African Languages
Featured Handbooks and Guides
Handbooks and guides typically offer the reader an opportunity to survey and learn about a broad field of scholarship in a comprehensive way. They give a snap shop of the discipline covered at the time the book is published. Unlike a retrospective collection of articles, these guides are written or edited as a planned and intentional effort, with chapters and sections interrelating and complimenting one another and thereby tend to be more readable and integrated research works.
African Language Structures by
Call Number: PL8008.W4
Language in Africa by Call Number: PL8005.G75
The Languages of Africa by Call Number: PL8005. G73 1963
Practical Phonetics for Students of African Languages by Call Number: PL8007.W4 1949
Good Starting Databases for African Languages and Linguistics
The following databases are good places to go to start researching your topic. Each database has a slightly different focus, so you might need to try out a couple of databases before finding one that returns the sort of results you are looking for.
- AfricaBib.org This link opens in a new windowTwo bibliographic databases covering Africana periodical literature (Bibliography of Africana Periodical Literature Database) and African Women's literature (African Women's Database). You will also find a comprehensive bibliography on women travelers and explorers to Africa (Women Travelers, Explorers and Missionaries to Africa: 1763-2004: A Comprehensive English Language Bibliography). Davis Bullwinkle from the Univ. of Arkansas produces and maintains the site.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowSubjects covered include literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory and criticism, and the dramatic arts.
Good Starting Journals for African Languages and Linguistics
The following are links to specific academic journals which are published and peer-reviewed by experts in the field. If you want to narrow your search to a specific topic, country, or issue, finding a journal that publishes in that area can help.
- Studies in African LinguisticsStudies in African Linguistics provides a public forum within the community of African language scholars for discourse on issues of direct concern to the field of African Linguistics. Thus, the journal seeks to publish African language data and analysis that might not find a place easily or suitably in more general journals. Contributions are not expected to adhere to any particular theoretical framework or linguistic "school" and need not be theoretically organised, but should be data-oriented and of potential theoretical interest. Contributions may also take the form of short, descriptive grammatical sketches of endangered African languages.
- English in AfricaA publication about previously unpublished or out-of-print primary material, including articles and letters by writers of Africa. The journal also publishes scholarly articles on African writing in English with particular emphasis on research in new or under-researched areas in African literature.