The BantuFirst project presented several papers at the 26th Biennial Meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists which took place at Rice University (Houston), June 1-6, 2023.

From April 4 until June 30, 2023, Prof. Jean-Pierre Donzo (ISP-Gombe, Kinshasa) is on a BantuFirst-funded research leave at Ghent University to

 

From March 24 until June 27 Prof. Igor Matonda (UNIKIN) is on a BantuFirst-funded research leave at BantUGent. Apart from consulting and exchanging with colleagues within our research group , the main goals of his stay are to

1. participate in BantuFirst workshop An Archaeology of the Bantu Expansion: early settlers south of the Congo rainforest (March 29-30, 2023),
2. prepare the forthcoming joint volume An Archaeology of the Bantu Expansion: Early Settlers South of the Congo Rainforest (Routledge) of which he is co-editor;
3. present online the talk titled Mapping the Archaeological Landscape of the Kwilu-Kasaï River Network, DRC at the 26th Biennial Meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists at Rice University.

For more info, check here.

On April 28, 2023, the Saint Augustin University of Kinshasa (USAKIN) will present a book titled “Promotion des langues locales et construction des identités culturelles” [Promotion of local languages and construction of cultural identities]. It consists of a compilation of chapters in honor of Professor Damase Ndembe Nsasi, Congolese priest and linguist.

The celebration and presentation can be watched again on Youtube (first part = holy mass; second part)

More information can be found here (in French).

On April 3 2023, Hilde Gunnink (BantUGent) presents a talk titled “2000 years of Bantu-Khoisan contact in Southern Africa: linguistic traces of interactions between hunter-gatherers and food-producers“ during a workshop on Past interactions in Southern Africa. For more info, see here.

This book is about reconstructing the grammar of Proto-Bantu, the ancestral language at the origin of current-day Bantu languages. While Bantu is a low-level branch of Niger-Congo, the world’s biggest phylum, it is still Africa’s biggest language family. This edited volume attempts to retrieve the phonology, morphology and syntax used by the earliest Bantu speakers to communicate with each other, discusses methods to do so, and looks at issues raised by these academic endeavours. It is a collective effort involving a fine mix of junior and senior scholars representing several generations of expert historical-comparative Bantu research. It is the first systematic approach to Proto-Bantu grammar since Meeussen’s Bantu Grammatical Reconstructions (1967). Based on new bodies of evidence from the last five decades, most notably from northwestern Bantu languages, this book considerably transforms our understanding of Proto-Bantu grammar and offers new methodological approaches to Bantu grammatical reconstruction.

https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/373

BantUGent members Heidi Goes and Lorenzo Maselli participated as ‘witnesses’ or experts in a successful world record attempt in Schaarbeek on Sunday 26th of February 2023 for several African languages, together with UGent alumna Jocelyn Mulanga Kabeya. The Guinness World Record attempt for Reading aloud in multiple languages was an initiative of the local library and schools, as well as the Foyer charity that works with newcomers. Every sentence of the book by Leo Timmers’ ‘Magical Life of Mr Renny’ (Mijnheer René) was read aloud in another language. Most of the second reading of the book was done in Dutch by the author himself. Experts were present for 65 of the 74 languages used during the attempt, to verify that the correct language was used, so the Record was set at 65 languages, ten more than the previous record by the Museum of Islamic Culture in Qatar.

English: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2023/02/27/record-_reading-aloud-in-multiple-languages-set-in-schaarbeek/
French: https://www.lesoir.be/497543/article/2023-02-26/un-record-mondial-ete-battu-dans-une-bibliotheque-de-schaerbeek
Dutch: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2023/02/26/wereldrecord-meertalig-voorlezen-gebroken-in-schaarbeekse-biblio/
Dutch with video: https://www.bruzz.be/samenleving/wereldrecord-meertalig-voorlezen-gebroken-schaarbeekse-bibliotheek-2023-02-26

[Gilles-Maurice de Schryver is on a lecture tour in Tokyo, presenting five papers on lexicography in a week, with a focus on Bantu languages and more generally for the field of (meta)lexicography as a whole. See for the other events the ‘News’ page as well as the ‘Activities’ page.]

What? The future of lexicography: Extrapolating from five decades of trends
Who? Gilles-Maurice de Schryver
When? Sat 4 March, 16:00-17:30 (Tokyo time)
Where? Hybrid (online and face-to-face at the Research Institute of Business Administration, School of Commerce, Waseda University)
Contact person: Professor YAMADA Shigeru

The future of lexicography: Extrapolating from five decades of trends

Monday 27 February, David Joffe and Gilles-Maurice de Schryver discussed the impact of ChatGPT on the field of lexicography. The seminar took place in Tokyo and kick-started a week in which Gilles-Maurice de Schryver talks on various lexicographic aspects of the future (see other ‘News’ items and the ‘Activities’ page).
For more information on this seminar, including theme, program, abstract, etc., see: http://codh.rois.ac.jp/seminar/lexicography-chatgpt-20230227/
The recording of this presentation can be found below the pictures.

What? The end of lexicography, welcome to the machine: On how ChatGPT can already take over all of the dictionary maker’s tasks
Who? Gilles-Maurice de Schryver & David Joffe
When? Mon 27 February 2023, 17:30-19:00 (Tokyo time)
Where? Hybrid (online and face-to-face at the National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, room 2005)
Contact person: Professor KITAMOTO Asanobu

Presentation 20th CODH seminar: ‘On how ChatGPT can take over all of the dictionary maker’s tasks’