Résumé Le favorlang était une langue austronésienne de Taïwan, ou formosane, qui est aujourd’hui éteinte. On pense qu’il s’agissait d’une forme ancienne du babuza, qui appartient au sous-groupe des plaines de l’ouest au sein des langues formosanes parlées dans la région centre-ouest de Taïwan. Au dix-septième siècle, pendant la période de colonisation hollandaise de Taïwan (1624–1662), des missionnaires hollandais entrèrent en contact avec le peuple favorlang et, avec l’aide d’informateurs autochtones, rédigèrent plusieurs textes dans leur langue en alphabet latin. L’un de ces textes était un lexique. Un des propos de cet article est d’analyser le manuscrit grâce auquel ce lexique a survécu, afin de répondre aux questions suivantes : quelle est la structure de ce texte ? Qui l’a écrit et quand ? Pourquoi a-t-il été écrit ? La plupart des entrées du lexique sont couchées dans un certain dialecte du favorlang, mais certaines entrées contiennent des variantes dialectales. La suite de l’article met à profit ces variantes et des sources historiques afin de dresser un tableau de la variation dialectale en favorlang. Cette partie commence par une analyse de la compréhension actuelle de la variation dialectale en favorlang, puis soumet des objections à cette compréhension, avant de fournir de cette variation un tableau qui, argumente-t-on, est plus vraisemblable. A titre de corroboration est fournie une table des variantes dialectales du lexique, comprenant une comparaison avec des mots d’autres langues formosanes, ainsi qu’une analyse linguistique plus poussée de ces variantes. En bref, cet article analyse le seul lexique du favorlang qui ait survécu, et fournit une étude de cas où l’on montre comment l’emploi conjoint de sources historiques et de données linguistiques peut mettre en question des idées existantes et procurer de nouvelles perspectives sur la variation linguistique dans des langues éteintes.
Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay are Australian Indigenous languages which had almost totally fallen out of use, apart from a few words, and which are now being revived. The paper details the records and analyses of the languages and the current efforts to revive them. The most important sources of information include publications from 1860 onwards, and a number of unpublished materials. There are important sources from the 19th century, more detailed information from the first half of the 20th, while the period from 1950 to 1980 saw the most detailed information and analysis, benefiting from the greatly increased understanding of Australian Indigenous languages and the advent of tape recorders. From 1980 on work on the languages has consisted of revisiting the older sources to refine and expand the description of the languages, and more recently also lexical development, so they can be used to talk about new realities. Le gamilaraay et le yuwaalaraay sont deux langues autochtones d'Australie qui, mis & agrave; part quelques mots, & eacute;taient tomb & eacute;es en d & eacute;su & eacute;tude, mais sont maintenant revitalis & eacute;es. L'article examine en d & eacute;tail les mat & eacute;riaux archiv & eacute;s et les analyses relatifs & agrave; ces deux langues, ainsi que les efforts consacr & eacute;s actuellement & agrave; leur revitalisation. Les sources d'information les plus importantes sont constitu & eacute;es de publications parues & agrave; partir des ann & eacute;es 1860 et de mat & eacute;riaux non encore publi & eacute;s. D'importantes sources datent du 19 & egrave;me si & egrave;cle et des informations plus d & eacute;taill & eacute;es sont fournies durant la premi & egrave;re moiti & eacute; du 20 & egrave;me, mais la p & eacute;riode de 1950 & agrave; 1980 est celle qui nous procure les enseignements et les analyses les plus pr & eacute;cis, gr & acirc;ce & agrave; une compr & eacute;hension fortement accrue des langues autochtones d'Australie et & agrave; l'apparition du magn & eacute;tophone. Depuis 1980, le travail accompli a consist & eacute; & agrave; revisiter les sources plus anciennes afin d'affiner et d'augmenter la description de ces deux langues. On a oe uvr & eacute; aussi & agrave; leur enrichissement lexical en vue de leur permettre de parler de r & eacute;alit & eacute;s nouvelles. Gamilaraay und Yuwaalaraay sind zwei australische indigene Sprachen, die, von wenigen W & ouml;rtern abgesehen, so gut wie nicht mehr gebraucht wurden und neuerdings revitalisiert werden. Der Beitrag beschreibt die Aufzeichnungen und Analysen der beiden Sprachen sowie die aktuellen Bem & uuml;hungen zu deren Revitalisierung. Die wichtigsten Quellen wurden seit 1860 ver & ouml;ffentlicht, aus dieser Zeit gibt es daneben aber auch bisher unver & ouml;ffentlichte Materialien. Bedeutende Quellen und ausf & uuml;hrlichere Informationen stammen aus dem 19. Jahrhundert und der ersten H & auml;lfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Von 1950 bis 1980 wurden die detailliertesten Datensammlungen und Analysen erstellt, wobei man vom stark gewachsenen Verst & auml;ndnis der australischen indigenen Sprachen sowie vom Einsatz von Tonbandger & auml;ten profitieren konnte. Seit 1980 hat man angefangen, & auml;ltere Quellen erneut zu untersuchen, um die Beschreibung der Sprachen zu verfeinern und zu erweitern, und in j & uuml;ngerer Zeit hat man sich dar & uuml;ber hinaus mit lexikalischen Fragen besch & auml;ftigt, damit die Sprachen zur Erfassung neuer Realit & auml;ten verwendet werden k & ouml;nnen.
Favorlang was a Taiwanese Austronesian or Formosan language, which is now extinct. It is thought to be an earlier form of Babuza, which belongs to the Western Plains subgroup of Formosan languages spoken in central western Ta & iuml;wan. In the seventeenth century, during the Dutch colonial period in Taiwan (1624-1662), Dutch missionaries had contact with the Favorlang people and, with the help of Indigenous informants, wrote several texts in their language in Roman script. One of these texts was a lexicon. One aim of this article is to analyze the manuscript in which the lexicon survives to answer questions such as what its structure is; who wrote it and when; and why it was written. Most of the entries in the lexicon are written in one dialect of Favorlang, but some entries include dialectal variants. The rest of the article uses these variants and historical sources to build a picture of dialectal variation in Favorlang. I begin by analyzing the current understanding of dialectal variation in Favorlang before raising objections to this understanding and offering what I shall argue is a more likely picture of this variation. I support this with a table of the dialectal variants in the lexicon, which compares them with words in other Formosan languages and provides further linguistic analysis of these variants. In short, this article analyzes the sole surviving lexicon in Favorlang and provides a case study of how the use of historical sources and linguistic data together can challenge existing ideas and provide new insights into dialectal variation in extinct languages.
This article is divided into two parts. In the first part, I translate and analyze a text excerpted from & Scaron;arh al-K & amacr;fiya by the grammarian Rad & imacr; al-d & imacr;n al-'Astar & amacr;b & amacr;d & imacr; (d. after 688/1289), showing that he recognizes two types of presuppositions: syntactic ones, linked to a relative clause, and pragmatic ones, linked to speech situation. Since intonation is largely absent from Arabic grammar, the speech situation can be interpreted as a real or virtual dialogue, where the utterance responds to an explicit or implicit question linked to a presupposition. I propose to understand a problematic passage from Ibn Haldun's Muqaddima (d. 808/1406) in this way. In the second part, I reproduce this text in its context, that of the operation known as al-'ihb & amacr;r bi-llad & imacr; 'aw bi-l-'alif wa-l-l & amacr;m, which consists of making a noun from a sentence 1 the comment of a nominal sentence 2 by means of a relative clause. While this operation may be interpreted by today's Arabic linguists as a syntactic and semantic transformation of focalization, for Arabic grammarians themselves it is simply a school exercise related to the question of 'i'r & amacr;b of nouns (case inflection), allowing them to verify whether they are indeclinable or perfectly or imperfectly declinable. I show how this particular meaning of 'ihb & amacr;r relates to the two main meanings of this term in Arabic grammar, which are themselves linked to the two meanings of habar (the comment of a nominal sentence or an assertive statement, either positive or negative).
Abstract France was among the earliest European countries to institutionalise the teaching and study of Chinese. From the early eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, scholars associated with French institutions — notably Étienne Fourmont, Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, Stanislas Julien et Antoine Bazin — reworked missionary linguistic materials and Latin-based grammatical categories within new scholarly and pedagogical settings. This article traces three overlapping dimensions of their conceptions of Chinese: the analysis of writing and characters, the description of grammatical organisation, and the differentiation of written and spoken registers. It argues that these dimensions emerged through sustained interaction among textual study, translation, and teaching practice. By treating Chinese evidence as a test of inherited assumptions about grammar and linguistic structure, these scholars contributed to broader nineteenth-century debates on linguistic diversity while also reshaping the institutional and pedagogical priorities of Chinese teaching in France.
