Banto1d

First Conference on Bantoid Languages and Linguistics

University of Hamburg

March 23-25, 2022

Aim

The 1st “Conference on Bantoid Languages and Linguistics” (Banto1d) intends to bring together international and African researchers and community literacy activists to produce an up-to-date picture of the 150+ Bantoid languages of Nigeria and Cameroon, with major branches subdividing in Dakoid, Mambiloid, Tivoid, Beboid, Grassfields and Ekoid. Bantoid languages are understood to be in some way ancestral to Bantu, but this relationship remains ill-defined and they are still poorly represented in international scholarship. As a complement to the existing conference series on Bantu languages, “Banto1d” is meant to provide a forum dedicated to descriptive, typological and comparative challenges of the “Bantu borderland” outside Narrow Bantu.

Call for abstracts

We invite abstracts from international and African researchers and community literacy activists on the analysis, description and / or comparison of Bantoid languages. Narrow Bantu languages of the Northwest with close relations to Bantoid might be accepted, too. The focus will be on descriptive and practical presentations, rather than papers addressing linguistic theory through work with a single expatriate informant. Contributions on sociolinguistics as well as applied linguistics in the Bantoid area are also welcome. Individual presentations should stick to the usual conference format, i.e. 20 minutes for oral presentation plus 10 minutes for discussion. Abstracts will be received until October 01, 2021, and authors will be notified by November 01, 2021, about acceptance. Abstracts should not exceed the limit of 500 words, including references. They should be submitted as an MS Word and Pdf file to Bantoid.aai@uni-hamburg.de. Please make sure to use a Unicode compliant font and to keep your abstract anonymous. Provide your name and affiliation in the body of the email when sending your abstract.

Possible impact of COVID regulations

Since we cannot be sure about the future development of the COVID situation and the ensuing travel restrictions, we envisage the conference to take place in hybrid or fully digital form, depending on circumstances. For this eventuality, we require all participants to be prepared to pre-record their talks of a duration no longer than 20 minutes in mp4 format and send them to the organizers latest by March 01, 2022.

Important Dates

Deadline for abstracts: October 01, 2021
Notification of acceptance of abstracts: November 01, 2021
Program available: February 2022
Deadline for submission of pre-recorded talks: March 01, 2022
Conference: March 23-25, 2022

Financial Support

Depending on the approval of applications for grants, funding could be made available to support travel and lodging for conference participants from Africa, but the amounts available may not be enough to fully cover travel and lodging, depending on the number of participants selected.