News
/ Research, Doctorate/PhD
Call: Publishing, Collecting and Accessing African-language Materials
SCOLMA Annual Conference 2020, Monday 8 June 2020
The question of writing in African languages has frequently been a matter of debate and contestation in recent times. Today, English, French and Portuguese remain the official languages of most countries of Africa south of the Sahara, and most publishing appears in these languages. Nevertheless, books and newspapers continue to be published in many African languages, albeit often in small numbers. New initiatives are actively promoting writing in this area. African languages also flourish in many other formats – and have done so historically – whether (for example) as manuscripts, ephemera, or audio-visual forms from cassette tapes and radio programmes to YouTube films. This conference will take up these issues by looking at producing, collecting, accessing, researching and preserving African-language materials.
Papers covering all African languages (including Afrikaans and Pidgins), as well as Arabic, are within scope for this conference. Papers looking at the issues above in relation to non-roman scripts are also welcomed. Papers should relate to questions of publishing/producing works in African languages, and collecting, accessing, researching and preserving such materials. We are not looking for papers on more general themes relating to African languages.
Deadline for submissions: 3 February 2020.
