IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0102 MS 380514
Held at: School of Oriental and African Studies
Title: Hackett, Peter
Date(s): Created 1949
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 3 boxes
Name of creator(s): Hackett | Peter | fl 1949 | researcher on the languages of the Belgian Congo
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Peter Hackett was a British field researcher involved in the collection of material for the planned third volume of the Linguistic Survey of the Northern Bantu Borderland (Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1956).
The survey was undertaken under the auspices of the International African Institute. Support for the project was obtained from the British, French and Belgian governments, and the work was overseen by Malcolm Guthrie and Archibald Norman Tucker. The field research was carried out by four investigators, two to work on the western languages (between the Atlantic Coast and the River Oubangui) and two to work on the eastern (or central) languages (from the River Oubangui to the Great Lakes). In addition to Peter Hackett, the British members of the team included I Richardson, joined by G Van Bulck from Belgium and André Jacquot, a Frenchman. Richardson and Jacquot worked on the western languages, while Hackett and Van Bulck on those in the then Belgian Congo.
At a later date, work on the languages from the Great Lakes to the Indian Ocean (eastern or far eastern languages) was prepared by Archibald Tucker and Margaret Bryan, from documentary sources as well as their own field research. The collection of material for the first two sections of the work was undertaken from June 1949 to December 1950.
The third volume of Linguistic Survey of the Northern Bantu Borderland, which would have appeared under the heading Linguistic analyses of the central (Belgian Congo) area, never reached publication.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Photocopies of the manuscript field notes of Peter Hackett, 1949, for linguistic survey on eastern Bantu languages.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: Languages of the Belgian Congo. The translation and annotation of the vocabularies collected is recorded in French, as it was Van Bulck who undertook this part of the exercise.
System of arrangement:
The papers have been classified in groups according to Hackett's original arrangement, and the handlist compiled according to his own numbering, presumably in chronological order of collection of data. The location where the material for each language was collected is given in brackets after the language name.
Conditions governing access:
Unrestricted.
Conditions governing reproduction:
No publication without written permission. Apply to archivist in the first instance.
Physical characteristics:
Some sections of the photocopies are not easily legible.
Finding aids:
Unpublished handlist.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Donated in 1992.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
Related material:
The School of Oriental and African Studies holds papers of Malcolm Guthrie (Ref: PP MS 27) and Archibald Norman Tucker (Ref: PP MS 43).
Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Date(s) of descriptions: 15 May 2000