Jean-Pierre Donzo & Marie-Faustine Beloko on BantuFirst fieldwork in Sankuru province (DRC)

From September 13 until October 4, 2022, Prof. Jean-Pierre Donzo (ISP-Gombe, Kinshasa & BantUGent) & Marie-Faustine Beloko (ISP-Gombe, Kinshasa) carry out a BantuFirst fieldwork mission amongst several Batwa or Pygmy communities in the Lomela territory of DRC’s Sankuru Province. They aim at inventorizing and mapping the different Batwa languages in that part of the DRC and collecting audo recordings of basic lexical and grammatical data in those Bantu languages. It is an exploratory mission to prepare a more in-depth documentation project.

Marie-Faustine Beloko upon arrival in Lodja
Jean-Pierre Donzo upon arrival in Lomela after three days of travel by motorbike
Jean-Pierre Donzo & Marie-Faustine Beloke working with Loonga speakers in Lodja
Jean-Pierre Donzo with Lokeka Batwa consultants not far from Lomela