Archives: Events

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

What? BantUGent research seminar

14:00-15:00:  Edward Ntonda: “Chikunda in Time and Space : A Historical Sociolinguistic account”

15:00-16:00:  Terefe Mitiku Mekonin “Human and animal interaction in Oromo fable”

For the Teams-link, contact:  Lorenzo Maselli (lorenzo.maselli@ugent.be)

More info: Lorenzo.Maselli@UGent.be