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Our Burundian colleague Manoah-Joël Misago (1975-2022), professor at the University of Burundi (Department of Kirundi & Kiswahili) and BantUGent associate, passed away in Bujumbura on February 25, 2O22. He obtained his PhD degree in African Studies at Ghent University in 2018 with a dissertation on motion verbs in Kirundi and was a Kiswahili lecturer in the UGent African Languages and Cultures study program in 2016-2017. He leaves a wife and three children aged 12, 7 and 3. May he rest in peace! Wiruhukire amahoro!

 

 

Francqui chair holder 2021-2022 Bruce CONNELL (York University, Glendon College – Toronto, Canada), who was nominated by Antwerp University (Prof. Jo Verhoeven) and Ghent University (BantUGent) for his research on language endangerment and language documentation, phonetic descriptions of certain African languages, and articulatory phonetics, visited BantUGent last Monday (February 21, 2022) to discuss joint research.

 

****CANCELLED****

 

At the occasion of the publication of the Trilingual Dictionary of Kaaps, the Ghent Center for Afrikaans and the Study of South Africa (GAZ) organizes on February 25, 2022 (1pm-2.30pm) a webinar on “Kaaps, language variation and the future of Afrikaans” in which also Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (BantUGent) participates.

More info: https://www.africaplatform.ugent.be/event/tweede-gaz-webinar-kaaps-taalvariatie-en-de-toekomst-van-het-afrikaans

From February 16 until May 15 2022, BantUGent associate Joseph Koni Muluwa (ISP Kikwit) will be in Ghent for a research visit at BantUGent. He has been invited as a research fellow of the BantuFirst project to work on the languages spoken in the West-Coastal Bantu homeland area (Kwilu Province).

The Faculty Magazine Binnenstebuiten reports on the “Monster: Other/Alternative” project set up by Inge Brinkman (BantUGent), a collaboration between the BA program in African Languages and Cultures, choreographer Harold George from Sierra Leone and AfriKera dansers from Zimbabwe.

The Faculty Magazine Binnenstebuiten interviewed Peter Coutros (BantUGent) about his archaeological research inside and outside the BantuFirst project.

Following the short documentary film which Peter Coutros (BantuGent) produced on the archaeological BantuFirst fieldwork he did in the Congo last summer together with Prof. Igor Matonda (UNIKIN), the editorial board of the Dutch web magazine Stemmen van Afrika invited Koen Bostoen (BantuGent) to write up a short article in Dutch to provide some scientific background information to explain the goals of that linguistically inspired archaeological research in layman’s terms. The post is available here.

On Saturday January 22, 2022, Sara Pacchiarotti (BantUGent) presented a talk titled “Comportement syntaxique peu connu et fonctions non syntaxiques de la morphologie applicative : quelques nouvelles perspectives comparatives” at the Société Linguistique de Paris  as part of their annual meeting, which was dedicated this year to applicatives across the world’s languages, i.e. “L’applicatif dans les langues : Regard typologique“.

Ernest Nshemezimana and Ferdinand Mberamihigo, both BantUGent associates from the University of Burundi, have a new article out in the Brazilian journal Odisseia. It is titled “Typology and morphosyntactic functions of the verbal prefixes ha- and -ha- in Kirundi (JD62)“/”Typologie et fonctions morphosyntaxiques des préfixes verbaux ha- et -ha- en kirundi (JD62)“. It is based on the corpus-based PhD research which Ernest carried out at BantUGent.

Peter Coutros (BantUGent) has created a short film on the archaeological BantuFirst fieldwork he carried out in 2021 with Prof. Igor Matonda Sakala (UNIKIN), Isidore Nkanu and Arnaud Mabuaka (IMNC) along the Kwilu, Kasai, Kamtsha and Loange Rivers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.