Sociolingo's Africa

Dave Donelson’s new novel, Heart of Diamonds, is in stock and ready for shipment by Amazon.com. It’s an exciting romantic thriller about scandal, love, and death in the Congo. As the book cover copy reads, “Amid the bloody violence of the Congo’s civil war, TV reporter Valerie Grey uncovers a deadly diamond-smuggling scheme that reaches from Africa to the White House” You can see more details at ....

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Contributed by Christiane Lauschitzky Sahara Hostages: Handover failed? Alledged exchange stopped last minute. The Austrians have been hostages for about half a year now. According to an Algerian newspaper, the handover of the two Austrian hostages failed recently because the high number of Malian soldiers in the vicinity scared off the kidnappers. As always, this kind of news has to be taken with a grain of salt. But some ....

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Numeral systems of the Languages of the world, newly updated with data for about 150 Bantu languages, and some other small languages in the world. http://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/numeral/ See also http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources.php for more resources Eugene Chang would be glad of any help African linguists can give him to update this data base. Please cut and paste the following questionnaire and send it to euslchan@yahoo.com if you can help. Counting Concepts and ....

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Anything to do with ‘Akan’ seems popular on this blog. But have you ever thought about what exactly is meant by the term? There is a great article on abibitumikasa.com which appeared as a forum comment by Akyeame-Kwame. It delineates the difficulties in defining languages. The name ‘Akan’ When you learn Akan - whose language do you learn? The word ‘Akan’ designates quite different groups of people ....

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Via H-AfrArts list H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-AfrArts@h-net.msu.edu (July 2008) Barbara Plankensteiner, ed. _Benin Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria_. Vienna: Snoeck Publishers, 2007. 535 pp. Map, illustrations, bibliography. $50.00 (paper), ISBN 978-3-85497-114-6. Reviewed for H-AfrArts by Kate Ezra, Department of Art and Design, Columbia College Chicago The New Encyclopedia of Benin Art The exhibition _Benin Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria_ , organized by Barbara ....

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Via H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture “Yacouba Bonde: Bwa Masks of Burkina Faso” On view through July 11, 2009 A special installation, “Yacouba Bonde: Bwa Masks of Burkina Faso,” showcasing four masks from the permanent collection and two masks on loan from collector Emmet Bondurant is now on view at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. The installation spotlights masks carved by artist Yacouba Bonde, including one ....

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About 8 years ago news leaked out about an exciting archaeological find in Niger. Back in the Stone Age what is now the Sahara desert was a lush green place with large lakes. The area in Southern Niger where the dig took place was a lakeside fishing community for about 5,000 years and originated about 10,000 years ago. In its first comprehensive report, published Thursday, the team described finding ....

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