ALL

Afroasiatic languages represent an important part of the world’s cultural heritage. They face two main challenges: a) language endangerment and loss, b) language variation. ALL aims at contributing the expertise of a network of specialists of Afroasiatic languages to these challenges. On the one hand ALL will focus on a specific linguistic and cultural area, characterized by a large number of undescribed and understudied languages — the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa — and will contribute to their visibility in academia, and in policy-making circles in the relevant countries. On the other hand, since five out of six Afroasiatic language families are represented in ALL, the members of the network will be able to address together language variation and topics that are relevant from a comparative perspective, in particular contact-induced linguistic change. ALL will thus provide a unique opportunity for the development of pluridisciplinary collaborative work. The activities conducted in the network are organized in two main strands of research: 1) Areal studies: the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa 2) Comparative studies: Language-variation, grammatical and sociolinguistic issues.

Kick-off meeting: 2020 November 12-13

Partner institutions:

• UMR6310 LLING, Laboratoire de Linguistique de Nantes (PI)
• USR3141 CEFREPA, Centre Français de Recherche de la Péninsule Arabique
• UMR7310 IREMAM, Institut de recherches et d’études sur le monde arabe et musulman
• USR3137 CFEE, Centre français des études éthiopiennes
• Leiden University
• Napoli L’Orientale
• SOAS-University of London
• Univ. of Göteborg
• Penn State University

More information here