You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The first global history of African linguistics as an emerging autonomous academic discipline, covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe.
This volume explores the central role of language across all aspects of public and private life in Africa.
A new study of the importance of language for sociocultural change in Africa, from postcolonial to globally competitive knowledge societies.
Drawing on extensive field data, this groundbreaking work explores the development of the sound systems of Central Chadic languages.
This book provides an in-depth and comprehensive state-of-the-art study of 'African languages' and 'language in Africa' since its beginnings as a 'colonial science' at the turn of the twentieth century in Europe. Compiled by 56 internationally renowned scholars, this ground breaking study looks at past and current research on 'African languages' and 'language in Africa' under the impact of paradigmatic changes from 'colonial' to 'postcolonial' perspectives. It addresses current trends in the study of the role and functions of language, African and other, in pre- and postcolonial African societies. Highlighting the central role that the 'language factor' plays in postcolonial transformation processes of sociocultural modernization and economic development, it also addresses more recent, particularly urban, patterns of communication, and outlines applied dimensions of digitalization and human language technology.
This book is an introduction to African languages and linguistics, covering typology, structure and sociolinguistics. The twelve chapters are written by a team of fifteen eminent Africanists, and their topics include the four major language groupings (Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Afroasiatic and Khoisan), the core areas of modern theoretical linguistics (phonology, morphology, syntax), typology, sociolinguistics, comparative linguistics, and language, history and society. Basic concepts and terminology are explained for undergraduates and non-specialist readers, but each chapter also provides an overview of the state of the art in its field, and as such will be referred to also by more advanced students and general linguists. The book brings this range of material together in accessible form for anyone wishing to learn more about this challenging and fascinating field.
In this important theoretical treatist, Jean Lave, anthropologist, and Etienne Wenger, computer scientist, push forward the notion of situated learning - that learning is fundamentally a social process. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. LPP provides a way to speak about crucial relations between newcomers and old-timers and about their activities, identities, artefacts, knowledge and practice. The communities discussed in the book are midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, and recovering alcoholics, however, the process by which participants in those communities learn can be generalised to other social groups.
This innovative handbook takes a fresh look at the currently underestimated linguistic diversity of Africa, the continent with the largest number of languages in the world. It covers the major domains of linguistics, offering both a representative picture of Africa’s linguistic landscape as well as new and at times unconventional perspectives. The focus is not so much on exhaustiveness as on the fruitful relationship between African and general linguistics and the contributions the two domains can make to each other. This volume is thus intended for readers with a specific interest in African languages and also for students and scholars within the greater discipline of linguistics.
This is the first description of Goemai, a West Chadic language of Nigeria. Goemai is spoken in a language contact area, and this contact has shaped Goemai grammar to the extent that it can be considered a fairly untypical Chadic language. The grammar presents the structure of the present-day language, relates it to its diachronic sources, and adds a semantic perspective to the description.
This book is the first work to address the question of what kinds of words get borrowed in a systematic and comparative perspective. It studies lexical borrowing behavior on the basis of a world-wide sample of 40 languages, both major languages and minor languages, and both languages with heavy borrowing and languages with little lexical influence from other languages. The book is the result of a five-year project bringing together a unique group of specialists of many different languages and areas. The introductory chapters provide a general up-to-date introduction to language contact at the word level, as well as a presentation of the project's methodology. All the chapters are based on sa...