African Linguistics
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The Service of Linguistics constitutes with the Service of Ethnomusicology one of the four sections of the Department of Cultural Anthropology of the RMCA.
General objectives
- Research centre
As a research centre, our team focuses on
- the descriptive and comparative study of African languages in general and of the Bantu languages in particular.
- the documentation and preservation of the often endangered intangible heritage of languages and oral literatures
- the promotion of African languages with regard to the sustainable development of sub-Saharan Africa
- the contribution of African languages to theoretical discussions of the scientific community.
In order to collect first-hand data we perform field work.
Our comparative work attempts to contribute to
- the reconstruction of the early history of African language groups
- the input of linguistics in interdisciplinary debates on important issues of African history
- the integration of universals and particularities of the African languages into present-day typological research.
More information
- Public service
- As a public service, our team manages a documentation centre that is without any doubt one of the most important in the world as regards the Bantu languages of Central Africa.
- We welcome researchers from all over the world and we offer scientific guidance to Belgian and foreign students.
- Through our collaboration with several scientific institutions in Central Africa we supervise African PhD students too.
- We try to vulgarise our principal research results by participating in the museological mission of the RMCA.
