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CONTACT
Service of Linguistics (Cultural Anthropology)
Tel: (32) 2 769 56 74 - Fax: (32) 2 769 56 42
koen.bostoen@africamuseum.be
PERSONAL INFO
Date of birth: August 5, 1975
CURRENT PROJECT
RESEARCH INTERESTS
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Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Bantu Expansion
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Words-and-Things (Pottery, Food, Plants,...)
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Lexical Reconstruction
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Diachronic Semantics
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Ethnobotany
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Specific Bantu Languages: Kwamashi, Fwe, Shango (Western Province of Zambia)
SUPERVISION of Ph-D students
PUBLICATIONS
1. Books
(2009) (as editor, author Jan De Grauwe) Lexique yoombe-français avec index français yoombe. Tervuren: MRAC, Tervuren Series for African Language Documentation and Description 1. 216 p. ISBN 978-9-0747-5262-6.
(2008) (with Joseph Koni Muluwa) Noms et usages des plantes utiles chez les Nsong (RD Congo, Bandundu, bantu B85f). Göteborg: University of Gothenburg, Department of Oriental and African Languages, Göteborg Africana Informal Series, n°6. (65 pages. ISSN 1404-8523)
(2005) (co-edition with Jacky Maniacky) Studies in African Comparative Linguistics with Special Focus on Bantu and Mande. Tervuren: Royal Museum for Central Africa, Human Sciences Collection n°1. (495 pages. ISBN: 90-75894-76-7)
(2005) Des mots et des pots en bantou. Une approche linguistique de l’histoire de la céramique en Afrique. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, Research in African Studies Band 9 (483 pages. ISBN: 3-631-53447-7)
(2003) Introduction à l’intonation en ciluba. Ghent: UG – Research Centre of African Languages and Literature. (241 pages. ISBN: 90-76327-20-3).
2. Papers in scientific journals or books
(forthcoming) (with Léon Mundeke) The Causative/Applicative Syncretism in Mbuun (Bantu B87, DRC): Semantic Split or Phonemic Merger? Journal of African Languages and Linguistics (accepted for publication)
(forthcoming) (with Yolande Nzang-Bie) On how ‘middle’ plus ‘associative/reciprocal’ became ‘passive’ in the Bantu A70 languages. Linguistics 48 (accepted for publication)
(forthcoming) (with Jeff Marck, Per Hage & Jean-Georges Kamba Muzenga) Kin terms in the Bantu protolanguages: initial findings. In Douglas Jones & Bojka Milicic (eds), Kinship, Language and Prehistory: Per Hage and the Renaissance in Kinship Studies. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press
(forthcoming) (with Jeff Marck) Proto Oceanic (Austronesian) and Proto East Bantu (Niger-Congo) kin terms ca. 1000 BC. In Douglas Jones & Bojka Milicic (eds), Kinship, Language and Prehistory: Per Hage and the Renaissance in Kinship Studies. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press
(forthcoming) The subsistence economy of early Bantu speech communities from a historical-linguistic point of view. In D.Q. Fuller & M.A. Murray (eds), African Flora, Past Cultures and Archaebotany. Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop for African Archaeobotany, London, 3-5 July 2006. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek
(forthcoming) Linguistic evidence for early plant food-processing: Observations from Bantu pottery and oil palm vocabulary. In Alfred Tsheboeng (ed.), Proceedings of the 12th Congress of the Panafrican Archaeological Association for Prehistory and Related Studies. Gaborone
(2009) Semantic Vagueness and Cross-linguistic Lexical Fragmentation in Bantu: Impeding Factors for Linguistic Palaeontology. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 20 (Language Contact, Language Change and History Based on Language Sources in Africa), 51-64 (peer-reviewed)
(2009) Shanjo and Fwe as Part of Bantu Botatwe: A Diachronic Phonological Approach. In Selected Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. Akinloye Ojo and Lioba Moshi, 110-130. Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project (peer-reviewed)
(2009) (with Stefanie Kahlheber & Katharina Neumann) Early Plant Cultivation in the Central African Rain Forest: First Millennium BC Pearl Millet from South Cameroon. Journal of African Archaeology 7,2: 253-272 (peer-reviewed)
(2008) (with Joseph Koni Muluwa) Un recueil de proverbes mbuun d'Imbongo (RD Congo, bantu B87). Annales Aequatoria 29: 381-423.
(2008) Bantu Spirantization: Morphologization, Lexicalization and Historical Classification. Diachronica 25.3: 299-356 (peer-reviewed)
(2008) (with Birgit Ricquier) Resolving phonological variability in Bantu lexical reconstructions: the case of 'to bake in ashes'. Africana Linguistica XIV: 109-149. (peer-reviewed)
(2007) (with Joseph Koni Muluwa) Un recueil de proverbes nsong (RD Congo, bantu B85d). Annales Aequatoria 28: 521-578.
(2007) Bantu Plant Names as Indicators of Linguistic Stratigraphy in the Western Province of Zambia. In Doris Payne (ed.), Selected Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville: Cascadilla Press. (peer-reviewed)
(2007) Pots, words and the Bantu problem: On lexical reconstruction and early African history. Journal of African History 48 (2): 173-199 (peer-reviewed)
(2007) (with Claire Grégoire) La question bantoue: bilan et perspectives. Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris. Nouvelle Série, Tome XV, Tradition et rupture dans les grammaires comparées de différentes familles de langues, 73-91. Leuven: Peeters (peer-reviewed)
(2006) What comparative Bantu pottery vocabulary may tell us about early human settlement in the Inner Congo Basin. Afrique & Histoire 5: 221-263. (peer-reviewed)
(2005) A diachronic onomasiological approach to early Bantu oil palm vocabulary. Studies in African Linguistics 34, 2: 143-188. (peer-reviewed)
(2005) Comparative notes on Bantu agent noun spirantisation. In Koen Bostoen & Jacky Maniacky (eds), Studies in African Comparative Linguistics with Special Focus on Bantu and Mande, 231-257. Tervuren: Royal Museum for Central Africa. Tervuren: Royal Museum for Central Africa, Human Sciences Collection n°1. (peer-reviewed)
(2004) The vocabulary of pottery fashioning techniques in Great Lakes Bantu: A comparative onomasiological study. In Akinlabi Akinbiyi & Adesola Oluseye (eds), Proceedings of the 4th World Congress of African Linguistics, New Brunswick 2003, 391-408. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. (peer-reviewed)
(2004) Osculance among reconstructed Bantu proto-forms: the example of °-kádang-/°-káng- (fry, roast). In John Mugane (ed.), Linguistic Typology and Representation of African Languages, 285-298. Trenton: Africa World Press. (peer-reviewed)
(2004) Linguistics for the use of African history and the comparative study of Bantu pottery vocabulary. In Frank Brisard, Sigurd d’Hondt & Tanja Mortelmans, Language & Revolution // Language & Time, 131-154. Antwerp: University of Antwerp, Antwerp Papers in Linguistics 106. (peer-reviewed)
(2003) (with Gaspard Harushimana) Parole et savoir-faire populaires: Conversations à propos de la poterie des Twa au Burundi, LPCA Text Archives 4: texte rundi transcrit, traduit, annoté, commenté et illustré de photos. Amsterdam: UA.
Online publication: http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/lpca/textarchives/vol4/manwerika_sinabajije.html (peer-reviewed)
(2001) Osculance in Bantu reconstructions: a case study of the pair °-kádang/ °-káng- (‘fry’, ‘roast’) and its historical implications, Studies in African Linguistics 30, 2: 1-25. (peer-reviewed)
(1999) Katanga Swahili: the particular history of a language reflected in its structure, Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 57: 47-77.
3. Book reviews
(2007) Review of Kaji, Shigeki. 2004. A Runyankore Vocabulary. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Asian and African Lexicon n° 44. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 28 (2): 220-224.
(2005) Review of Ngessimo M. Mutaka & Sammy B Chumbow. (eds.). 2001. Research Mate in African Linguistics: Focus on Cameroon. A fieldworker’s tool for deciphering the stories Cameroonian languages have to tell. In honor of Larry N. Hyman. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 26: 93-95.
DISSERTATIONS
(1997) Het Shaba Swahili: geschiedenis en bronnen. MA Dissertation (UG)
(1999) Aspects phonétiques et phonologiques de l’intonation en cilubà. Mémoire de DEA (ULB)
(2004) Etude comparative et historique du vocabulaire relatif à la poterie en bantou. PhD Dissertation (ULB)
TALKS AT SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCES
Talks at international scientific conferences/institutes
(2010) Lexical similarity chains, morphologization patterns and stratificational plant names: Some perspectives on internal Bantu classification. Genealogical classification of African languages beyond Greenberg worshop at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (invited)
(2009) (with Birgit Ricquier) A Historical -Linguistic Approach to the Introduction of the Cereals in the Culinary Traditions of Early Bantu Speech Communities. NVAS studiedag 'Afrikastudies in Nederland in België', The Hague, The Netherlands.
(2009) (with Cesare de Filippo & Brigitte Pakendorf) Molecular Anthropological Perspectives on the Bantu Expansion: Facts and Fiction. 52nd Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Panel on Migration and Population Movements in African Prehistory, New Orleans.
(2009) (with Birgit Ricquier) Reconstructing Food History through Linguistics: Culinary Traditions in Early Bantu Speech Communities. Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery (2009: Food and Language), St. Catherine‚s College, Oxford.
(2009) (with Maud Devos) DO/SAY polysemy and the origin of quotative markers in Bantu. 42nd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, Lisbon (Portugal), 9 - 12 September 2009.
(2009) (with Bonny Sands) Fwe (Bantu, K402) Clicks in Crosslinguistic Perspective. 39th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands).
(2009) (with Bonny Sands) Clicks in south-western Bantu languages: contact-induced vs. internally-motivated change. 6th World Congress of African Linguistics (WOCAL6), University of Cologne (Germany).
(2009) (with Bonny Sands) Bantu migration and language contact: On the origin of click sounds in south-western Bantu languages. XIXth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Radboud University, Nijmegen (The Netherlands)
(2009) (with Birgit Ricquier) A Historical Linguistic Approach to the Processing of Food Plants in Early Bantu Speech Communities. 6th International Workshop for African Archaeobotany, Helwan University, Cairo (Egypt), 13-15th June 2009.
(2009) (with Hans-Peter Wotzka) Human settlement and Bantu language dispersal in the Inner Congo Basin. A Correspondence (Re-)Analysis of lexicostatistical data. The 3rd European Conference on African Studies. Leipzig.
(2009) (with Cesare de Filippo, Roger Mundry, Mark Stoneking & Brigitte Pakendorf) Languages, geography and genes: the demographic history underlying the Bantu expansion. 3rd International Conference on Bantu Languages, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren.
(2009) (with Léon Mundeke Otom'si) Passivization through simple word order inversion in Mbuun (B87). 3rd International Conference on Bantu Languages, Special Workshop on Inversions Constructions in Bantu, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren.
(2009) (with Cesare de Filippo, Roger Mundry & Brigitte Pakendorf) Lexical and geographical distances as a tool to address the demographic history underlying the Bantu migrations. The Swadesh Centenary Conference, Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology - Department of Linguistics
(2008) (with Anneleen Van der Veken) A reconsideration of lexically based assumptions on the early diffusion or metal working in Central Africa. The 19th SAfA (Society of Africanist Archeologists) Biennial Meeting, Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
(2008) (with Yolande Nzang Bié) Middle marking and the emergence of passive morphology in the Bantu A70 languages. 38th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands)
(2008) (with Léon Mundeke Otom'si) Preliminary observations on the applicative-causative polysemy in Mbuun (Bantu, B87). 38th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands)
(2008) (with Katharina Neumann, Stefanie Kahlheber, Alexa Höhn and Alfred Ngomanda): Climatic Change and Early Farming in the Rain Forest of Southern Cameroon during the first Millennium BC, Frontiers and Passages, International Conference on Afrrican Studies Association in Germany (VAD) and the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS), Freiburg-Basel
(2008) "Lexical reconstruction and early African history: Insights from Bantu crafts vocabulary and plant names", ESF-OMLL Workshop "New Directions in Historical Linguistics", Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage, Lyon, France (invited) http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/Colloques/index.asp?Action=Edit&Langue=FR&Page=NDHL
(2008) A Comparative Approach to Historical Sound Change in Shanjo and Fwe (Bantu, Western Province of Zambia). 39th Annual Conference for African Linguistics, Athens (Georgia)
(2008) La spirantisation en bantou: Morphologisation, lexicalisation et classification historique. Institut Supérieur Pédagogique, Kikwit (invited)
(2008) (with Cesare de Fillipo). La génétique évolutionnaire et la question de l’expansion bantoue. Institut Supérieur des Sciences de Santé, Kikwit (invited)
(2007) (with Birgit Ricquier) False Osculance in Bantu Lexical Reconstructions: The Case of Culinary Verbs. International conference on Bantu Languages: Analysis, Description And Theory, Göteborg, Sweden
(2007) Contributions of lexical reconstruction to the question of food production in early Bantu speech communities. Colloquium Linguisticum Africanum, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt Am Main (invited)
(2007) The sense and nonsense of the Words-and-Things method for the reconstruction of early African history, International Colloquium on Language and Ethnohistory in Southern Africa (Special Research Center ACACIA, University of Köln), Königswinter (Germany) (invited)
(2007) La linguistique comparative, l’évolution des langues bantoues et l’histoire des communautés bantouphones, Centre de Linguistique Théorique et Appliquée, Kinshasa (RD Congo) (invited)
(2007) (with Joseph Koni Muluwa) La linguistique africaine et le développement: approches synchronique et diachronique de la biodiversité, Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de Kikwit, Kikwit (RD Congo) (invited)
(2006) (with Jeff Marck) Proto Oceanic society (Austronesian) and Proto East Bantu society (Niger-Congo), residence, descent and kin terms ca. 1000 BC. 105th Annual American Anthropological Association Meeting. Kinship and Language: Per Hage (1935-2004) Memorial Session. San Jose, California (USA)
(2006) Linguistic History and Population Dynamics in the Western Province of Zambia: Some Perspectives, Institut für Afrikanistik ACACIA-project, Köln (Germany) (invited)
(2006) (with Jacky Maniacky & Mark Stoneking) Languages, Genes and the Bantu Problem: Western Zambia as a Case Study for an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Population History of Southern Central Africa, Languages and Genes: An Interdisciplinary Conference, University of California, Santa Barbara (poster)
(2006) (with Jacky Maniacky & Mark Stoneking) An integrated linguistic and genetic approach to population dynamics in western Zambia, 36th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands)
(2006) Lexical evidence for the mixed subsistence economies of early Bantu speech communities, 5th International Workshop for African Archaeobotany, 2-5 July, Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UK)
(2006) (with Alexandre Livingstone Smith, Els Cornelissen, Jacky Maniacky, Baudouin Janssen) Crossing Borders: an integrated archaeological and linguistic approach to population dynamics in southern central Africa, SAfA 2006 Conference June 22-26, Calgary (Canada).
(2006) Language History in the Western Province of Zambia: Bantu Plant Names as Indicators of Linguistic Strata, 27th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 37), University of Oregon, Eugene (USA)
(2006) Le “problème” bantou: bilan et perspectives, Journée scientifique de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, Paris (France) (invited)
(2005) After The Pots The Oil Palms: Lexical Reconstruction and Early Food Processing in the Bantu Domain, 35th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands).
(2005) Lexical reconstruction and the Bantu Problem: examples from palm tree and pottery vocabulary, University of Zambia (Lusaka). (invited)
(2005) Early Bantu Speakers and the Spread of Palm Tree Exploitation: a Historical Linguistic Reflection, 12th Congress of the Panafrican Archaeological Association for Prehistory and Related Studies, University of Botswana, Gaborone (Botswana)
(2005) Early Pottery Making in the Bantu Domain: the Main Results of a Comparative Lexical Study, 12th Congress of the Panafrican Archaeological Association for Prehistory and Related Studies, University of Botswana, Gaborone (Botswana)
(2005) Etude comparative et historique du vocabulaire relatif à la poterie en bantou, Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de la Gombe (Kinshasa). (invited).
(2004) Comparative notes on Bantu Agent Noun Spirantization, 34th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands).
(2003) Outillage de la céramique dans les langues bantoues: vocabulaire technique ou non?, 33th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands).
(2003) Diachronic Cognitive Onomasiology: comparative data from Bantu pottery terms, 4th World Congress of African Linguistics, Rutgers University (WOCAL 4), New Brunswick (USA).
(2002) Vocabulaire spécialisé et histoire culturelle: la terminologie de poterie de la Cuvette Centrale du Congo, Université Lyon II. (invited).
(2002) On pottery terminology of the Inner Congo Basin and Bantu settlement in the Equatorial Rain Forest, 32nd Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands).
(2002) Variability among reconstructed Bantu proto-forms: the example of °-kádang-/°-káng- (fry, roast), 33th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 33), University of Ohio, Athens (USA).
(2001) À propos de pots et de mots: linguistique historique et culture matérielle, 5e Conférence des Jeunes Linguistes, Centre d’Études Linguistiques de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale, Dunkerque (France).
(2001) On words and pots: the polysemic nature of *-bÚmb-, 32nd Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 32), University of California, Berkeley (USA).
(1999) Data on tone production and tone perception in Ciluba, 29th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands).
(1998) Katanga Swahili: how the history of a language is reflected in its structure, 28th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, University of Leiden (The Netherlands).
Talks at national scientific conferences/institutes
(2008) (with Joseph Koni Muluwa) Noms et usages des plantes utiles dans les communautés bantouphones: observations du Mayombe et du Bandundu. 2nd Luki Symposium. Tervuren: Royal Museum for Central Africa.
(2006) Oratuur en Performance: Het Afrikaans Epos als Case Study, Hoger Instituut voor Vertalers & Tolken Antwerpen. (invited)
(2004) Notes comparatives sur la terminologie relative au palmier à huile en bantou, Seminar for African Languages and Cultures, Royal Museum for Central Africa Tervuren. (invited)
(2003) The comparative study of Bantu pottery vocabulary: linguistics for the use of African history, Symposium on “Language & Time”, University of Antwerp. (invited)
(2002) Quelques idées sur les rapports entre la terminologie relative à la poterie et l’archéologie de la Cuvette Centrale du Congo, Seminar for African Linguistics, Royal Museum for Central Africa (invited).
(2001) Lexèmes relatifs à la poterie: chevauchement des strates diachroniques dans la région des Grands Lacs, Colloquium for the Junior Researcher, Belgian Association of Africanists, University of Liège.
(2000) Poterie décorée à la roulette: aspects linguistiques, Seminar for African Linguistics, Royal Museum for Central Africa Tervuren. (invited).
(2000) The roulette, a tool with no name, Colloquium for the Junior Researcher, Belgian Association of Africanists, University of Leuven.
(1999) Aspecten van de intonatie in het Ciluba, Research Center of African Languages and Literature, Universiteit Gent. (invited).
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