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
- Lorenzo Maselli obtains a three-year postdoctoral grant from the UGent Special Research Fund (BOF)
- Nina van der Vlugt and Aron Zahran talk at the Leiden Conference on the Linguistic History of East Africa
- CongUbangi project team back from fieldwork in north-western DRC
- Sara Pacchiarotti’s CongUbangi ERC project launches new website
- Heidi Goes talks for the Kongo Academy
- BantUGent welcomes Lis Kerr for postdoctoral research on Mbam Bantu