On December 24th, 2025 John Richard Rennison, Emeritus Professor at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Vienna, passed away after a short, serious illness, only a few days before his 76th birthday. John was not only a passionate researcher on phonological theory and teacher (see the obituary here) but also an avid fieldworker with a long-standing connection to the Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Since 1980, John had been a steady contributor of linguistic field recordings of African languages (besides other recordings) to the Phonogrammarchiv’s holdings, focusing on languages spoken in Burkina Faso and Nigeria. His activities in the field began in 1980 with recordings of Koromfe, an endangered language of Burkina Faso, and continued in 1984 with fieldwork on Mòoré, a dominant language in the area. His 1985 field trip to Burkina Faso also yielded recordings of the Bis(s)a language besides further recordings of Koromfe. In 1983 he also conducted a study of the German of non-native speakers in Vienna. Always interested in new technological developments, John entered the realm of digital audio recording in 1988/89 by using PCM-encoded VHS tapes. The years of 1997 (Koromfe, Mòoré) and 1998 (Koromfe) saw him switch to Digital Audio Tape as a recording medium. In the early 2000s, John’s attention shifted to Yukuben, an endangered Jukunoid language of Nigeria, and field trips in 2004, 2005 and 2006 resulted in work on, and recordings of, Yukuben, Bete, Lufu, Kapya and Kutep (Jukunoid), and in addition Etulo (Idomoid). Following his research on Yukuben, he focused again on Koromfe.
John’s fieldwork was not limited to merely making recordings of the respective languages. Rather, his recordings came about in the course of extensive research and were used in further analysis and documentation. In 1986 he published his Dictionnaire koromfe, followed by a comprehensive grammar of Koromfe in 1997. In 2001 he published the first version of a “speaking dictionary” of Koromfe on his website, where entries were linked to corresponding sound files. The “speaking dictionary” is now offline for technical reasons but the text version of the dictionary was continuously expanded, last updated in 2025 and also available as an Android app. In his research on Yukuben, John further explored the possibilities of computer-aided language analysis and documentation in a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Reports on the fieldwork and the technological approach appeared in two of the Phonogrammarchiv’s publications (see below).
John was also eager to share his knowledge and experience and to introduce students to the real-life picture of linguistic fieldwork and field data analysis. He not only made it possible for three students to join him in the fieldwork on Yukuben, but altogether thirteen students were employed in the project at various points. Furthermore, he taught classes on linguistic field methods also at the University of Vienna’s Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Department of African Studies and organised excursions to Burkina Faso.
Finally, John also cared for the people he worked with. Realising that native language education is important also in remote places such as Pobé-Mengao in unwritten languages such as Koromfe, he created teaching materials for use in schools and designed a writing system that allows to write the language as it is spoken. After the people of Pobé-Mengao had to flee from terrorist attacks and vacate the village, he initiated a help programme for the survivors.
John will be sorely missed.
(Photo © Tamara Prischnegg)
(Photo © Amsetou Konfé)
(Photo © Katalin Bérces)
References
For a fuller list of John Rennison’s publications see here.
Koromfe
Rennison, John R. 1986. Dictionnaire koromfe (dialecte de Mengao). Hamburg: Buske.
Rennison, John R. 1997. Koromfe (Routledge Descriptive Grammars). London: Routledge.
Rennison, John R. 2005. Dictionaries are the answer! [doc]
Rennison, John R. 2025. Dictionnaire Lorom koromfe - anglais / français / allemand [édition 2025]. (Android app here)
Koromfe teaching materials
Rennison, John R. 2018a. Lorom koromfe kalam tɩtɛ. Un livre pour compter et calculer en koromfe deLorom. Arithmetique. (Avec l'assistance active de Mamadou Konfé.) 1ère édition, fév. 2018. Vienna: self-published.
Rennison, John R. 2018b. Lorom koromfe karəmam la wãrgam tɩtɛ pote. Premier livre pour lire et érire le koromfe de Lorom. Syllabaire. (Avec l'assistance active de Mamadou Konfé.) 1ère édition, mars 2018. Vienna: self-published.
Rennison, John R. 2018c. Avis sur l'utilisation de Lorom koromfe karəmam la wãrgam tɩtɛ pote. Premier livre pour lire et érire le koromfe de Lorom. Cahier pour les instructeurs. (Avec l'assistance active de Mamadou Konfé.) 1ère édition, avr. 2018. Vienna: self-published.
Yukuben
Prischnegg, Tamara & John R. Rennison. 2007. Nigeria ganz anders – zwei Monate Feldforschung bei den Jukun. In Julia Ahamer & Gerda Lechleitner (eds.), Um-Feld-Forschung. Erfahrungen – Erlebnisse – Ergebnisse, 283–296. Wien: Verlag der ÖAW.
Prischnegg, Tamara. 2007. Das Yukuben und seine Bedeutung für die Legitimierung eines Südjukunoid. Vienna: University of Vienna dissertation. [Supervised by John Rennison]
Rennison, John R. 2010. Computerunterstützte Auswertung von audiovisuellem Datenmaterial linguistischer Feldforschung: Status Quo und Perspektiven. Jahrbuch des Phonogrammarchivs der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1, 170–184.
Rennison, John R. 2016. Some vowel harmonies in West Africa. What harmonises, what blocks? Ms.
Hilfe für Pobé-Mengao [Help for Pobé-Mengao]
John Rennison’s recordings in the Phonogrammarchiv’s online catalogue (digital recordings only)