The faculty and staff of the Linguistics Department are saddened to share the news of the recent passing of our colleague and friend, Professor Emeritus Jon P. Dayley.
In Spring 2011, his last semester at Boise State, Dr. Dayley taught the linguistics capstone course in field methods, introducing his love for field linguistics to a new generation of linguists. That semester, the class documented Somali-Chizigula, a language spoken by Somali Bantu members of the Boise community who arrived as refugees, working with Mr. Mwaliko Mberwa as the language expert. After the course was completed, members of the Somali Bantu Zigula Association requested that a bilingual Somali-Chizigula/English dictionary be completed. Dr. Dayley collaborated with Mr. Mberwa over the past twelve years, and the two recently completed the 15,973 entry dictionary, available online through the Webonary portal at https://www.webonary.org/somali-chizigula/.
At the request of community members, the department plans to print the dictionary and has put in motion a request for a Foundation account to support the cost of editing and printing it for distribution to the Somali-Chizigula speaking community. If you are interested in donating, please fill out the form below and we will be in touch with you in the next few days with information on how to contribute.
Support Dictionary Printing Project
Thank you for your interest in supporting the printing of the bilingual Somali-Chizigula/English dictionary co-authored by Jon P. Dayley and Mwaliko Mberwa!