Archives: Events

What? BantUGent research seminar
When? 4 November 2024
Where? Lokaal 3.30 – Camelot, Blandijn, Campus Boekentoren
Time:
14.00-14.15: introductions by Lis Kerr and Arnaud Bizongwako
14.30-16.00: CongUbangi project
Sara Pacchiarotti – The CongUbangi project: overview and first joint fieldwork mission (April-May 2024)
Peter Coutros – Archaeological results from the 2024 CongUbangi mission
Crisnah Mfouhou – Part 1: A Grammar of Ndunga-le [ndt]: overview and first fieldwork mission (July-August 2024)
Part 2: Preliminaries on Kpala [kpl], an “Ubangi” (Mundu-Baka) language of the Democratic Republic of Congo
Paulin Baraka – First Fieldwork mission in North Ubangi, preliminary results on Mbanza (“Ubangi”, Bandaic) and Furu (Central
Sudanic).

To join the meeting online via MS teams, click here.

Any researcher that works with audio-visual data will need software to annotate, analyze and process said data, and FLEx and ELAN are powerful tools to do so. This course is an introduction to these two pieces of software, widely used in language documentation. It will offer hands-on training in each software application, and then go further to demonstrate how to use the two of them together.

Figure 1: Example of ELAN set-up with a Mỹky speaker (courtesy of Bernat Bardagil)

 

The course starts with audio segmentation, transcription, and translation in ELAN using EAF templates. Participants learn how to compile their data into a searchable corpus and how to conduct searches across their data. The course will then shift to FLEx, providing participants with basic knowledge of its primary functions and how to build a lexicon, work with texts, and parse and gloss data. Finally, participants will be guided through a step-by- step ELAN-FLEx-ELAN workflow so that they have the ability to benefit from the advantages offered by each program. See below for a preliminary program.

The workshop will take place 30-31 October 2024 at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy. The first day will be dedicated to ELAN, the second to FLEx and integration between the softwares. No prior experience is required. Registration can be done here until October 16. If you have questions, you can contact Bernat Bardagil (bernat.bardagil@ugent.be) or Nina van der Vlugt (nina.vandervlugt@ugent.be).

Course lecturer: Prof. Andrew Harvey (University of Bayreuth)

As an expert in the field of language description and documentation, professor Harvey has worked extensively with ELAN and FLEx throughout his career, including his ELDP project, also teaching how to use these pieces of software at different international venues, like summer schools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As this event is financed by the Doctoral School of UGent and the Flemish Government, doctoral students are given priority during registration. If PhD students participate in one of the sessions, it counts as a transferable skill course. If PhD students participate in both the sessions, it counts as a specialist course. Evaluation for PhD students are based on attendance and active participation

 

 

What? BantUGent research seminar
When? September 17, 2024
Where? Room 3.30 – Camelot, Blandijn, Campus Boekentoren
15:00-16:00: Ernest Nshemezimana – “The Expression of Mirativity in Kirundi (DJ62)”
16:00-17:00: Sofia Mateus – “Caculo Cabaça, Cuanza Corridor, Angola: a new archaeological landscape for the study of Central African Iron Age”
To join the meeting online by MS Teams, click here.

Prof. Dr. Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (Cornell University) will present the talk titled “Against Decolonization: Africa’s Place in the Global Circuit of Ideas” upon invitation of Prof. Olorunshola Adenekan and Prof. Koen Bostoen. It is the joint opening lecture for their Master of African Studies courses “Literature, Media and the Arts in Central and Eastern Africa” and “Language, History and Identity in Central and Eastern Africa”.

A recording of the lecture and of the Q&A following the lecture can be found below the poster.

 

Lecture by Prof. Dr. Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (Teams recording)

Q&A following the lecture by Prof. Dr. Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

On Friday June 21 at 10am CET, Lorenzo Maselli will publically defended the joint PhD dissertation titled  “Documenting the sounds of the West-Coastal Bantu languages of the Lower Kasai region (DR Congo): An integrated phonetic and diachronic-phonological approach” written under the co-supervision of Prof. Dr. Koen Bostoen (BantUGent), Prof. Dr. Sara Pacchiarotti (BantUGent), and Prof. Dr. Véronique Delvaux (UMons). The defense took place in the Faculty Room on the first floor of the Blandijn building (Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent) and could also be followed via livestreaming through MS Teams. The jury was presided by Prof. Jo Van Steenbergen and further included Prof. Nancy Kula (ULeiden), Prof. Rachid Ridouane (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – CNRS, Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie), Dr. Abbie Hangtan-Sonko (CNRS, LLACAN), Prof. Kathy Huet (UMons), Prof. Claudia Crocco (UGent) and Prof. Shola Adenekan (UGent).

 

 

 

On Friday 17 May, the LHEAf research team from Leiden University will visit Ghent for a joint workshop with BantUGent on the fascinating world of Africa’s early linguistic history. On the program: exploring language contact, diagnosing substrate, and placing linguistic findings in an interdisciplinary context. Be welcome to join the workshop.

Contact: nina.vandervlugt@ugent.be

 

9am-12pm: Faculty Council Room, Blandijn

 

Introductions

• 9.15-9.45am
  • Introductions BantUGent and LHEAf
  • LHEAf project: Unravelling Africa’s Early Linguistic History

 

Diagnosing Substrate

• 10-10.45am
  Substrate Interference in Bantu languages of Central Africa:  Insights from Diachronic Phonology — Sara Pacchiarotti
• 11am-12pm
  Substrate Interference in Eastern Africa — Dominique Loviscach, Alba Hermida Rodriguez, Maarten Mous

 

12-1.30pm: Lunch break

 

1.30-5pm: Room 3.1, Tweekerken, Campus Tweekerken

 

Language contact

• 1.30-2.15pm
  (Pre)historic Bantu-Khoisan interactions in Southern Africa in a historical linguistic perspective — Hilde Gunnink

• 2.30-3.15pm
  The Bantu Expansion in Eastern Africa — Maarten Mous 

 

Interdisciplinary research

• 3.30-4.15pm
  Bantu Language divergence and convergence and deep-time population history in the Lower Kasai area (DR Congo) — Koen Bostoen
• 4.15-5pm:
  From linguistic to interdisciplinary research in Eastern Africa

 

What? BantUGent research seminar

 

Maps are an important visualization tool for linguists. However, most linguists are not trained in and thus not able to design professional maps. QGIS is opensource mapping software that enables its users to plot features, create data points, or redraw existing maps. For researchers that work with little known languages, software like QGIS is vital in providing reliable maps when there are often none available.

 

To this end, Matthew Sung (affiliated with the Leiden University Centre of Linguistics and the Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities) taught several QGIS workshops at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy from 21 May – 23 May 2024. Participants will also apply the software to their own data. The introduction session was run twice on 21 May and 22 May. Each session could have up to 20 participants. The advanced session was  run once on 23 May and had availability for 15 people. Registration closed on 15 April 2024.

 

As this event was financed by the Doctoral School of UGent and the Flemish Government, doctoral students were given priority during registration. If PhD students participated in the introduction session, it  counted as a transferable skill course. If PhD students participated in both the introduction and advanced session, it counted as a specialist course. Evaluation for PhD students were based on attendance and active participation.

The organizer was Nina van der Vlugt (nina.vandervlugt@ugent.be). See below for the program.

What? BantUGent research seminar