- Date | 23 February 2024
- Location | Berlin
Presentation by Maarten Mous: Naming language, language names and “language”.
Abstract: My presentation consists of three sections. First I discuss self-names of registers: Ma’á/Mbugu and I analyse terms for in-law languages across the world and youth languages. Second, I analyse the language names of the languages of the Tanzanian Rift Valley, both self-names and those by outsiders and address the paradox that some of these names are reconstructable. Finally, I discuss the challenge that tribes are claimed to be a colonial invention, and yet languages did exist; although as a result of fusion as I show for the languages of the Tanzanian Rift Valley. I argue that attention for “languaging” requires the abstraction of a “language” by the researcher, and pitfalls of essentialism.
LHEAf 