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  • 1972–present: The Contemporary World x
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Article

Alleyne, Mervyn Coleridge  

Don E. Walicek

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
01 June 2016
Published online:
30 September 2016

in the study of Creole languages, was born on 13 June 1933 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. His parents were Coleridge Alleyne, a builder and contractor, and Carmen Alleyne, an elementary school teacher. He has two children, Malou Alleyne-Harrison and Trevor Alleyne.

As a young man, Alleyne studied in Port of Spain’s Queen’s Royal College. He was later awarded a scholarship to the fledgling University College of the West Indies. This allowed him to complete his B.A. in Spanish and French in Jamaica. Alleyne completed graduate work in linguistic dialectology in France, where he worked at Lyon’s Institut de Linguistique Romane. His doctorat d’Université, the equivalent of a Ph.D., was awarded by the University of Strasbourg.

In 1959 Alleyne returned to Jamaica and began working at the University of the West Indies at Mona as a lecturer in Romance philology and French medieval literature He became one of ...

Article

Batibo, Herman  

Lutz Marten

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Tanzanian linguist and academic, was born in Mwanza, Tanzania, on 1 January 1947, as the eighth child of Michael Masalu, medical assistant, and Melania Humbo. The family lived in the suburbs of Mwanza, a provincial town in the northwest of what was then Tanganyika. Before his birth, two of his father’s cousins had come to visit the family, but, because his uncle had mistreated him when he lived with them as an orphan, his father turned them away with the words “batiboyi abakanibyaala” It is not them who gave birth to me These words were used to call the newborn child in the Sukuma culture Batibo s ethnic group children are named according to events or circumstances at the time of birth The long name was soon shortened to Batibo and used as his surname At Batibo s christening the Bavarian priest administering the baptism found the ...

Article

Bébel-Gisler, Dany  

Frances J. Santiago

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
01 June 2016
Published online:
30 September 2016

a sociolinguist specializing in ethnology and the study of the Creole language, was also a devout Guadeloupean wife, mother, and grandmother. She was born in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, on 7 April 1935. She was the granddaughter of a plantation owner in Guadeloupe, and her father married a mulâtresse who was an agricultural worker on his father’s plantation. Bébel-Gisler has said that her education stemmed from the paternal heritage, yet her rich cultural background and the imagination it cultivated stem directly from her mother’s humble origins.

As an adolescent Bébel Gisler was sent to France for her high school education In France she studied in Toulouse where she prepared for admission to college studies Demonstrating her great talent in French she was the only student to receive the Prix Spécial de Français which brought with it a grant that gave her access to the Grandes Écoles prestigious higher education establishments in ...

Article

Bernabé, Jean  

Roxanna Nydia Curto

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
01 June 2016
Published online:
30 September 2016

best known as one of the founders of the Créolité movement, which sought to forge a uniquely Creole identity and reject the central tenets of Negritude, was born in Lorrain, Martinique.

Trained at the University of Paris V, Bernabé completed his doctorate in Antillean Creole in 1982. His thesis “Fondal-natal: Grammaire basilecticale approchée des créoles guadeloupéens et martiniquais” was published in 1983 by L’Harmattan, and is the first large-scale study of an Antillean Creole by a native speaker of the language. He is also an agrégé of grammar and holds a docteur d’état in linguistics. Bernabé is currently professor emeritus of regional languages and cultures at the University of Antilles-Guyane, Schoelcher campus. During his time on the faculty there, he served as dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences for several years.

In 1975 after becoming a professor in the Department of Modern Languages at the ...

Article

Dejean, Marie F. Yves  

Don E. Walicek

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
01 June 2016
Published online:
31 May 2017

was born on 16 May 1927 into a middle-class family in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. His father, Montrosier Dejean, was an accountant who served for a time as the nation’s minister of finance, and his mother, Maria Parisot, was a homemaker. After completing his early education in Haiti, Dejean moved to New England, where he studied theology and thereafter entered the priesthood. He later returned to Haiti and served as a parish priest of Port-Salut for almost a decade. There, as the linguist Arthur Spears (2010) notes, Dejean used Haitian Creole with parishioners and translated the four Gospels from Greek into Haitian Creole. These experiences motivated him to pursue a graduate degree in language and linguistics. He earned an M.A. in biblical Hebrew from Johns Hopkins University in 1964 He returned home shortly thereafter but the violence of the François Duvalier regime forced him into exile in Paris five ...

Article

Demoz, Abraham  

Ghirmai Negash

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Eritrean-born Ethiopian linguist, Africanist scholar, and political activist, was born in Asmara, Eritrea. He was fluent in several European and African languages including Italian, French, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic, and Tigrinya, his mother tongue. His main area of expertise was linguistics, with particular focus on the Semitic languages of Eritrea and Ethiopia, but his intellectual interest covered a broad spectrum, including history, policy studies, and culture.

Demoz graduated from Haile Selassie University, Addis Ababa, with a bachelor’s degree in 1956. He received a master’s degree in education from Harvard University in 1957 and later studied linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received master’s and PhD degrees in Semitic languages in 1959 and 1964, respectively. Demoz started his professional career at Haile Selassie University, where he taught and served as dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1964 to 1967 He was also a ...

Article

Galaal, Muuse Xaaji Ismaaciil  

Charles Geshekter

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Somali linguist and cultural historian who devoted his life to demonstrating the inestimable value of the Somali cultural heritage, was born in northern Somalia. An alternate spelling of his name is Musa Haji Ismail Galaal. He grew up as a camel herder and, during this period, learned oratorical skills that made him a superb public speaker. He attended qurʾanic schools and maintained a lifetime commitment to Islam. Galaal served in the British military during World War II, then became a teacher, and was selected in 1951 to work with the linguist B. W. Andrzejewski at the University of London to help develop a system of writing for the Somali language.

Muuse recognized the inextricable connections between the Somali language and Somali oral literature He tested potential scripts by transcribing oral poems recited by old men of frail health and then reading them back aloud He spent many weeks at the bedside ...

Article

Giyorgis, Fesseha  

Ghirmai Negash

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Eritrean Tigrinya-language writer, historian, translator, linguist, and professor of African languages, was born and grew up in Yeha, an ancient historical village in Tigray, the northernmost Ethiopian province bordering Eritrea. Yeha is remarkable for its unique and early archaeological sites, as well as for its proximity to and historical connections with the well-known city of Axum, which formed the center of the Axumite kingdom during the reign of the Queen of Sheba, and still remains Ethiopia’s oldest cultural center. Giyorgis is considered one of Ethiopia’s and Eritrea’s most important intellectuals; he lived and wrote during the Italian colonial era in Eritrea. He is considered by many the true founder of secular, modern African literature in Tigrinya.

The consciousness of precolonial history evident in Yeha had a lasting influence on Giyorgis s imagination affecting everything he wrote from literature to history Another important influence on Giyorgis s formation as a native ...

Article

Mapanje, Jack  

Reuben M. Chirambo

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Malawaian linguist, poet, and academic, was born in Kadango Village in the lake shore district of Mangochi in southern Malawi. He attended high school at Zomba Catholic Secondary School, then obtained his Diploma in Education and his BA from Chancellor College of the University of Malawi. He completed his MPhil at the Institute of Education of the University of London in 1975 and his PhD in Linguistics at University College London. In 1972 he joined the staff of the English Department at Chancellor College at the University of Malawi. The government of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and President Hastings K. Banda detained Mapanje without charge or trial in 1987 while he was serving as chair of the English Department; he was not released until 1992.

Mapanje is best defined by his poetry which uses the literary resources of oral culture to construct written poetry that challenges the hegemony of ...

Article

Mapanje, Jack  

Kate Tuttle

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

Jack Mapanje, one of Africa’s most respected poets and a scholar of linguistics, became an internationally recognized victim of censorship when the regime of Malawi’s president, Dr. Hastings Banda, imprisoned him without charges or trial in 1987. The human rights monitoring group Amnesty International declared him a political prisoner, and other groups, including those devoted to human rights and artistic freedom, launched a letter-writing campaign that resulted in his 1991 release.

Mapanje attended local Catholic schools as a child and received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Malawi and a Ph.D. in linguistics from University College, London. While in London he wrote his first collection of poetry, Of Chameleons and Gods (1981), which contained much veiled criticism of the repressive Banda government but was not one of the many books that the government banned.

At about the time Of Chameleons and Gods was published ...

Article

Nketia, J. H. Kwabena  

Paul Schauert

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Ghanaian ethnomusicologist, linguist, composer, and poet, was born on 22 June 1921 in Ashanti Mampong in central Ghana. His full given name was Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia. His father, Akwasi Yeboa, and mother, Akua Adoma, were traders in a nearby village called Effiduase. After his father passed away when Kwabena was an infant, he was raised by his mother and maternal grandparents. With the help of his grandfather, Opanyin Kisi Amoa, and grandmother, Yaa Amankwaa, Nketia attended Mampong Asante Presbyterian Junior and Senior Schools. After completing his secondary education, in 1937 Nketia enrolled in the Presbyterian Training College at Akropong-Akwapim, where he focused on music and the Twi (Akan) language. In 1941 he received his teaching certificate and was subsequently appointed to teach music and Twi at the Training College After three years at the Training College Nketia received a two year scholarship to study linguistics at the University ...

Article

St Jorre, Danielle Marie-Madeleine de  

Vinesh Hookoomsing

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

linguist, politician, and diplomat in the Seychelles, was born Danielle d’Offay, on 30 September 1941 on Mahé, the main island of the Seychelles archipelago. Descended from a historical Franco-Seychellois family, Danielle de St Jorre completed her secondary education and her university studies in the UK. She obtained her Master’s degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1965 and a postgraduate certificate in education a year later from the University of London. Her growing interest in language and education led her to return to UK in the 1970s for a BPhil in linguistics at York University. Returning to the Seychelles, she joined the Teachers Training College, which she headed for some time before her appointment as principal secretary to the minister of education.

In 1976 St Jorre participated in the first Colloque International d Études Créoles International Conference on Creole Studies held in Nice France The main outcome of that ...

Article

Turner, Lorenzo Dow  

Lisa Clayton Robinson

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

Lorenzo Dow Turner received a bachelor's degree from Howard University in 1914, a master's degree from Harvard University in 1917, and a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in 1926 He taught English at several black colleges and initially became interested in linguistics after hearing the ...

Article

Yaasiin Cismaan Keenadiid  

Annarita Puglielli

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Somali linguist, author, educator, and government official, was born at Ceelhuur (Obbia or Hoobyo) in Somalia. His name is also spelled Yasin Osman Kenadid. He was the son of Cismaan Yuusuf Keenadiid, the poet scholar who, in the 1920s, invented the first phonetically standardized script for the Somali language. This script, called in Somali Far Soomaali or “Somali alphabet,” is also known as the “Cismaaniyya (or Osmaniya) script,” called this after his name. Until that time, Somali had been written in Arabic characters.

Yaasiin studied linguistics and classical languages (Greek and Latin) at the universities of Rome and Perugia (Italy) from 1955 to 1957 and Slavic philology at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow in 1962. He got his Arts Degree (Lettere) at the University of Rome–La Sapienza in 1963.

In 1949 he founded Goosanka Afka iyo Suugaanta Soomaalida the Somali Language and Literature Society within the ...