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Researchers
Prof. Dr. Koen Bostoen
Prof. Dr. Koen Bostoen
koen.bostoen@ugent.be
Contact details
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Department
Department of Languages and Cultures
Research group(s)
BantUGent - UGent Centre for Bantu Studies
DiaLing - Diachronic and Diatopic Linguistics
Research Focus
Archaeology
Linguistics
Research Period
16th Century
17th Century
18th Century
19th Century
20th Century
Contemporary
Protohistory (Bronze Age, Iron Age)
Research Region
Africa
Research Language
African languages
Research Methodology
Comparative
Field research
Language and text analysis
Additional tags
Bantu
Cilubà
Comparative linguistics
Historical linguistics
Kikongo
Kirundi
Kiswahili
Luganda
Mbuun
Nsong
Tabgroup
Projects
Projects as supervisor
Documenting the Bantu languages of the last hunter-gatherer communities of the Mai-Ndombe and Lower Kasai regions (DRC). A pioneering phonetic and laboratory phonological study
(
2020
-
2024
)
BantuFirst
(
2018
-
2022
)
Reconstructing the subsistence strategies of the first Bantu speakers south of the Central-African rainforest. A historical-linguistic approach to plant and animal names in West-Coastal Bantu
(
2018
-
2022
)
A typology of the passive voice in Bantu
(
2018
-
2021
)
Language contact between migrating Bantu speakers and resident Khoisan speakers in southern Africa
(
2018
-
2021
)
Motion verbs in Kirundi (Bantu, JD62)
(
2014
-
2018
)
Bantu verbal derivation and tense/aspect from a historical-comparative perspective. The Kikongo language cluster and beyond
(
2014
-
2018
)
A diachronic and spatial analytical approach to linguistic micro-variation in the Kikongo dialect continuum
(
2014
-
2018
)
Description of Kibindji, a Bantu language of the Kuba-Bushong (C80) group (W-Kasaï, DRC)
(
2014
-
2018
)
A corpus-driven study of the expression of modality in Luganda (Bantu, JE15)
(
2013
-
2017
)
Documentation of cultural heritage in three endangered Bantu languages of the Kwilu (DR Congo). Ngong, Nsong and Nsambaan
(
2012
-
2015
)
The Inkisi basin at the time of the Kongo kingdom. Confrontation of historical, archaeological and linguistic data
(
2012
-
2017
)
A grammar of Fwe. A Bantu language spoken in Zambia and Namibia
(
2012
-
2018
)
Production and circulation of contemporary pottery in the Kongo area
(
2012
-
2017
)
The interface between information structure, syntax and prosody in Kikongo. An integrated descriptive, comparative and diachronic approach
(
2012
-
2017
)
KongoKing
(
2012
-
2016
)
The Kongo kingdom. Chrono-typological and archaeological study of its pottery
(
2012
-
2017
)
Prosody, syntax and information structure in Kirundi (Bantu, JD62)
(
2011
-
2016
)
African theatre and its characteristics. Analysis of some definitional criteria through Kikongophone urban theatre
(
2010
-
2014
)
Bantu languages of North-Western DR Congo. Documentation, reconstruction, classifications and contacts with Ubangi languages
(
2010
-
2015
)
The expression of modality in Kirundi. A corpus-based approach
(
2009
-
2014
)
Projects as co-supervisor
An archaeological approach on early interactions between hunter-gatherers and sedentary food-producers in Western Central Africa
(
2018
-
2022
)
Theoretical underpinnings for a user-friendly, corpus-driven, semi-bilingual, digital dictionary of Swahili
(
2018
-
2022
)
Projects as researcher
Reconstructing proto-Bantu grammar
(
2018
-
2018
)
Publications
Key publications
Pots, words and the Bantu problem: on lexical reconstruction and early African history
(2007
)
Koen Bostoen
Bantu Spirantization: Morphologization, Lexicalization and Historical Classification
(2008
)
Koen Bostoen
Molecular perspectives on the Bantu expansion: a synthesis
(2011
)
Brigitte Pakendorf
Koen Bostoen
Cesare de Filippo
Middle to late holocene paleoclimatic change and the early Bantu expansion in the rain forests of Western Central Africa
(2015
)
Koen Bostoen
Bernard-Olivier Clist
Charles Doumenge
Rebecca Grollemund
Jean-Marie Hombert
Joseph Koni Muluwa
Jean Maley
The antipassive in Bantu
(2015
)
Koen Bostoen
Sebastian Dom
Guillaume Segerer
Linguistic innovation, political centralization and economic integration in the Kongo kingdom: reconstructing the spread of prefix reduction
(2015
)
Koen Bostoen
Gilles-Maurice de Schryver
Prehistoric language contact in the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier area: Khoisan influence on southwestern Bantu languages
(2015
)
Hilde Gunnink
Bonny Sands
Brigitte Pakendorf
Koen Bostoen
Bantu lexical reconstruction
(2016
)
Koen Bostoen
Yvonne Bastin
Prehistoric Bantu-Khoisan language contact
(2017
)
Brigitte Pakendorf
Hilde Gunnink
Bonny Sands
Koen Bostoen
Most recent publications
Bostoen, Koen. “The Bantu Expansion : Some Facts and Fiction.”
Language Dispersal, Diversification, and Contact
, edited by Mily Crevels and Pieter Muysken, Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 227–39, doi:10.1093/OSO/9780198723813.003.0013.
Wang, Ke, et al. “Ancient Genomes Reveal Complex Patterns of Population Movement, Interaction, and Replacement in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
SCIENCE ADVANCES
, vol. 6, no. 24, 2020, doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaz0183.
Pacchiarotti, Sara, and Koen Bostoen. “The Proto-West-Coastal Bantu Velar Merger.”
Africana Linguistica
, vol. 26, 2020, pp. 139–95.
Dom, Sebastian, et al. “Kisikongo (Bantu, H16a) Present-Future Isomorphism : A Diachronic Conspiracy between Semantics and Phonology.”
JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
, vol. 10, no. 2, 2020, pp. 251–88, doi:10.1075/jhl.18030.dom.
Mberamihigo, Ferdinand, et al. “Entre Modalité et Conditionnalité : L’analyse de Corpus Du Préfixe Verbal Oo- En Kirundi (Bantou, JD62).”
STUDIES IN AFRICAN LINGUISTICS
, vol. 49, no. 2, 2020, pp. 241–72.
Full bibliography
Teaching
Swahili I
Swahili II
