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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
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
)
Directionality in morphosyntactic change: West-Coastal Bantu as a historical test case for linguistic theory
(
2020
-
2023
)
Language contact between migrating Bantu speakers and resident Khoisan speakers in southern Africa
(
2018
-
2021
)
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
-
2020
)
Description of Kibindji, a Bantu language of the Kuba-Bushong (C80) group (W-Kasaï, DRC)
(
2014
-
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
-
2021
)
A corpus-driven study of the expression of modality in Luganda (Bantu, JE15)
(
2013
-
2017
)
The Kongo kingdom. Chrono-typological and archaeological study of its pottery
(
2012
-
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
)
Syntaxe et structure d’information en civili et en kikongo véhiculaire de Pointe-Noire : une étude comparative
(
2012
-
2013
)
Production and circulation of contemporary pottery in the Kongo area
(
2012
-
2021
)
The interface between information structure, syntax and prosody in Kikongo. An integrated descriptive, comparative and diachronic approach
(
2012
-
2017
)
KongoKing
(
2012
-
2016
)
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
-
2020
)
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
Seidensticker, Dirk, et al. “Population Collapse in Congo Rainforest from 400 CE Urges Reassessment of the Bantu Expansion.”
SCIENCE ADVANCES
, vol. 7, no. 7, 2021, doi:10.1126/sciadv.abd8352.
Sengupta, Dhriti, et al. “Genetic Substructure and Complex Demographic History of South African Bantu Speakers.”
Nature Communications
, 2021, doi:10.1038/s41467-021-22207-y.
Bollaert, Flore, et al. “The Noun Class System of Bwala, an Undocumented Teke Language from the DRC (Bantu, B70z).”
Nordic Journal of African Studies
, vol. 30, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1–40.
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.
Bostoen, Koen. “Language and Archaeology.”
The Oxford Handbook of African Languages
, edited by Rainer Vossen and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal, 2020, pp. 972–82, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199609895.013.9.
Full bibliography
Teaching
Swahili I
Swahili II
