Maasai Speech Samples

This is a collection of audio files from seven native speakers of Maasai, an Eastern Nilotic language spoken in southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania. These files are the raw data that were collected for analysis to write my dissertation, <em>Vowel Harmony in Maasai</em> (2013). The two fieldwork trips to Arusha, Tanzania were funded by a T. Anne Cleary International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the University of Iowa and by Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant BCS1149310 from the National Science Foundation. The majority of the data are inflected verbs produced in isolation. The intention with eliciting them was to compare ATR and non-ATR vowels under various conditions. It is hoped that these data could prove useful to linguists interested in Maasai or Eastern Nilotic languages. They could also be of interest to researchers of vowel harmony or tonal languages. Finally, some stories were also collected which could be of interest to a wider audience or to linguists wanting a more naturalistic speech sample.

本数据集收录了7名马赛语（Maasai）母语使用者的音频文件。马赛语属于东尼罗语族（Eastern Nilotic language），通行于肯尼亚南部与坦桑尼亚北部地区。这些音频均为原始采集数据，用于支撑本人2013年完成的博士学位论文《马赛语元音和谐（Vowel Harmony in Maasai）》的分析研究。两次前往坦桑尼亚阿鲁沙地区的田野调查行程，分别获得了爱荷华大学颁发的T·安妮·克利里国际博士论文研究奖学金，以及美国国家科学基金会提供的博士论文研究改进资助金（编号BCS1149310）的经费支持。本数据集的绝大多数语料为孤立发音的屈折动词，采集该类语料的初衷是在多种条件下对比舌根前移（Advanced Tongue Root, ATR）元音与非舌根前移元音的差异。本数据集旨在为关注马赛语或东尼罗语族的语言学者提供研究参考，同时也可为从事元音和谐、声调语言研究的科研人员提供有效素材。此外，数据集还收录了部分故事类语料，可供更广泛的受众聆听，或为需要自然口语样本的语言学者提供真实的语料资源。