Survey of ongoing research 1998
Research in the field of African languages has been going on in the Faculty since about ten years ago. However, it was only in 1997 that the subject found a place within the organisation. In that year, the University created a position as Professor of African languages.
The number of languages used in Africa is certainly in excess of one thousand. A more precise figure cannot be given, partly because of the difficulties involved in the definitions of the concept of "language", but also because of the fact that the linguistic situation is not at all well known in many African countries. Thus, the area of research is enormous.
Research in Göteborg focuses on linguistic description of languages and on studies of the sociolinguistic situation in Africa.
Research staff during 1998
Dr. Karl Erland Gadelii has been employed during 1998 as researcher within the project Languages and language use in Mozambique. Within the project he has conducted fieldwork in Mozambique. During the year he received a scholarship from the University's Jubilee Fund, which enabled him to take leave for a period to conduct research in African languages at LACITO, a research institute in Paris financed by CNRS. He has also participated in various research activities and conferences in Sweden and Mozambique.
Tore Janson is Professor of African Languages. His present research concerns the languages in Mozambique and historical phonology within the Bantu language group. During the year he has visited Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania for research and research contacts.
Abdulaziz Y. Lohdi, who is Lecturer in Swahili at Uppsala University was admitted as a graduate student during the year, to enable him to finish his dissertation on Oriental loans in Swahili. During the year, he has been a guest researcher for some time in Bergen, Norway, and also in Trondheim, Norway.
Jouni Maho has held a "doktorandtjänst" financed by Sida/Sarec. Aside from his dissertation work, he has completed his work on a project on the languages of Namibia and has published the book Few People, Many Tongues: The languages of Namibia. He has also written a new edition of his survey of the languages in the states of Africa.
Joseph Onyeche was admitted as a graduate student during the year. He works on a dissertation concerning the Nigerian language Ika.
Dr. Gabriele Sommer, who is a researcher at the Department of African Languages at the University of Cologne, Germany, was a guest researcher during September and October, 1998. The stay was financed by Svenska Institutet. She gave a series of lectures on historical linguistics and archaeology in north-eastern Africa.
Dr. Christina Thornell is active as a post-doctoral scholar in the department since April, 1998. She works with the project A description of the Bantu language Mpiemo, which is financed by the Swedish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences. During the year she has conducted fieldwork in the Central African Republic.
Ongoing research projects during 1998
(In addition to the ones already described.)
The project ALLEX (African Languages Lexical Project) is based at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. The goal is to produce dictionaries for languages in Zimbabwe. Researchers from the Universities of Göteborg and Oslo participate actively in this large project, which started in 1992 and is planned to continue for a long time. A monolingual dictionary for Chishona, Duramaswi Rechishona, was published in 1996. Work continues on a larger dictionary for Chishona and a dictionary for Sindebele. At present, Dr. Daniel Ridings and Pernilla Danielsson, who are based at the section for computational linguistics, Department of Swedish, are the Swedish participants in the project. The project is supported by Sida.
The project Languages and language use in Mozambique started full-scale operation from 1998, but planning and some activities have been going on since 1995. Karl Erland Gadelii, Tore Janson and Dr. Christopher Stroud (Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University) participate form Sweden. The project, which is supported by Sida/Sarec, is conducted in cooperation with researchers at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo.
Dissertations in progress 1998
Lohdi, Abdulaziz Y.: On Oriental Influences in Swahili - a study in language and culture contact.
Maho, Jouni: A comparative study of Bantu noun classes.
Onyeche, Joseph: Change or Death? A study of ongoing change in Ika language.
