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African Linguistics
Publications
The Service of African Linguistics is the editor of
- Africana Linguistica, a peer-reviewed and internationally oriented journal. Read more
- Tervuren Series for African Language Documentation and Description : a scientific series for the dissemination of knowledge about African languages. Read more
Recent publications
Here you’ll find recent Museum publications. For all scientist publications of this section, click on ‘Staff’, then choose a scientist or go to RMCA literature published elsewhere.
A Grammar of Makwe Author : Maud Devos |
A Grammar of Makwe presents a detailed description of a hitherto largely undocumented Bantu language spoken in the North of Mozambique. Historically speaking, Makwe is the outcome of a long-standing contact between Makonde as spoken in the interior of Tanzania and Mozambique and Swahili as spoken along the East African coast.
This grammar treats Makwe phonology, the morphology of nouns, verbs and minor word categories, the semantics of verbal conjugations, and different syntactic topics. A rich collection of texts is offered at the end. Throughout the work, the linguistic analyses are abundantly illustrated with natural speech examples. Of special interest are the so-called conjoint and disjoint verb forms and modifiers which present a striking example of an interface between phonology, morphology, syntax and pragmatics.
Maud Devos received for this study her doctoral degree at Leiden University in 2004. She subsequently worked on Shangaji, another Bantu language from Mozambique, with a postdoctoral grant from the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Documentation Project. She is currently a researcher at the Linguistics Department of the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren (Belgium), where she is involved in a project on grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification.
 | Des mots et des pots en Bantou.
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This book is dedicated to the reconstruction of the early history of pottery in the Bantu area.
It relies on the comparative analysis of pottery vocabulary in the Bantu languages and explores the internal organisation and historical evolution of the five main categories of this semantic field: the fabrication of ceramics as such, the artisan, the raw materials, the different types of potteries and, finally, the different gestures and implements of the production chain.
The work unites diachronic onomasiology and diachronic semasiology and results in several lexical reconstructions whose geographical distribution is mapped on approximately 40 linguistic maps. The results of this study are compared with both the historical and cultural models of (ethno-)archaeology, and the results of other studies of specialized vocabulary. The work contributes to the further development of the Words and Things method (Wörter und Sachen) for the exploitation of lexical data to reconstruct the early history of societies lacking written or iconographical traditions.
 | Dictionnaire Rwanda-Rwanda et Rwanda-Français. (2005) |
This important contribution to the sustainable development of Rwanda is the result of a collaboration between the RMCA's service of Linguistics and the IRST of Butare. It is supported by the Belgian Federal Science Policy, the Belgian Development Cooperation and the French speaking community of Belgium.
 | Studies in African Comparative Linguistics with Special Focus on Bantu and Mande. (2005)
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In this period in which Africa is struggling for rehabilitation and revival on so many fronts, research on the history, cultures, and languages of this continent is all the more crucial. Linguists are making industrious attempts to reconstruct macrophyla, such as Nostratic, while the internal unity of purely African phyla, such as Niger-Congo, is still judged tentative, a fact which confirms the need for African comparative linguistics.
In a broader perspective, historians, archaeologists, and even geneticists increasingly turn to African linguistic data for reconstructing the early history of this region and beyond.
Studies in African Comparative Linguistics offers 21 articles dealing with diverse topics in this domain of research. It comprises a representative selection of present-day Niger-Congo research, with a special focus on Bantu and Mande.
The contributions are subdivided in 7 thematic chapters: ‘Niger-Congo’, ‘Mande’, ‘Bantu: Classification’, ‘Bantu: Vocabulary’, ‘Bantu: Phonology’, ‘Bantu: Morphology’, and ‘Bantu: Syntax’.
This publication celebrates the retirement of Yvonne Bastin and Claire Grégoire from the Linguistics Service of the Royal Museum for Central Africa. The contributions are dedicated to their career-long commitment to the study of African languages.
 | Tonologie du ngangela - variété de Menongue (Angola) (2005) ISBN 3895868000 |
Cette étude décrit le ngangela (langue bantu classée K12b par Guthrie) de Menongue à travers l'analyse de sa tonologie. Il s'agit d'un système tonal restreint. Deux règles contextuelles font du ngangela une langue à cas tonals. La segmentation phrastique en thème-rhème permet de définir les conditions de leur application. L'usage de la phonologie lexicale mène à une structuration en domaines à l'intérieur desquels s'observent des restrictions d'expression tonale qui s'appliquent indépendamment de toute concaténation. Si les nominaux ont en partie conservé des distinctions tonales, la neutralisation est plus forte avec les racines verbales. Au niveau post-lexical, d'autres règles interviennent, du pont au sein des groupes prosodiques aux applications tonales sur les thèmes verbaux.
La réalisation prosodique d'un énoncé s'explique aussi à l'aide de la théorie de l'optimalité, sur la base d'une trentaine de contraintes hiérarchisées. L'ensemble des données recueillies et des faits relatés contribue à une meilleure connaissance de ce type de tonologie, proche de système accentuel. Le fait que cela porte sur une langue et une région peu connues ouvre de nouvelles perspectives sur l'ensemble de la zone K des langues bantu. Quelques premières comparaisons sont proposées, notamment avec les autres variétés ngangela.
