The Samburu Bible Translation and Language Development Project (below “the BTL Samburu project”), run by BTL (Bible Translation and Literacy, of Kenya), initiated a dictionary project in 2008. The BTL Samburu project hosted two “Rapid Word Collection” workshops in 2008 and 2012. The workshop participants were Samburu people who have been involved in the Bible translation project as reviewers. During these workshops only Samburu words were collected, but no glossing or definition work was done.

Many of the words collected also occurred in an unpublished dictionary compiled by Stephen Wagner around 1997. Our own research at the BTL Samburu Project confirmed that Wagner’s entries were very accurate and we were able to use definitions and other information from his dictionary. His work became a standard guide as we added more words to the dictionary.

In 2015 linguist Anna Dahlbacka edited the words that originated from the workshops and that did not occur in Wagner’s dictionary. Translator Wilfred Lenaisimoi gave definitions for most of them, sometimes with the help of translators Timothy Lesimalele and John Lekolo and project officer David Lebarleyia. In 2016 the dictionary was proofread by Samburu speakers during a workshop in Maralal.

Ron Lockwood from SIL has been very helpful with technical help and consultant Doris Payne with linguistic and overall feedback.

Credits & acknowledgements

 

Coordinator – (preferably a speaker of the language, but not obligatorily so) – organizes and oversees the workshop

Logistics Manager – responsible to arrange food, lodging, transportation, supplies, workshop location, and financial disbursements

Record-keeper – responsible for the administrative details during the workshop; must know how to use a spreadsheet on a computer

Glosser (2-3) – must be bilingual in the vernacular and the language in which the words will be glossed

Typist (2-4) – must be experienced in touch-typing; must be (or become) familiar with the keystroke sequences necessary for typing special characters (if applicable)

Team Leader (6) – must be bilingual in the vernacular and the language of the RWC Questionnaire being used

Language Expert (12-18) – must be fluent mother-tongue speakers of the vernacular

Scribe (6) – must be able to write legibly and fairly quickly in the vernacular; a good grasp of the vernacular orthography is a near necessity to avoid lots of corrections later in the process;[:]