Project description
Studying vanished ethnolinguistic varieties in West Africa
Modern humans trace their origins to Africa. While primordial languages were spoken in Africa, little is known about the forms of language first spoken, or what speakers sounded like. There is also a paradox: the languages comprise only 4 of the world’s more than 150 families. Languages with no known living relatives (isolates) represent the missing links between today’s homogeneity and the past’s diversity. In this context, the European Research Council-funded BANG project will study Bangime, which may represent the only confirmed language isolate spoken today in interior West Africa. BANG will search for evidence of contact or inheritance between Bangime and a hitherto unexplored set of West African languages and populations, using computationally supported methods.
Objective
Species are often the most diverse at their origins, and all modern humans can trace their origins back to Africa. Our ability to communicate through language defines us; every human being speaks (or signs) at least one language. We may never know when our current forms of language were first spoken, or what speakers sounded like, but we can be assured that primordial languages were spoken in Africa. Yet, a paradox presents itself with respect to the apparent lack of linguistic heterogeneity in Africa: the languages comprise only four of the worlds more than 150 families. Isolates, languages with no known living relatives, represent the missing links between todays homogeneity and the pasts diversity.
Bangime may represent the only confirmed language isolate spoken today in interior West Africa. Its speakers, the Bangande, have resisted genetic admixture with neighboring populations for upwards of 9.000 years. The root of their eponym [BANG], means hidden or secret in surrounding Dogon languages whose linguistic and genetic ancestors are almost as mysterious.
ERC-BANG will search for evidence of contact or inheritance between Bangime and a hitherto unexplored set of West African languages and populations using computationally-supported methods. Our research team will conduct an in-depth study of culturally significant and historically relevant loan words, so that a statistician can incorporate these findings into stochastic models of language diffusion. A geneticist will process the entire Bangande genome to compare with West African populations from a wider range than thus far considered. Together, we will perform a character-based Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of the Dogon languages to estimate the time depth of the group in order to test settlement hypotheses and proposed migration patterns. Completion of this project will uncover traces of vanished ethnolinguistic varieties in West Africa, and our methods can be replicated to solve similar questions.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-COG
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75794 PARIS
France
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