The UGent Centre for Bantu Studies (BantUGent) stands for a transdisciplinary approach to the past and present of Bantu languages, Bantu speech communities and their (im)material worlds, both in Africa and in the diaspora.
Our research starts from the data-driven study of language and/or (im)material culture and relies on methods and theoretical insights from disciplines as diverse as linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, (art) history, botany, zoology, genetics, etc.
Within the field of Bantu linguistics, which is BantUGent’s centre of gravity, we strongly focus on historical linguistics, including language contact, and corpus linguistics and lexicography, which we strive to combine.
Our research is also integrated in several courses of the UGent BA in African Languages and Cultures and MA in African Studies, such as Introduction to African Linguistics, Language Documentation and Description in Africa, African Historical Linguistics, Bantu Corpus Linguistics and Lexicography, Comparative Bantu Grammar, and African Archaeology.
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News
- BantUGent research on the 2024 World Neolithic Congress in Şanlıurfa (Türkiye)
- BantUGent organized a two-day ELAN and FLEx workshop with Andrew Harvey
- Nemo Science Museum Amsterdam interviews Hilde Gunnink on clicks
- Leiden pre-defence workshop in honour of Elisabeth J. Kerr and Zhen Li
- CongUbangi at the annual European Association of Archaeologists conference in Rome
- Hilde Gunnink and Nina Van der Vlugt talk at CALL53 in Leiden