Patrick William Otim argues that the Acholi people of northern Uganda, who helped Europeans spread colonial rule and Christianity, were far more politically savvy than previously understood.
Originally published in 1956, this volume presents a survey of the non-Bantu languages in the area extending south of the Sahara from Lake Chad to the Indian Ocean, together withj those of South Africa. The arrangement is primarily linguistic, in as much as larger units which show some indisputable affinities are where possible treated contiguously. Languages in the centre of the total area are discussed first, followed by thos ein the west, north, east and finally south.
The first edition of the Practical Orthography of African Languages was a best-seller and this and the following volume re-issues the second edition, in English and French. Originally published in 1930, it provided an invaluable solution to the problem of finding a practical and uniform method of writing African languages. The volume is bound with a small pamphlet which analyses the information on the Semitic and cushitic languages of Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Related languages are grouped together into larger sections which have some linguistic significance. A further pamphlet, the Distribution of the Nilotic and Nilo-Hamitic Languages of Africa, describes the relationship between languages and dialects. For each language, data are given on locality, number of speakers, use for educational and religious purposes and the extent of vernacular literature. The linguistic material is set out in phonetic script with tone marks, though reference is made to current standard orthoraphies where these exist.