti returns to herd cows in the forest. After dark, he sees something that looked like a leopard and shouts at it in order to scare it away. The only one that reacts is an old man nearby. When the creature doesnt move, Loti becomes afraid and runs to a nearby village. A young man in the village accompanies Loti back to the grazing grounds where he had been frightened. There they find some goats and realize that Loti had mistaken one of them for a leopard When the story gets around, Loti becomes known as ‘the friend of goats’ The text was originally written, without an oral rendition, and glossed by John Shakkir in about 2007. Arrantheli explains how the Lumum came to live in peace with the Tocho after being at war with them. After the Tocho attack and are still celebrating their victory, a Lumun chief named Arrantheli calls the Lumun young men together and plans a return attack. The Lumun trap the Tocho who are still celebrating their victory and kill all but two of them. Then the Tocho and Lumun chiefs discuss together terms of peace and both people groups make sacrifices together to seal their agreement. Hedgehog and Rabbit is a folk tale about two animals that compete for the affections of a young lady girl and court her for marriage. One day while Rabbit is visiting the girl, Hedgehog also comes to visit. Rabbit threatens to kill Hedgehog who then runs away. But Hedgehog returns another day when the girl is alone and begins to win her affections. She then agrees to help him trick Rabbit. When Rabbit comes through the pumpkin patch, Hedgehog who has been colored red with chalk, pounces on Rabbit. Rabbit then becomes frightened and runs away, leaving Hedgehog to marry the girl. Dog and Pig is another folk tale. Once, a lake floods and drowns domestic and wild animals. Pig sees the occasion as an easy opportunity to get meat and tells Dog. Dog collects the dead animals and puts them in his storehouse after first removing his grain that was stored there. He only cuts and dries a little of the meat with proper preservation. Pig, on the other hand, collects and properly preserves meat for himself, and burns up Dogs grain After Dog has used up his cured meat, he realizes all the meat in his storehouse has spoiled. The end result was that Pigs family had meat and porridge, but Dogs family began to starve 2

1. Clausal constituents and their variation