The Southern African linguistic landscape is dominated by Bantu languages, which form Africa’s largest language family and are spoken by the vast majority of Southern Africans. Nonetheless, the first Bantu-speaking communities ...read more
This project focuses on ‘Oral Literature for Development’ (OL4D) as a new line of thinking. We introduce OL4D firmly based on the belief that culture and creativity are central for ...read more
This research project aims at analysing Oromo oral narratives from econarratological perspectives. Econarratlogy is often viewed as a new approach in literary and cultural studies in relation to the other ...read more
In this study I will focus on female oral genres in East Wollega, Ethiopia, in the context of basket production. This combined approach of tangible and intangible Oromoo heritage will lead ...read more
This project documents various languages and cultures in Uganda. It is entirely self-funded, and is led by M. Nabirye, with contributions from Ghent University by G-M de Schryver in terms ...read more
This project will study gender relations and monsters in Oromo oral narratives, both as a way to map the gender-stereotypical discourse inherent in the narratives as well as the potentiality ...read more
The proposed research will shed new light on a debate within Bantu, the largest language family in Africa and a recent offshoot of Niger-Congo, the world’s largest phylum. Many non-Bantu ...read more
The Teke languages are a contiguous cluster of closely related Bantu languages spoken in adjacent parts of Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa. In the referential classification of the Bantu languages (Guthrie ...read more
Linguistic diversity is disappearing (almost) as fast as biological diversity: very soon, we may no longer be able to know the sounds and structures of many of the world's languages. ...read more
This project aims at rethinking ways of reading and writing change in African gender history. Looking at oral historical narratives and the transgenerational communication of historical knowledge among the Yaawo-speaking ...read more