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Showing 97 total publications.
Journal article

Serra Leoa: Um eixo central do contato linguístico e da crioulização no Afro-Atlântico

2026

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Journal article

Serra Leoa: Um eixo central do contato linguístico e da crioulização no Afro-Atlântico
2026
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Este artigo examina o papel central, mas pouco conhecido, da Serra Leoa no surgimento e na difusão das variedades de inglês da África Ocidental e do African Caribbean English Creole (ACEC). Este último é hoje um conjunto linguístico transcontinental e uma importante língua mundial, com cerca de 150 milhões de falantes na África e nas Américas. Analisamos como o inglês serra-leonês e o Krio, uma variedade do ACEC, surgiram em Freetown (Serra Leoa) nos séculos XVIII e XIX e tornaram-se variedades fundadoras tanto do inglês padronizado quanto do crioulizado em toda a África Ocidental. Ambos deixaram sua marca no léxico, na fonologia e na gramática do inglês nigeriano, camerunês e ganês, bem como das variedades do ACEC, a saber, o Pichi (Guiné Equatorial), o Aku (Gâmbia) e o West African Pidgin (Nigéria, Camarões e Gana). Também avaliamos as evidências de influência serra-leonesa sobre as línguas crioulas americanas, Gullah (EUA) e Maroon Spirit Language (Jamaica). Ao situar Serra Leoa no centro deste estudo, evidenciamos a agência, exercida a partir de baixo, de uma população numericamente modesta, mas historicamente relevante, ao moldar a configuração linguística do Afro-Atlântico e do Hemisfério Ocidental.
Book chapter

Prefácio (Na rota do contato linguístico)

2026

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Book chapter

Prefácio (Na rota do contato linguístico)
2026
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Há uma satisfação especial em abrir um volume coletivo e descobrir que seu sumário já apresenta um argumento antes mesmo de o primeiro capítulo se desenrolar: a África abre o itinerário, a América o amplia e a Europa chega por último, deixando de ser o ponto de partida obrigatório que marcou grande parte dos estudos linguísticos vindos do Brasil. Os povos que, embora tenham sido maioria demográfica durante a maior parte da história do país, foram relegados às notas de rodapé, como se suas contribuições linguísticas fossem ornamentais em vez de constitutivas. Este volume inverte essa ordem e, ao fazê-lo, constitui um dos muitos atos de reparação historiográfica que o permeiam. Os usos da linguagem, insiste essa inversão, nunca são neutros; carregam hierarquia e o resquício de quem tinha permissão para falar e de quem era meramente tolerado como objeto de discurso.
Book chapter

English and Krio in Sierra Leone

2026

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Book chapter

English and Krio in Sierra Leone
2026
Yakpo, K., Bangura, S., & Finney, M. A.

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Abstract
Sierra Leone is a centrepiece in the emergence of the Englishes and English-lexifier contact languages of West Africa. The movement of people of African origin from the Americas and other parts of West Africa to Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, established the English language and the English-lexifier creole language Krio in Sierra Leone, and thereafter, in West Africa. Krios founded communities in major towns along the West African coast in British-occupied West Africa. Sierra Leone English and Early Krio assumed central roles as inputs to all other Englishes and English-lexifier contact languages in West Africa. The English-lexifier contact languages that arose from the interaction of Krio founder communities with local populations are today used by up to one hundred and twenty million people across West Africa in varying degrees of nativization. This chapter provides an overview of the history, structure and trajectory of Sierra Leone English and Krio, and the impact of these two ‘Englishes’ on the linguistic ecology of West Africa in the present and future.
Essay

Swahili: The rise of an African world language

2025

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Essay

Swahili: The rise of an African world language
2025
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Swahili has a long documented history. Linguists estimate that it emerged around the 7th century as a distinct variety among the Bantu languages of the littoral zone of Kenya, developing within the maritime culture of the coastal peoples of the region. It is closely related to the Mijikenda languages of Kenya, and the languages of the Comoro Islands. Over the next two to three hundred years, the enterprising, mercantile, and maritime Swahili forged a common identity and carried their language all the way down the coast into northern Mozambique. Swahili explorers, merchants, sailors, fisherfolk, and farmers founded settlements along the coast and acculturated resident populations into their cosmopolitan culture characterized by city-states and the gradual adoption of Islam, thus integrating the Swahili into the Indian Ocean world uniting East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Persia, India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia.
Book chapter

The evolution of copula systems in West African Pidgin: A uniformitarian perspective

2025

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Book chapter

The evolution of copula systems in West African Pidgin: A uniformitarian perspective
2025
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This chapter presents the first comparative genetic and areal study of copula systems in West African Pidgin (WAP). The typological analysis of the copula systems of the three WAP varieties Pichi (Equatorial Guinea), Cameroon Pidgin, and Ghanaian Pidgin reveals a founder signal of their ancestor Krio (Sierra Leone) and its Yoruba substrate, as well as an areal signal from the African adstrates and European superstrates spoken in their respective ecologies. The strength of the founder signal increases in the order Ghanaian Pidgin < Cameroon Pidgin < Pichi, that of the areal signal in the inverse order Pichi < Cameroon Pidgin < Ghanaian Pidgin, reflective of the depth of social entrenchment of each variety in its ecology. Social entrenchment is shorthand for the demographic strength of Krio founder communities, the social functions of the WAP variety, and the periodization and extent of vernacularization. Irrespective of the differences, all three ecologies feature small founder communities, large majorities for whom the WAP variety functions as a lingua franca, and the absence of institutional standardization. Nevertheless, not pidginization, nor other types of “abnormal transmission”, but uniformitarian principles of genetic transmission, areal diffusion and adaptation have colluded in shaping the copula systems of the various WAP varieties in ways specific to each ecology. This study also seeks to refine the methodology for the areal-typological study of West African copula systems in general by problematizing the notion of “copula”. In doing so, this study provides fascinating new insights on the rich functional and formal differentiation of nominal, locative, and property predication in West African Pidgin and its African adstrate languages.
Book chapter

Lost siblings: Areal forces in the divergence of Krio and Pichi

2024

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Book chapter

Lost siblings: Areal forces in the divergence of Krio and Pichi
2024
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The two related English-lexifier creole languages Krio (Sierra Leone) and Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) have diverged due to differing contact ecologies since their split in the 19th century. Krio is spoken alongside its lexifier English as well as Atlantic and Mande adstrates. Pichi is spoken alongside Bantu adstrates and has been in contact with its superstrate Spanish, but not with English. I analyse and compare tense, aspect, and mood categories as well as participant marking and serial verb constructions to show that (a) Krio has become more similar to English than Pichi to Spanish because existing overlaps between creole and lexifier forms have facilitated transfer; (b) both Krio and Pichi have, respectively, aligned themselves with the Macro-Sudan and Bantu spread zone typological profiles of their ecologies. I interpret the findings via the stratal-areal contact model (Yakpo 2017a) to explain the divergence of Krio and Pichi as part of the differentiation of the whole African Caribbean English Creole cluster.
Journal article

Relativisation in Likpakpaln (Ghana): New typological perspectives on the Mabia (Gur) languages

2024

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Journal article

Relativisation in Likpakpaln (Ghana): New typological perspectives on the Mabia (Gur) languages
2024
Bisilki, A. K., Quint, N., & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This article provides the first systematic account of relativization in Likpakpaln, an understudied Mabia (Gur) language of Ghana. Broadly speaking, Likpakpaln features two types of relative clauses: restrictive and non-restrictive. Both types of relative clauses are finite and marked by a relative pronoun as well as a clausal definite determiner. The first type is always headed by an indefinite noun. The second is invariably headed by a definite head noun, is additionally marked by a prosodic break, and is usually under focus. The relative pronoun is a composite form comprised of a noun class agreement marker and an invariant relative marker. A number of the features of relative clauses in Likpakpaln align it with other Mabia languages of the region, whereas others distinguish it from these languages. This analysis situates Likpakpaln within its genealogical and areal context while providing new typological perspectives on the Mabia languages as a whole.
Journal article

West African Pidgin: World language against the grain

2024

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Journal article

West African Pidgin: World language against the grain
2024
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
West African Pidgin (“Pidgin”) is a cluster of related, mutually intelligible, restructured Englishes with up to 140 million speakers in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, and The Gambia. Spoken by just few thousand people two centuries ago, “modernisation” and “shallow social entrenchment” have driven the transformation of Pidgin into a “super-central” world language. Demographic growth, migration, the expansion of West African cultural industries and economies, and people-to-people contacts are likely to expand Pidgin further. Already the largest language of West Africa, Pidgin may be spoken by 400 million people by 2100. The rise of Pidgin goes against the grain. World languages like English, French, Chinese, or Arabic mostly spread through colonisation, elite engineering, and state intervention. The trajectory of Pidgin, therefore, holds great potential for exploring the dynamics of large-scale natural language evolution in the twenty-first century.
Essay

Wir sind Panafrikanisten

2024

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Essay

Wir sind Panafrikanisten
2024
Yakpo, K., Güngör, M., & Loh, H.

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Abstract
Ich habe bei dem Diskurs über Schwarze Identität in Deutschland ein Problem mit der Ausblendung der afrikanischen Einwanderung nach Deutschland. In meinen Augen ist das ein doppelter Ausschluss. In seiner Tendenz kann der Diskurs über afrodeutsche Identität schnel eine essenzialistische Note bekommen, sogar eine nationalistische. Denn damit werden die antikolonialen Kämpfe afrikanischer Studierender und Aktivisten, die bis ins 19. Jahrhundert zurückgehen, in den Hintergrund gedrängt – man denke zum Beispiel nur an Rudolf Duala Manga Bel, der von der deutschen Besatzungsmacht in Kamerun 1914 hingerichtet wurde.
Journal article

Reciprocal constructions: Multilingual contact favours borrowing of transparent structures

2023

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Journal article

Reciprocal constructions: Multilingual contact favours borrowing of transparent structures
2023
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This study analyzes the borrowing of Dutch reciprocal pronouns in a corpus of primary field data of Sranan, Sarnami, and Surinamese Javanese, three unrelated languages of Suriname. The expression of reciprocity in relevant African and Asian substrates of the languages under study is also presented and discussed. I suggest cognitive and sociolinguistic explanations for the preference of Dutch-sourced reciprocal pronouns during multilingual contact. The three languages show convergent borrowing processes favoring the dedicated Dutch reciprocal pronoun over ‘scattered’ native strategies. Further, Suriname is a hierarchical post-colonial language ecology in which borrowing proceeds mostly in one direction, either directly from Dutch, or from Dutch via Sranan. The parallel multilingual trajectory of contact-induced change in the expression of a complex notion like reciprocity showcases the attractiveness for borrowing of forms and structures with transparent relations between form and content.
Journal article

The indigenization of Ghanaian Pidgin English

2023

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Journal article

The indigenization of Ghanaian Pidgin English
2023
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
In the world Englishes literature, ‘indigenization’ is shorthand for the localization of Outer Circle Englishes in former exploitation colonies like Ghana. However, the localization of Ghanaian English has been continually reversed by ‘corrective’ realignment with world standard English through institutional regimes. By contrast, the localization of Ghanaian Pidgin English has proceeded unhampered by standardization. This article provides a first analysis of the copula system of Ghanaian Pidgin English, showing that it owes much to patterns found in Akan and other languages of southern Ghana. In this domain, Ghanaian Pidgin English has indigenized and differentiated itself from its sister languages. I propose a consistent and expansive definition of indigenization as ‘the areal alignment of a latecomer with a linguistic ecology, causing its divergence from related varieties elsewhere.’ This study of indigenization shifts the focus from standardized Englishes to contact Englishes. The latter remain unfettered by institutional intervention and are therefore better suited to illustrating the natural dynamics of indigenization than standardized Englishes.
Journal article

Two types of language contact involving English Creoles: Why Krio (Sierra Leone) has evolved more towards English than its relative Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) towards Spanish

2023

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Journal article

Two types of language contact involving English Creoles: Why Krio (Sierra Leone) has evolved more towards English than its relative Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) towards Spanish
2023
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The two African English-lexifier Creole languages Krio (Sierra Leone) and Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) are closely related. A close look at specific aspects of their grammar, however, shows divergence due to differing contact ecologies since their split in the 19th century. Krio has been spoken alongside its lexifier (the main lexicon-providing language) and superstrate (the socially dominant colonial language) English since its beginnings and Pichi alongside its superstrate Spanish for almost two centuries, but not alongside English. Resulting differences in contact outcomes transpire in the expression of tense, aspect, and mood, and the use of prepositions for the marking of participants. In these two areas, Krio has converged more with English than Pichi with Spanish because existing overlaps between Creole and lexifier forms have facilitated transfer from English. Creoles therefore feature different contact outcomes depending on whether they continue to be in contact with a superstrate that is simultaneously the lexifier (in this case English), or not (in this case Spanish). Since both processes of change are cross-linguistically attested, there is no need to appeal to a concept like “decreolization”.
Journal article

Unidirectional multilingual convergence: Typological and social factors

2023

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Journal article

Unidirectional multilingual convergence: Typological and social factors
2023
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Suriname represents an interesting case of unidirectional multilingual convergence in a linguistic area. The multilingual ecology of Suriname is hierarchical. The Germanic language Dutch exerts structural and lexical influence ‘downwards’, but other languages do not do so ‘upwards’ to the same degree. This study analyses the development of word order in the Indo-Aryan language Sarnami and the Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creole Sranan, the two largest languages of Suriname besides Dutch. The results show that Sarnami and Sranan have undergone a typological realignment in word order. Sranan has completed a shift from postpositional locative nouns to prepositions through language contact and structural borrowing from Dutch. Sarnami is acquiring SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) as a basic word order next to SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) through structural borrowing from Dutch and Sranan. Conversely, standardisation pressures prevent innovative linguistic practices and structural borrowing from the other languages of Suriname from consolidating themselves in Surinamese Dutch in a similar way. The change that spoken Dutch has undergone in Suriname through influence from Sranan and Sarnami is therefore more modest than the changes Sranan and Sarnami have incurred through Surinamese Dutch influence. This study compares changes in these three languages for the first time and highlights the role of both social and typological factors in driving or impeding areal convergence in multilingual ecologies.
Report

The MuseumsLab (MLab): Report and recommendations

2023

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Report

The MuseumsLab (MLab): Report and recommendations
2023
Ebéné, P., Johnson, C., Mesghena, M., Mpahlwa, L., & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
As one of four founding partners, The Advisors have been providing strategic direction for the MuseumsLab (MLab) by curating and developing content, identifying and committing fellows, experts, and stakeholders, taking part in day-to-day operations, and participating in the setting of managerial and political agendas. In doing so, The Advisors have provided an essential element of African agency and given life to the political aspirations of the project. This report by The Advisors highlights the achievements of the MLab as a symmetrical knowledge exchange project between German/European and African actors in the last two and a half years, while pointing to ways of securing long term impact.
Book chapter

A computational simulation of the genesis and spread of lexical items in situations of abrupt language contact

2022

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Book chapter

A computational simulation of the genesis and spread of lexical items in situations of abrupt language contact
2022
Cheung, C., Yakpo, K., & Coupé, C

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Abstract
The current study presents an agent-based model which simulates the innovation and competition among lexical items in cases of language contact. It is inspired by relatively recent historical cases in which the linguistic ecology and sociohistorical context are highly complex. Pidgin and creole genesis offers an opportunity to obtain linguistic facts, social dynamics, and historical demography in a highly segregated society. This provides a solid ground for researching the interaction of populations with different pre-existing language systems, and how different factors contribute to the genesis of the lexicon of a newly generated mixed language. We take into consideration the population dynamics and structures, as well as a distribution of word frequencies related to language use, in order to study how social factors may affect the developmental trajectory of languages. Focusing on the case of Sranan in Suriname, our study shows that it is possible to account for the composition of its core lexicon in relation to different social groups, contact patterns, and large population movements.
Journal article

Social entrenchment influences the amount of areal borrowing in contact languages

2022

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Journal article

Social entrenchment influences the amount of areal borrowing in contact languages
2022
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Aims and Objectives: Social factors in language contact are not yet well understood. This study seeks to establish and explain the role of “social entrenchment” in the evolution of contact languages. It also aims to contribute to a broader perspective on areality that can account for social and linguistic factors in contact outcomes involving all languages present in multilingual ecologies. Methodology: The copula system was singled out for a detailed analysis. An existing corpus of primary data collected by the author of the three African English-lexifier contact languages Pichi, Cameroon Pidgin, Ghanaian Pidgin, their ancestor Krio, and of their African adstrates (Bube, Mokpe, Akan) and European superstrates (Spanish, English) was investigated and compared. Data and Analysis: Relevant features were selected for a dissimilarity matrix. A quantitative analysis was done with SplitsTree4. The resulting distance matrix and phylogenetic network were investigated for signals of genealogical transmission and areal diffusion and interpreted on their social background. Findings/Conclusions: The copula systems of the three contact languages carry a genealogical signal of their ancestor Krio as well as an areal signal from the adstrates and superstrates spoken in their respective ecologies. The amount of areal borrowing increases in the order Pichi < Cameroon Pidgin < Ghanaian Pidgin, reflective of the depth of social entrenchment of each variety from left to right. Originality: Previous studies do not compare the copula systems of English-lexifier contact languages at a similar level of granularity and usually focus on their emergence during creolization. This study attempts to explain their subsequent areal differentiation and links it to differences in social ecologies. Significance/Implications: Areal borrowing can lead to significant departures from genealogically inherited structures within a short time if social entrenchment is shallow. Conversely, even languages of wider communication can remain remarkably stable if social entrenchment is deep.
Journal article

Creole prosodic systems are areal, not simple

2021

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Journal article

Creole prosodic systems are areal, not simple
2021
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This study refutes the common idea that tone gets simplified or eliminated in creoles and contact languages. Speakers of African tone languages imposed tone systems on all Afro-European creoles spoken in the tone-dominant linguistic ecologies of Africa and the colonial Americas. African speakers of tone languages also imposed tone systems on the colonial varieties of English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese spoken in tonal Africa. A crucial mechanism involved in the emergence of the tone systems of creoles and colonial varieties is stress-to-tone mapping. A typological comparison with African non-creole languages shows that creole tone systems are no simpler than African non-creole tone systems. Demographic, linguistic, and social changes in an ecology can lead to switches from tone to stress systems and vice versa. As a result, there is an areal continuum of tone systems roughly coterminous with the presence of tone in the east (Africa) and stress in the west (Americas). Transitional systems combining features of tone and stress converge on the areal buffer zone of the Caribbean. The prosodic systems of creoles and European colonial varieties undergo regular processes of contact, typological change and areal convergence. None of these are specific to creoles. So far, creoles and colonial varieties have not featured in work on the world-wide areal clustering of prosodic systems. This study therefore aims to contribute to a broader perspective on prosodic contact beyond the narrow confines of the creole simplicity debate.
Journal article

‘The heart has caught me’: Anger metaphors in Likpakpaln (Konkomba)

2021

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Journal article

‘The heart has caught me’: Anger metaphors in Likpakpaln (Konkomba)
2021
Bisilki, A. K. & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Likpakpaln is a little-described Mabia (Gur) language of northern Ghana. Drawing on primary data, this first study of adjectives in Likpakpaln concludes that the language has a small, closed adjective class of about 20 members that shares grammatical properties with nouns and verbs to varying degrees. Contrary to what is the case in other Mabia languages, Likpakpaln adjectives lack inherent class markers. We identify three types of adjectives, distinguishable from nouns and verbs on morpho-syntactic and semantic grounds. Type 1 items lean towards nouns and never function as predicates of verbal clauses. Type 2 consists of one item, possibly a loan, and appears in a predicate adjective construction typical of languages with large adjective classes. Type 3 adjectives lean towards verbs and may form the predicate of verbal clauses. An understanding of Likpakpaln adjectives can contribute to refining our current knowledge of the genetic and typological position of Likpakpaln in the Mabia family.
Journal article

Adjectives in Likpakpaln (Konkomba): Structural and areal-typological aspects

2020

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Journal article

Adjectives in Likpakpaln (Konkomba): Structural and areal-typological aspects
2020
Bisilki, A. K. & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Likpakpaln is a little-described Mabia (Gur) language of northern Ghana. Drawing on primary data, this first study of adjectives in Likpakpaln concludes that the language has a small, closed adjective class of about 20 members that shares grammatical properties with nouns and verbs to varying degrees. Contrary to what is the case in other Mabia languages, Likpakpaln adjectives lack inherent class markers. We identify three types of adjectives, distinguishable from nouns and verbs on morpho-syntactic and semantic grounds. Type 1 items lean towards nouns and never function as predicates of verbal clauses. Type 2 consists of one item, possibly a loan, and appears in a predicate adjective construction typical of languages with large adjective classes. Type 3 adjectives lean towards verbs and may form the predicate of verbal clauses. An understanding of Likpakpaln adjectives can contribute to refining our current knowledge of the genetic and typological position of Likpakpaln in the Mabia family.
Journal article

Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact

2020

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Journal article

Romancing with tone: On the outcomes of prosodic contact
2020
Bordal Steien, G. & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This article presents a descriptive and theoretical framework for the analysis of prosodic systems that have emerged from contact between African tone and European intonation-only languages. A comparative study of the prosodic systems of two Romance contact varieties, Central African French and Equatorial Guinean Spanish, shows that they feature two-tone systems, fixed word tone patterns, tonal minimal pairs, the arbitrary assignment of tone in function words, and tonal processes. Evidence from further contact varieties and creole languages shows that similar systems evolved in other Afro-European contact ecologies. We conclude that tone is imposed by default on contact varieties and creoles that take shape in ecologies characterized by source language agentivity in tone languages. In doing so, we argue against claims that tone necessarily cedes to stress during language contact and creolization. Instead, contact varieties and creoles partake just like other languages in the convergence processes that lead to the areal clustering of prosodic systems.
Book chapter

Sociolinguistic characteristics of the English-lexifier contact languages of West Africa

2020

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Book chapter

Sociolinguistic characteristics of the English-lexifier contact languages of West Africa
2020
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This chapter provides a comparison of key sociolinguistic characteristics of Nigerian Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin, Ghanaian Pidgin English, Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) and Krio (Sierra Leone). In the past few decades, these African English-lexifier contact languages (AECs) have seen an exponential growth in speaker numbers and an expansion into domains once reserved for English and (non-creole) African languages. All AECs nevertheless still struggle with a low sociolinguistic prestige and the absence of corpus and status planning initiatives by state actors. Overall, the potential of these languages remains relatively untapped across the region for education, political participation, economic and cultural activity. The impact of the AECs on smaller languages through contact and shift to the AECs is also likely to make itself felt in coming decades.
Book chapter

Social factors in language contact

2020

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Book chapter

Social factors in language contact
2020
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Demography and socio-economic stratification are two crucial factors that determine language contact outcomes in social formations ranging from small-scale societies to nation states. Creoles, koines, lingua francas, and urban sociolects are sites of particularly intense contact and change, especially in the Global South. Next to core linguistics, the study of social factors in language contact draws on methods of historical research, political economic analysis, and linguistic data sciences. Dramatic socio-economic and demographic transformations in the next decades will significantly alter our yet limited understanding of how social factors shape the processes and outcomes of language contact and change.
Book chapter

The Atlantic

2020

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Book chapter

The Atlantic
2020
Yakpo, K. & Smith, N

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Abstract
Detailed studies of individual features suggest that two large linguistic areas that we term ‘Afrosphere’ and ‘Eurosphere’ converge on the Afro-European creole languages of the Atlantic. Contact with African adstrates has reinforced and expanded existing Afrosphere features in the Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles (AECs) spoken in Africa. In turn, the absence of contact with African adstrates has led to a weakening of Afrosphere, and a strengthening of Eurosphere features in the American AECs. The study of the creole languages of the Atlantic basin offers countless possibilities for cross-fertilization with historical, genetic and areal-typological linguistics. Future work will have to factor in the tectonic demographic shifts and far-reaching socio-economic changes underway in Africa, and their consequences for patterns of language use and contact along the Atlantic rim. In coming decades, the importance of the Atlantic will only grow as a crossroads of language contact, and a site for the emergence of new languages, speech styles, and plurilingual practices.
Book

A grammar of Pichi

2019

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Book

A grammar of Pichi
2019
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Pichi is an Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creole spoken by some 150,000 people on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea. This first comprehensive description of Pichi is based on primary data and presents a detailed analysis of the grammar and phonology of the language. It also includes sections on pragmatics and language contact with Spanish, a collection of texts, and wordlists. Pichi is an offshoot of 19th century Krio (Sierra Leone) and shares many characteristics with its West African sister languages Aku (Gambia), Nigerian Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin, and Ghanaian Pidgin. However, isolation from English and extensive contact with Spanish, language shift from Bube (Bantu), as well as koineization with Nigerian and Cameroon Pidgin have given the language a distinct character. There are also many structural and lexical parallels with the English-lexifier Creoles of the Caribbean including Jamaican, Creolese (Guyana), Sranan, and Ndyuka (Suriname). Pichi features a nominative-accusative alignment, SV(O) word order, adjective-noun order, prenominal determiners, and prepositions. The language has a seven-vowel system and twenty-two consonant phonemes, including two labio-velar plosives. Pichi has a two-tone system with tonal minimal pairs, morphological tone for the marking of pronominal case distinctions, and numerous tonal processes. The morphological structure of Pichi is largely isolating. However, there is some affixation, as well as tonal inflection and derivation. Pichi is an aspect-prominent language and the modal system includes an indicative-subjunctive opposition. The copula system employs various suppletive forms and is differentiated along the semantic criterion of time-stability. Like other Afro-European Creoles, Pichi shows typological blending. Most of the characteristics summarised above align Pichi with the Atlantic-Congo languages spoken in the West African littoral zone. At the same time, characteristics like the prenominal position of adjectives and determiners show a typological overlap with its lexifier English.
Book review

Cameroon Pidgin English: A comprehensive grammar, by M. Ayafor & M. J. Green

2019

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Book review

Cameroon Pidgin English: A comprehensive grammar, by M. Ayafor & M. J. Green
2019
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Cameroon Pidgin English, by Miriam Ayafor and Melanie Green, is the latest and, as the subtitle ‘A comprehensive grammar’ suggests, most extensive work yet on the African English-lexifier creole language Cameroon Pidgin English (CPE). With two hundred and sixty-two pages of grammar and another sixteen pages of excellent texts, this book is indeed the most comprehensive treatment of the language. The core grammar sections of this book contain a wealth of information that creolists, contact linguists, and linguists working on African languages and English will be able to make ample use of. This book and the corpus on which it is based therefore constitute an important advance for the description and documentation of African (contact) languages.
Journal article

Inheritance, contact, convergence: Pronominal allomorphy in the African English-lexifier Creoles

2019

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Journal article

Inheritance, contact, convergence: Pronominal allomorphy in the African English-lexifier Creoles
2019
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This article provides a comparative analysis of the suppletive allomorphy of two personal pronouns in the five African English-lexifier Creoles (AECs) Krio (Sierra Leone), Pichi (Equatorial Guinea), Ghanaian Pidgin English, Nigerian Pidgin, and Cameroon Pidgin. The alternation of the 3SG object forms /=àm/ (a clitic) and /ín/ (a non-clitic) is conditioned by a tonal obligatory contour principle (OCP), a vowel height OCP, animacy, and focus in different constellations across the five AECs. In addition, an epenthetic /r/ is recruited in four of the AECs to ensure that the OCP is not breached. The analyses suggest that pronominal suppletion in the AECs has been fashioned by processes of change and differentiation typical of geographically extensive language families, such as migration from linguistic homelands, acquisition and (partial) shift by neighbouring populations, interlectal cross-diffusion, as well as contact and convergence with adstrate, substrate, and superstrate languages.
Journal article

Neural correlates and functional connectivity of lexical tone processing in reading

2019

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Journal article

Neural correlates and functional connectivity of lexical tone processing in reading
2019
Kwok, V. P. Y., Matthews, S., Yakpo, K., & Tan, L. H.

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Abstract
Lexical tone processing in speech is mediated by bilateral superior temporal and inferior prefrontal regions, but little is known concerning the neural circuitries of lexical tone phonology in reading. Using fMRI, we examined the neural systems for lexical tone in visual Chinese word recognition. We found that the extraction of lexical tone phonology in print was subserved by bilateral fronto-parietal regions. Seed-to-voxel analyses showed that functionally connected cortical regions involved right inferior frontal gyrus and SMA, right middle frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal lobule, and SMA and bilateral cingulate gyri. Our results indicate that in Chinese tone reading, a bilateral network of frontal, parietal, motor, and cingulate regions is engaged, without involvement of temporal regions crucial for tone identification in auditory domain. Although neural couplings for lexical tone processing are different in speech and reading to some degree, the motor cortex seems to be a key component independent of modality.
Book chapter

On Pichi (Equatorial Guinea): Sociolinguistic, typological and contact-related aspects

2019

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Book chapter

On Pichi (Equatorial Guinea): Sociolinguistic, typological and contact-related aspects
2019
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Pichi is an Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creole spoken on the island of Bioko (Equatorial Guinea). This paper focuses on typologically noteworthy aspects that invite comparison of Pichi with related English-lexifier contact languages of West Africa. It provides a sociohistorical overview, a typological summary, a presentation of the tone system of Pichi, and a comparison of the tense-mood-aspect systems of Pichi, Naijá, Cameroon Pidgin, and Ghanaian Pidgin English. The outcomes of language contact with Spanish on the one hand, and with Naijá and Cameroon Pidgin on the other are also covered.
Book chapter

¿El nacimiento de una lengua afrohispana?: La influencia del español en el idioma criollo inglés de Guinea Ecuatorial

2018

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Book chapter

¿El nacimiento de una lengua afrohispana?: La influencia del español en el idioma criollo inglés de Guinea Ecuatorial
2018
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
En la isla de Bioko (Guinea Ecuatorial) la mayoría de la población habla pichi, un idioma criollo de base lexical inglesa, como lengua materna y vehicular. En este capítulo se analiza la huella del español presente en los patrones léxicos, gramaticales y discursivos de los hablantes de pichi en el momento actual mediante el estudio de los patrones de cambio de código pichi-español, así como de los préstamos léxicos y estructurales procedentes del español. La influencia de este idioma en el pichi es notable, algo que ha contribuido al desarrollo de características distintivas que separan al pichi de lenguas emparentadas de África Occidental, como el krio o el pidgin nigeriano. El pichi ha sido receptivo a la hibridación con el español debido a una mezcla de factores lingüísticos y extralingüísticos propios de la ecología lingüística de Bioko. Sin embargo, este proceso no es completo, ya que existen grandes áreas de la gramática pichi que no se han visto transformadas por el contacto con el español. No obstante, el pichi, con su carácter parcialmente mestizo, supone un testimonio único de la herencia afrohispana de Guinea Ecuatorial.
Book chapter

Negation in Pichi (Equatorial Guinea): The case for areal convergence

2018

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Book chapter

Negation in Pichi (Equatorial Guinea): The case for areal convergence
2018
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This chapter provides a detailed overview of negation in Pichi, the English-lexifier Creole spoken by the people of the island of Bioko (Equatorial Guinea). Pichi negation patterns align closely with areal negation patterns found across a broad swath of West Africa. Like the vast majority of genealogically diverse languages of the region, Pichi employs asymmetric negation strategies. These involve the use of subjunctive mood for the negation of imperatives, the use of suppletive portmanteau forms that combine negative polarity and aspect, and the use of an identity-equation copula that incorporates negative polarity, temporal-aspectual values, person deixis and pragmatic functions, and whose distribution is determined by complex syntactic rules. Negative concord is pragmatically determined, hence non-strict with common nouns, where it renders emphatic meanings. Negative concord is grammatically determined and strict with negative indefinite pronouns and with negative phrases fulfilling the functions of negative indefinite pronouns. I conclude that Pichi negation patterns are typically areal in character and cannot be seen to reflect a “Creole” linguistic type.
Interview

Interview mit Kofi Yakpo, Associate Professor an der University of Hong Kong, alias “Linguist”

2018

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Interview

Interview mit Kofi Yakpo, Associate Professor an der University of Hong Kong, alias “Linguist”
2018
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Kofi Yakpo ist Insidern auch bekannt als „Linguist“ der HipHop-Formation „Advanced Chemistry“. In dieser Ausgabe von „Sprachreport“, dem Magazin des Instituts für deutsche Sprache beantwortet er Fragen zur sprachlichen Diskurswelt des HipHop. Kofi Yakpo alias „Linguist“ gründete 1987 mit Torch und Toni-L die HipHop Band „Advanced Chemistry“. Die Single „Fremd im eigenen Land“ und die B-Seite „Ich zerstöre meinen Feind“ gelten heute als Meilensteine der deutschen Musikgeschichte. Kofi Yakpo studierte in Köln und Port Vila (Vanuatu) Linguistik, Ethnologie und Politik, sowie Management und Jura in Genf und London. Er promovierte an der Universität Nijmegen (Niederlande) und forscht und lehrt heute als Professor für Linguistik an der Universität Hongkong.
Journal article

A Meta-Analytic Study of the Neural Systems for Auditory Processing of Lexical Tones

2017

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Journal article

A Meta-Analytic Study of the Neural Systems for Auditory Processing of Lexical Tones
2017
Kwok, V. P. Y., Dan, G., Yakpo, K., Matthews, S., Fox, P. T., Li, P., & Tan, L. H.

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Abstract
The neural systems of lexical tone processing have been studied for many years. However, previous findings have been mixed with regard to the hemispheric specialization for the perception of linguistic pitch patterns in native speakers of tonal language. In this study, we performed two activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses, one on neuroimaging studies of auditory processing of lexical tones in tonal languages (17 studies), and the other on auditory processing of lexical information in non-tonal languages as a control analysis for comparison (15 studies). The lexical tone ALE analysis showed significant brain activations in bilateral inferior prefrontal regions, bilateral superior temporal regions and the right caudate. While the control ALE analysis showed significant cortical activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus and left temporo-parietal regions. However, we failed to obtain significant differences from the contrast analysis between two auditory conditions, which might be caused by the limited number of studies available for comparison. Although the current study lack evidence to argue for a lexical tone specific activation pattern, our results provide clues and directions for future investigations on this topic, more and more sophisticated methods are needed to explore this question in more depth as well.
Journal article

Towards a model of language contact and change in the English-lexifier creoles of Africa and the Caribbean

2017

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Journal article

Towards a model of language contact and change in the English-lexifier creoles of Africa and the Caribbean
2017
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles (AECs) exhibit fascinating combinations of disparate typological characteristics. I present a model of post-formative (“post-creolization”) contact and change and provide a comprehensive inventory of contact constellations in Africa and the Caribbean. I conduct a comparative analysis of causative constructions in seven African and Caribbean AECs, argue for the notional separation of the traditional creolist terms “superstrate”, “lexifier”, “substrate” and “adstrate”, and account for the linguistic-structural relevance of these distinctions. The model can explain the typological diversity within and across the AECs, help elucidate the genealogical and areal differentiation of the AECs, and contribute to our understanding of the processes and outcomes of language contact and change in multilingual ecologies.
Book

Boundaries and bridges: Language contact in multilingual ecologies

2017

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Book

Boundaries and bridges: Language contact in multilingual ecologies
2017
Yakpo, K. & Muysken, P. (Ed.)

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Abstract
Multidirectional language contact involving more than two languages is little described. However, it probably represents the most common type of contact in the world, where colonization, rapid socioeconomic and demographic change, and society-wide multilingualism have led to dramatic linguistic change. This book presents fascinating cases of multidirectional contact and convergence between highly diverse languages in an emerging linguistic area in Suriname and the Guianas and proposes a framework for comparable studies.
Book chapter

Creole in transition: Contact with Dutch and typological change in Sranan

2017

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Book chapter

Creole in transition: Contact with Dutch and typological change in Sranan
2017
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Most Surinamese today acquire a heterogeneous variety of Sranan characterized by extensive admixture with Dutch. The analysis of a corpus of contemporary Sranan reveals variation in the expression of spatial relations and the realization of arguments in ditransitive constructions. Both domains feature syntactic rearrangements and semantic changes that replicate Dutch structures. Pattern replication has led to alterations in the frequency and distribution of Sranan elements and structures, as well as innovations with Sranan and Dutch borrowed elements fulfilling new, previously unattested functions. Sranan is undergoing a substantial typological shift from more substrate-oriented, Kwa-like structures to ones similar to those found in the West Germanic superstrate Dutch. Society-wide multilingualism involving Dutch, Sranan and often additional languages provides the socio-linguistic backdrop to contact-induced variation and change in Sranan.
Book chapter

Language contact and change in the multilingual ecologies of the Guianas

2017

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Book chapter

Language contact and change in the multilingual ecologies of the Guianas
2017
Yakpo, K. & Muysken, P.

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Abstract
This book deals with multilingualism, language contact, language change and convergence in the Guianas of South America, with a focus on Suriname. The Guianas are a very complex region. We have named our volume Boundaries and bridges because it reflects at the same time the maintenance of ethnic and linguistic boundaries, through the languages involved, but also the numerous instances of cross-linguistic influence across these boundaries. It illustrates the point that in the complex multilingual and multi-ethnic area of the Guianas, the languages spoken have been part of an effort of groups to keep themselves apart, as boundaries, but have also undergone numerous changes in the presence of other languages, and thus form bridges. The Guianas, or any part of them, do not form a single language community, but rather a chain of interacting and intersecting communities, which have very diverse and complex relations among themselves. Hence the term multilingual ecologies in our subtitle. However, these cases of cross-linguistic influence are very diverse in nature, and involve many parts of language. They result from different contact scenarios and include maintenance, shift, and creation.
Book chapter

Multilingual ecologies in the Guianas: Overview, typology, prospects

2017

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Book chapter

Multilingual ecologies in the Guianas: Overview, typology, prospects
2017
Yakpo, K. & Muysken, P.

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Abstract
This book sketches the multilingual ecologies of the different language groups that have interacted in Suriname and across the Guianas. These groups have maintained a part of the boundaries demarcating their separate identities, and at the same time they show a tendency to cross bridges, metaphorically speaking, in their multilingual practices. Our initial question was which contact-induced changes occurred in the languages of Suriname and how these changes can be explained.
Book chapter

Out of India: Language contact and change in Caribbean Hindustani

2017

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Book chapter

Out of India: Language contact and change in Caribbean Hindustani
2017
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Sarnami, spoken in Suriname, is the only variety of Caribbean Hindustani that still has a sizeable speaker community. Sarnami is the result of the koineization of several northern Indian languages during Dutch colonial rule. A comparison of Sarnami with its closest Indian relatives suggests that contact with Sranan and Dutch has led to syntactic change, with an inherited head-final order giving way to head-initial order. SVO is far more frequent in Sarnami than in the Indian control group. In relative constructions and with certain types of modal and aspectual auxiliary constructions, the transition has been made to NRel (post- posed relative clauses) and AuxV (auxiliary-verb order). However, diachronically more stable constituent orders like noun vs. adjective, noun vs. adposition and noun vs. genitive have not been affected by change. Constituent order change in Sarnami is an example of the kind of convergence that characterizes Suriname as a linguistic area, where the two dominant languages Sranan and Dutch simultaneously exert pressure toward typological change.
Book chapter

The tense-mood-aspect systems of the languages of Suriname

2017

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Book chapter

The tense-mood-aspect systems of the languages of Suriname
2017
Borges, R., Muysken, P., Villerius, S., & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This chapter deals with tense, mood, and aspect (TMA) marking in the languages of Suriname, focusing on the stability of forms, meanings, and structural patterns. Despite its prominent position in the creolization debate and occasional mentions in the literature on linguistic areas, studies on TMA in (non creolization) contact settings in Suriname are relatively few. In a relatively short period of time, Suriname has seen numerous, often radical, linguistic developments due to its many languages, pervasive multilingualism, and array of contact scenarios. We will investigate the vulnerability of features to contact induced changes in the TMA systems of the Surinamese creoles, Surinamese Dutch, Sarnami, and Surinamese Javanese.
Book chapter

Unity in diversity: The homogeneity of the substrate and the grammar of space in the African and Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles

2017

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Book chapter

Unity in diversity: The homogeneity of the substrate and the grammar of space in the African and Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles
2017
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Locative constructions in Sranan and Pichi, two Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles spoken in Suriname and in Equatorial Guinea respectively, owe substantial parts of their structure to corresponding African substrate and adstrate structures. I attribute the emergence and maintenance of these structures in the creoles to the areal-typological homogeneity of locative constructions across West and Central Africa. Common to the creoles and the African languages are the scarcity of path-incorporating prepositions, the use of general locative prepositions in both static and motion events, as well as the use of pre- or postpositional relator nouns. The two creoles reflect a large range of the structural possibilities found in African substrate and adstrate languages while maintaining a basically “African” template. At the same time, locative constructions Sranan and Pichi both manifest the effects of contact with their lexifier English, and their respective European superstrates languages Dutch and Spanish.
Book review

Dictionnaire éwé-français, by J. Rongier

2016

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Book review

Dictionnaire éwé-français, by J. Rongier
2016
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Ewe has been the subject of some of the earliest work in African linguistics, it is one of the major languages along the West African littoral zone between Senegal and Nigeria, an important regional language in Ghana, and the most widely spoken language of Togo. Jacques Rongier’s monumental and comprehensive Dictionnaire éwé-français narrows an existing gap. Rongier’s Dictionnaire éwé-français complements his Dictionnaire français-éwé which appeared twenty years earlier (1995). The Dictionnaire éwé-français is even more ambitious in scope. Any modern dictionary of Ewe will invariably be measured against the yardstick of Westermann’s lexicographic masterpiece of early African linguistics, the Wörterbuch der Ewe-Sprache. And indeed, my first reflex upon receipt of the review copy of the Dictionnaire éwé-français was to pick the 1905 edition of Westermann’s book from my shelf, and page through it, with great curiosity as to the differences between the two works.
Book review

Exploring language in a multilingual context: Variation, interaction and ideology in language documentation, by B. Migge & I. Léglise

2016

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Book review

Exploring language in a multilingual context: Variation, interaction and ideology in language documentation, by B. Migge & I. Léglise
2016
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Bettina Migge and Isabelle Léglise’s monograph Exploring Language in a Multilingual Context sheds light onto recent developments in the English-lexified creole languages of Surinamese origin spoken in western French Guiana, i.e. Eastern Maroon (a cover term for the mutually intelligible varieties Aluku, Ndyuka, and Pamaka), Saamaka (also referred to as Saramaka/Saramaca), and Sranan Tongo. This book makes fascinating reading for linguists and social anthropologists interested in linguistic and cultural hybridization in linguistically, culturally, and socially complex (post-)colonial societies. It is also an important contribution to the study of the languages of Suriname and French Guiana. So far, most of the available linguistic literature on the latter country is in French, and often published with smaller, specialized publishers (for an overview of the linguistic situation in Guiana, see e.g. Renault-Lescure & Goury 2009; Vernaudon & Fillol 2009). The book anticipates the publication of two other works (in which the two authors are involved as editors and/or contributors) that also look at the languages of Suriname from a more multidisciplinary perspective. One spans social geography, linguistics, social anthropology and politics (Carlin et al. 2014), the other examines developments in the non-creole languages of the region in addition to the creole languages, e.g. Sarnami, Javanese, Lokono, Hakka, Dutch (Yakpo & Muysken, 2017).
Journal article

Neural systems for auditory perception of lexical tones

2016

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Journal article

Neural systems for auditory perception of lexical tones
2016
Kwok, V. P. Y., Dan G., Yakpo, K., Matthews, S., & Tan, L. H.

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Abstract
"Fremd im eigenen Land" (Stranger in My Own Land) is the foundational song of German conscious rap. At a time when Germany was in post-unification nationalist frenzy, Advanced Chemistry's song decried the tide of racist violence engulfing the country, challenging notions of
Journal article

O estatuto do pichi na Guiné Equatorial

2016

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Journal article

O estatuto do pichi na Guiné Equatorial
2016
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Este artigo explora a relação entre as políticas e as ideologias linguísticas relacionadas ao pichi, o crioulo de base lexical inglesa da Guiné Equatorial e a segunda língua nacional mais amplamente falada do país. Forneço explicações para a ausência de compromisso do Estado com o pichi, assim como a omissão do mesmo nos discursos públicos. Sugiro que as ideologias linguísticas que circundam o pichi estabelecem, em grande medida, valores negativos sobre a língua e têm contribuído para inibir as oportunidades de elevação de seu status e expansão de seu uso na Guiné Equatorial. Concluo que o pichi continuará, portanto, a ampliar suas funções sociais informalmente, pela conquista gradual de domínios adicionais de uso.
Journal article

“The only language we speak really well.” The English creoles of Equatorial Guinea and West Africa at the intersection of language ideologies and language policies

2016

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Journal article

“The only language we speak really well.” The English creoles of Equatorial Guinea and West Africa at the intersection of language ideologies and language policies
2016
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This article explores the nexus between language policies and language ideologies in Equatorial Guinea and West Africa. By analyzing spoken and written discourses in Spanish and Pichi, I identify a set of ideas and beliefs about Pichi and the semiotic processes by which they have emerged. The comparison of Pichi with Krio, Nigerian Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin and Ghanaian Pidgin English shows that Pichi is the most disadvantaged of the West African English-lexicon creoles with respect to a number of sociolinguistic characteristics. I argue that linguistic ideologies about Pichi have contributed significantly to disregarding language policy options for elevating the status and extending the uses of Pichi in Equatorial Guinea. Pichi is nevertheless expected to expand its social functions by gradually conquering additional domains of use as has been the case with the other English creoles of West Africa.
Book

Code-switching between structural and sociolinguistic perspectives

2015

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Book

Code-switching between structural and sociolinguistic perspectives
2015
Stell, G. & Yakpo, K. (Ed.)

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Abstract
This volume brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic perspectives on code-switching. Featuring new data from five continents and languages with a large range of linguistic affiliations, the contributions all address the role of social factors in determining the forms and outcomes of code-switching. This book is a significant addition to the empirical and theoretical foundations of the study of code-switching.
Book chapter

Code-switching and social change: Convergent language mixing in a multilingual society

2015

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Book chapter

Code-switching and social change: Convergent language mixing in a multilingual society
2015
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The majority of the population of Suriname uses elements stemming from at least two languages in everyday, informal interactions. While language contact between the languages of Suriname manifested itself chiefly through lexical borrowing in earlier times, the range of present contact phenomena also includes alternational and insertional code-switching, as well as code-mixing patterns shared across language boundaries. I analyze characteristics of the evolving mixed code that draws on Sranan and Dutch elements by looking at how it manifests itself in Sarnami, Surinamese Javanese and Sranan. I show that socio-economic changes in the past five decades with respect to urbanization, education, migration and mass media have contributed to obscuring ethno-linguistic boundaries, dramatically increased exposure to Dutch and Sranan, and driven the spread of language mixing practices into new domains. I conclude that mixing practices in Suriname are converging in a common communicative space that transcends linguistic boundaries.
Book chapter

Elusive or self-evident? Looking for common ground in approaches to code-switching

2015

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Book chapter

Elusive or self-evident? Looking for common ground in approaches to code-switching
2015
Stell, G. & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The present volume emphasizes commonalities of approaches to code-switching. Despite the theoretically and methodologically eclectic character of code-switching studies, it seems feasible to bring together various approaches to code-switching spanning all three perspectives as long as they meet the criterion of allowing for social explanations. This is the point of view that we took while editing this volume. This volume also seeks to widen the empirical basis of the study of code-switching by including a richly diverse range of contact settings encompassing countries such as Cameroon, Hong Kong, Suriname, Burkina Faso, The Dutch Antilles, French Guiana, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, United Kingdom, South Africa, Luxembourg and Australia, and using primary data from languages representing a broad variety of linguistic types and affiliations (Niger-Congo, Sinitic, Germanic, Indic, Austronesian, Pama-Nyungan, Celtic, as well as Afro-Caribbean and Pacific English-lexifier Creoles and Mixed Languages).
Journal article

Neural signatures of lexical tone reading

2015

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Journal article

Neural signatures of lexical tone reading
2015
Kwok, V. P. Y., Wang, T., Chen, S., Yakpo, K., Zhu, L., Fox, P. T., & Tan, L. H.

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Abstract
Research on how lexical tone is neuroanatomically represented in the human brain is central to our understanding of cortical regions subserving language. Past studies have exclusively focused on tone perception of the spoken language, and little is known as to the lexical tone processing in reading visual words and its associated brain mechanisms. In this study, we performed two experiments to identify neural substrates in Chinese tone reading. First, we used a tone judgment paradigm to investigate tone processing of visually presented Chinese characters. We found that, relative to baseline, tone perception of printed Chinese characters were mediated by strong brain activation in bilateral frontal regions, left inferior parietal lobule, left posterior middle/medial temporal gyrus, left inferior temporal region, bilateral visual systems, and cerebellum. Surprisingly, no activation was found in superior temporal regions, brain sites well known for speech tone processing. In activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to combine results of relevant published studies, we attempted to elucidate whether the left temporal cortex activities identified in Experiment one is consistent with those found in previous studies of auditory lexical tone perception. ALE results showed that only the left superior temporal gyrus and putamen were critical in auditory lexical tone processing. These findings suggest that activation in the superior temporal cortex associated with lexical tone perception is modality-dependent.
Book chapter

On the linguistic consequences of language contact in Suriname: The case of convergence

2015

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Book chapter

On the linguistic consequences of language contact in Suriname: The case of convergence
2015
Yakpo, K., van den Berg, M., & Borges, R.

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Abstract
Suriname is often represented as a stratified mosaic of cultures and languages. The country boasts languages from two major indigenous Amerindian families, several Afro-Caribbean English Lexifier Creoles and further dialectal varieties of Indo-European languages belonging to the Germanic cluster (English, Dutch) and the Italic cluster (French, Portuguese), and futher representatives of major linguistic families of the world, namely Indic (Sarnami), Austronesian (Javanese) and Sino-Tibetan (Hakka or Keija). In this chapter, we challenge this somewhat static view of Suriname’s cultural and linguistic diversity. The linguistic data that we present will show that languages in Suriname do not merely co-exist. There are ongoing changes in the distribution of languages across functional domains and new mixed codes are emerging. In this chapter, we focus on convergence, the emergence of (partial) similarities at the expense of diffferences between the languages in contact. Specifically, we look at language mixing phenomena and language change involving Surinamese Dutch, Sranan, Sarnami (Suriname Hindustani), the Maroon Creole language Ndyuka and Surinamese Javanese.
Book chapter

Language change in a multiple contact setting: The case of Sarnami (Suriname)

2014

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Book chapter

Language change in a multiple contact setting: The case of Sarnami (Suriname)
2014
Yakpo, K. & Muysken, P.

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Abstract
The South American nation of Suriname features a situation of multiple language contact in which speakers use various languages in changing constellations, and often simultaneously. Sarnami (Surinamese Hindustani) shows traces of koineization of various Indian languages, and the effects of multilingualism involving Sranan Tongo and Dutch, the two dominant languages of Suriname. Sarnami has undergone substantial contact-induced change in its lexicon and grammar, including the rise of SVO alongside the inherited SOV basic word order. We conclude that the ever growing influence of Sranan Tongo and Dutch may lead to more extensive restructuring with similar outcomes as “creolization”. Traditional labels are therefore not always adequate beyond the realm of the canonical creoles involving European lexifiers and (West) African substrate languages.
Book chapter

Pichi

2013

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Book chapter

Pichi
2013
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Pichi is an Afro-Caribbean English-lexicon creole spoken on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea. Pichi is an offshoot of Krio, which first arrived in Bioko, the former Fernando Po, with African settlers from Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1827 (Fyfe 1962: 165). It is the second-most widely spoken language of the capital Malabo after Spanish and is used as a primary language in a number of villages and towns along the Coast of Bioko. Pichi is also spoken as a lingua franca throughout Bioko. No official figures exist but by extrapolation from population data, there is reason to assume that Pichi is used by at least a 100,000 people of Equatorial Guinea’s population of 693,000 (UN 2009). This makes Pichi the second most widely spoken non-European language of the country behind Fang (Northwest Bantu). The following overview is based on a corpus of some 50,000 words collected in Bioko between 2003 and 2007 (cf. Yakpo 2009b).
Book chapter

Pichi structure dataset

2013

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Book chapter

Pichi structure dataset
2013
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Pichi is used as a home or vernacular language by the vast majority of the old-established population of the island of Bioko. It is most often used as a primary home language in the Equatoguinean capital Malabo (located on Bioko), as well as in Luba (the second largest agglomeration of Bioko). There are no language-specific census data on Equatorial Guinea. By extrapolation from population figures it may however be safe to assume that at least seventy percent of the population of Bioko, hence more than 150,000 people, use Pichi regularly. On one end, the lectal continuum of Pichi features a variety rather close to Sierra Leone Krio in terms of phonology, morphosyntax, lexicon and idiomatic usage. This variety tends to be characteristic of older speakers, who grew up in the centre of Malabo in the ambit of Fernandino creole culture. On the other end, we find a variety characterized by phonological and morphosyntactic innovation, the absence of older layers of Krio-derived vocabulary, some convergence with West African English lexifier creoles like Nigerian Pidgin, and considerable lexical and structural admixture from Spanish. This variety, which is the default lect documented in APiCS, tends to be spoken by the younger urban working-class population of Malabo, often with a Bubi cultural background, who have adopted Pichi as a primary language, and whose families have been accultured in more recent decades into the Pichi-speaking urban culture of Malabo. The former variety is spoken by much fewer people than the latter one and continues shrinking at the expense of the latter variety.
Journal article

Talen in contact in Suriname en Nederland: Eenheid in Verscheidenheid?

2013

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Journal article

Talen in contact in Suriname en Nederland: Eenheid in Verscheidenheid?
2013
van den Berg, M., Borges, R., & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Veel inwoners van Suriname zijn meertalig, al hoeft dat niet te betekenen dat elk individu alle talen in zijn of haar taalrepertoire even vloeiend en vaardig beheerst. Als gevolg van deze veeltaligheid op gemeenschapsniveau en meertaligheid op individueel niveau staan verschillende talen van Suriname met elkaar in contact. Na een kort algemeen overzicht van de stand van zaken met betrekking tot de talen van Suriname op het niveau van de samenleving, waar wordt stil gestaan bij een aantal recente grootschalige onderzoeken naar taalgebruik in Suriname, woorden een aantal voorbeelden van taaldata in ons corpus besproken die inzicht geven in meertaligheid op individueel niveau. Deze voorbeelden in het Sranantongo, het Aukaans en het Sarnami suggereren dat ook deze, in de Surinaamse context, grote talen niet immuun zijn voor taalverandering als gevolg van taalcontact. Er zijn voorbeelden van divergentie, maar er zijn ook voorbeelden van convergentie. De voorbeelden van convergentie zijn opmerkelijk omdat ze laten zien dat de talen van Suriname op elkaar gaan lijken. Eenheid in verscheidenheid krijgt daarmee een nieuwe betekenis.
Book chapter

Tense, mood, and aspect in Suriname

2013

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Book chapter

Tense, mood, and aspect in Suriname
2013
Borges, R., Muysken, P., Villerius, S., & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Various proposals have been made with regards to stability, or conversely borrowability, of particular aspects of languages’ lexicons and structures. In this paper, we investigate the stability and borrowability of forms and patterns of tense, mood, and aspect systems of the Surinamese creoles, Surinamese Dutch, sarnami, and Surinamese Javanese. Our investigation reveals that Sranan and Dutch tend to be the source language in the cross-linguistic transfer of forms and patterns in the Surinamese context, and that typological distance and socio-cultural factors play a role in determining contact induce developments in the languages studied. This suggests that,although our results loosely match various stability scales, language system external considerations so far largely preclude the construction of universally applicable stability and borrowability scales.
Journal article

Wayward daughter: Language contact in the emergence of Pichi (Equatorial Guinea)

2013

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Journal article

Wayward daughter: Language contact in the emergence of Pichi (Equatorial Guinea)
2013
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Pichi is an Afro-Caribbean English Lexifier Creole spoken by some 150’000 people on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea. Pichi is an offshoot of Krio (Sierra Leone) and shares many characteristics with its West African sister languages. However, insulation from English and Krio, extensive contact and hybridization with Spanish, language shift involving the Bantu language Bubi, as well as koineization through the prolonged coexistence of Pichi with closely-related languages like Nigerian Pidgin and Cameroonian Pidgin have given the language a character distinct from that of the other English Lexifier creoles of the region. The study of Pichi and its comparison with other West African AECs therefore offers fresh insights into the role that language contact has played in the differentiation of the Afro-Caribbean English lexifier Creoles.
Book chapter

Betwixt and between: Causatives in the English-lexicon creoles of West Africa and the Caribbean

2012

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Book chapter

Betwixt and between: Causatives in the English-lexicon creoles of West Africa and the Caribbean
2012
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Causative formation in the family of Afro-Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles (AECs) can be ordered along a continuum with an “African” and a “European” pole. On one end we find biclausal structures: A causative main verb takes a clausal complement marked for subjunctive mood. These structures appear to conform to a West African areal pattern in which subjunctive mood, instantiated in a modal complementizer, appears in a range of deontic contexts, including causatives. At the other end, causative formation involves English-style “raising”, hence reduced clauses. The prevalence of either pattern strongly correlates with the contact trajectory of an individual AEC. Languages that have been in continuous contact with English generally feature a more fragmented modal system in which causative formation follows idiosyncratic strategies. AECs that have been insulated from English for a longer period, and the African AECs in general, feature more unitary modal systems in which causative constructions are formally part of a larger functional domain of deonticity.
Book chapter

Reiteration in Pichi: Forms, functions and areal-typological perspectives

2012

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Book chapter

Reiteration in Pichi: Forms, functions and areal-typological perspectives
2012
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Pichi, an Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creole spoken on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea, features four types of reiteration. Amongst them, reduplication and repetition can be distinguished on formal and semantic grounds. Reduplication is a derivational operation consisting of self-compounding and tone deletion. It is restricted to dynamic verbs and yields iterative, dispersive and attenuative meanings. Repetition occurs with all major word classes, renders more iconic meanings and is analyzed as semi-morphological in nature. A comparison with verbal reiteration in a cross-section of West African languages and two of its sister languages in the Caribbean allows the conclusion that Pichi reduplication reflects an areal pattern. I conclude further that Pichi reduplication is not exceptionally iconic nor specifically 'creole' in nature.
Book review

L’élément africain dans la langue capverdienne (variété de Santiago), by N. Quint

2011

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Book review

L’élément africain dans la langue capverdienne (variété de Santiago), by N. Quint
2011
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This book by Nicolas Quint, researcher at the French Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), presents a detailed treatment of African elements in the Santiago variety of the Portuguese-lexicon creole spoken in the Cape Verde Archipelago. The book is a bilingual Portuguese–French edition. Originally, it is in fact a translation from an English contribution by Quint to the volume Black through White, edited by Angela Bartens and Philip Baker, and due to appear with Battlebridge. The edition under review additionally features an informative preface written by Manuel Veiga, until recently Minister of Education of Cape Verde.
Journal article

Lenguas de Guinea Ecuatorial: De la documentación a la implementación

2011

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Journal article

Lenguas de Guinea Ecuatorial: De la documentación a la implementación
2011
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Este artículo pretende proporcionar una panorámica general sobre la situación actual de la documentación de las lenguas ecuatoguineanas y la implementación de políticas lingüísticas en el país, y presenta algunas ideas sobre cómo avanzar en la promoción de las lenguas africanas de Guinea Ecuatorial en la esfera pública. También proporciona un breve ejemplo de caso para la documentación en Guinea Ecuatorial, a través de mi propio trabajo descriptivo del pichi, la lengua criolla de base lexical inglesa de la isla de Bioko.
Report

Evaluation finale du projet "Formation professionnelle axée sur l'emploi, au Sénégal et dans des pays sélectionnés de la région"

2010

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Report

Evaluation finale du projet "Formation professionnelle axée sur l'emploi, au Sénégal et dans des pays sélectionnés de la région"
2010
Rodríguez, M., Yakpo, K., & Zillich, M.

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Abstract
L’évaluation a été menée par „Konzept, Beratung und Training“ pour le compte d’InWEnt Gmbh. L’équipe de consultants était composée de Madeleine Rodriguez, du Dr. Kofi Yakpo et de Michael Zillich. L’évaluation s’est déroulée dans la période allant d’avril à juillet 2010, en ayant recours au système d’évaluation PriME d’InWEnt, qui se réfère aux critères d’évaluation du CAD. L’objet de l’évaluation était le projet «Formation professionnelle axée sur l’emploi, au Sénégal et dans des pays sélectionnés de la région», lequel a duré du 01.01.2005 au 30.09.2010 et a représenté un volume financier global de 857.713,41 euros. Le projet avait pour objectif de renforcer les compétences théoriques et pratiques des formateurs dans les institutions partenaires de formation professionnelle et de les rendre aptes à moderniser leurs contenus de formation, en prenant en compte les besoins de MPME orientées vers la croissance.
Book

Gramática del pichi

2010

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Book

Gramática del pichi
2010
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
El Pichi es uno de los idiomas de la isla de Bioko, Guinea Ecuatorial. Es el idioma predominante en los barrios más populosos de Malabo, la capital y en algunos pueblos situados a lo largo de la costa de Bioko, entre los que destaca Luba, el segundo pueblo más importante de la isla. Aunque no existen cifras oficiales, podemos aseverar que el Pichi es hoy en día el segundo idioma africano más hablado en el país, solo por detrás del Fang y seguido de cerca por el Bubi, el idioma del pueblo original de Bioko. El Pichi pertenece a la rama africana de la vasta familia de idiomas criollos Afro-Caribeños de base lexical inglesa, idiomas entre los cuales se observan muchas similitudes léxicas y estructurales. El Pichi está relacionado más directamente con el Krio de Sierra Leona. Existen, además, suficientes evidencias lingüísticas e históricas para suponer que el pichi, el Krio y el Aku –su descendiente en Gambia– comparten su origen, al menos parcialmente, con los del Nigerian Pidgin, el Cameroonian Pidgin, y el Ghanaian Pidgin English.
Thesis

A grammar of Pichi

2009

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Thesis

A grammar of Pichi
2009
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Pichi (formerly known as Fernando Po Creole English) is an Atlantic English-lexicon Creole spoken on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea. With at least 100,000 speakers, Pichi is an offshoot of Krio (Sierra Leone) and shares many characteristics with its West African sister languages Aku (Gambia) and Nigerian, Cameroonian and Ghanaian Pidgin. At the same time, contact with Spanish, the colonial and official language of Equatorial Guinea, has made a significant impact on the lexicon and grammar of Pichi. This first comprehensive description of Pichi is based on extensive fieldwork in Equatorial Guinea. It presents a detailed analysis of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language and addresses language contact between Pichi and Spanish. The annexes contain a collection of interlinearised and annotated texts as well as Pichi-English-Pichi vocabulary lists.
Book chapter

Complexity revisited: Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) and Spanish in contact

2009

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Book chapter

Complexity revisited: Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) and Spanish in contact
2009
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Recent attempts to prove the simplicity of Creoles with respect to non-Creoles have, like preceding ones concentrated on describing the assumed paucity of selected surfacephenomena in quantitative terms. None of these accounts has taken into consideration that typically, Creoles are languages in contact. In the multilingual speech communities of West Africa but equally so in other regions, Creoles and Pidgins are in contact with lexifier superstrates, with historically unrelated non-lexifier superstrates and with a host of adstrate and substrate languages. This paper attempts to provide answers to two questions. (1) Can we reconcile the complexity of the mixed grammar and lexicon of a language like Pichi withthe notion of simplicity given that code-mixing of the type presented here forms an integral partof the linguistic system of the language? (2) Can we reconcile the restructuring (or “elaboration”in terms of the simplicity hypothesis) of Pichi grammar and lexicon through code-mixing within the short time-span of a hundred and seventy years with the notion that the youth of Creoles makes them simpler than non-Creoles?
Book chapter

Tone in Pichi

2009

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Book chapter

Tone in Pichi
2009
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creole Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) is a tone language. Pichi has two phonological tones, a level H and a level L tone. The language features numerous monosyllabic tonal minimal pairs, for example, dé /H/ ‘locative-existential copula’ vs. dè /L/ ‘imperfective marker’, and wét /H/ ‘wait’ vs. wèt /L/ ‘with’. It also shows the maximal number of possible tone patterns over bisyllabic words of the same syntactic category, for example, fíbà /HL/ ‘fever’, wàtá /LH/ ‘water’, nyɔ́ní /HH/ ‘ant’, and jɔ̀mbà /LL/ ‘lover’. Grammatical tone is used for the inflection of personal pronouns for case and in compounding. Tone patterns over words are unevenly distributed. Most English-derived words, which constitute the majority of lexemes, bear at least and not more than one H, and the position of the H tone largely coincides with primary stress placement in the cognate forms of English. Polysyllabic lexemes with more than one H or no H at all are fewer and are generally found in words with an African etymology, as in nyɔ́ní /HH/ ‘ant’ above, derived from Mende ‘red ant’. Pichi also has a number of tonal processes, including rightward H-tone spreading, tone sandhi and deletion, and a tone-conditioned suppletive allomorphy. Intonational boundary tones expressing pragmatic functions like clausal focus and emphasis or yes/no questions exclusively occur over the utterance-final syllable. Pichi features utterance-level downstep, which means that every H tone is lower than a preceding one within the same utterance.
Academic paper

ASJP world language tree of lexical similarity

2009

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Academic paper

ASJP world language tree of lexical similarity
2009
Müller, A., Velupillai, V., Wichmann, S., Brown, C. H., Brown, P., Holman, E. W., Bakker, D., Belyaev, O., Egorov, D., Mailhammer, R., Grant, A., & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The World Language Tree graphically illustrates relative degrees of lexical similarity holding among 3384 of the world's languages and dialects (henceforth, languages) currently found in the ASJP database (ASJP stands for Automated Similarity Judgment program). Languages branched more closely together on the tree are generally lexically more similar than languages branched less closely together.
Essay

Fremd im eigenen Land: Die verbale Gewalt des Rassismus, das Wort als Waffe und Rap auf Deutsch

2006

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Essay

Fremd im eigenen Land: Die verbale Gewalt des Rassismus, das Wort als Waffe und Rap auf Deutsch
2006
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Linguist, das bin ich. Sprache ist meine Leidenschaft, mein Daseinszweck. Meine Begegnung mit Hiphop fand über Sprache statt. Meine Arbeit als Sprachwissenschaftler und Autor ist ganz stark durch meine Erfahrung als Wortkünstler geprägt. In meiner Arbeit als Menschenrechtsaktivist führe ich das Wort als Waffe. In Verhandlungen mit störrischen Regierungsbeamten, schmierigen Weltbankvertretern oder bösartigen Landbesitzern, die mittellosen Bauern das Land wegnehmen. Ich bin fasziniert von Reimen, von der Beziehung zwischen Beat, Intonation, der Silbe, dem Phonem. Sprache und Rhythmus sind miteinander aufs Intimste verquickt. Physikalisch und physiologisch. Und zwar seitdem der Homo sapiens sprechen gelernt hat. Die Wahl des Namens hat sich als eine vom Himmel gesandte Inspiration gewissermaßen von allein ergeben. Ein Merkmal der Hiphop-Kultur in Deutschland ist, dass man sich seinen Namen selbst ausdenken kann. In den USA waren das immer die Community, die Homies, das Umfeld, das einem als Gütesiegel einen Namen verliehen hat. Oft geschah dies während oder nach einem wichtigen Battle, auf dem der Künstler seine Skills unter Beweis gestellt hatte (...).
Report

The human right to food in Malawi: Report of an international fact-finding mission

2006

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Report

The human right to food in Malawi: Report of an international fact-finding mission
2006
Samdup, C. & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The international fact-finding mission to Malawi on the Human Right to Food (April 17-23, 2006) was undertaken as a collaborative initiative of Rights & Democracy and FIAN International. It responded to a request from the National Taskforce on the Human Right to Food, a network of Malawian civil society organizations coordinated by Church and Society, a project of the CCAP Blantyre Synod. The objective of the mission was to take stock of the hunger crisis from a human rights perspective and to provide related recommendations as a contribution towards sustainable food security and food self-sufficiency in Malawi. It was also hoped, that the exposure provided by an international delegation of human rights experts would be an impetus to the civil society campaign for a "Human Right to Food Bill" to be passed in Malawi’s parliament. The mission delegation was comprised of six individuals from Canada, Germany, Ghana, Malawi and Zambia. This report and the fact-finding mission on which it is based represent an effort to apply the FAO Guidelines in a practical experience and in doing so, to illustrate the distinct advantages a human rights framework provides for policy and program development.
Press article

The Millenium Development Goals set targets on hunger

2005

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Press article

The Millenium Development Goals set targets on hunger
2005
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
In September, 2000, 189 nations, affirmed a set of international development goals in the United Nations Millennium Declaration. This global compact has come to be known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs reflect an understanding of the devastation caused by global hunger and poverty and aim for a world that is free of such misery.
Report

FIAN International annual report 2004

2005

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Report

FIAN International annual report 2004
2005
Yakpo, K. & FIAN International

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Abstract
2004 was a special year for FIAN. The Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food were adopted in September by the Council of the FAO – the Food and Agriculture Organization. A decade-long struggle was finally crowned with success. FIAN had been spearheading the NGO-led movement that was pushing for these guidelines. At first, there was little indication that such guidelines could ever be adopted by the countries of the world. But with intense lobbying from FIAN and others, more and more governments finally came on board. This only goes to show what FIAN can achieve with stamina, conviction and well-founded arguments. The adoption of these guidelines does not mean that the problem is solved, but it is an important step in the right direction. It will now be very hard for anybody to dispute the legal status of the right to food! At the same time, 2004 was also a year in which it became increasingly clear that the remarkable growth of FIAN in both activities and budgets would be difficult to sustain at the same pace. An increasingly volatile funding environment, where more organisations are competing for less funds, means that FIAN has to find new ways towards financial security. Important work has already been done, but this remains one of the key medium-term challenges for FIAN.
Report

Agrarian reform and the right to adequate food in South Africa

2004

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Report

Agrarian reform and the right to adequate food in South Africa
2004
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Between 16th and 23rd August 2002, a team composed of representatives of Foodfirst Information & Action Network (FIAN International), La Vía Campesina, União Nacional de Camponeses de Moçambique (UNAC), the South African land reform support organisation NKUZI and the South African Plantation and Allied Workers Union (SAPAWU) carried out a fact-finding mission on violations of the right to food in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The objective of the mission was to investigate and document cases of violations resulting from problems associated with the design and/or implementation of South Africa's land reform programme, and to support communities, whose right to food was being violated. The three cases documented by the fact-finding mission exemplify the problematic aspects of the three pillars of land reform in South Africa. It transpires that the land reform programme is not performing well and that the lack of a proper agrarian reform programme amounts to a violation of the obligation of the South African State to fulfil the right to food. It is recommended that the South African Government completely overhaul its land reform programme in consultation with civil society in order to address the pressing needs of the urban and rural poor and work towards the realisation of the right to food.
Journal article

A framework law on the right to food: An international and South African perspective

2004

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Journal article

A framework law on the right to food: An international and South African perspective
2004
Coomans, F. & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
It is a well-known fact that millions of people all over the world do not have access to food on a daily basis or face hunger, malnutrition and starvation, despite the fact that their governments have ratified international treaties in which the right to food takes a prominent place. There is thus a big gap between rhetoric and reality, between theoretically having the right to food and enjoying it in practice. The present contribution deals with ways in which to realise the right to adequate food. It suggests the adoption of a framework law as a means of strengthening the implementation of the right to food at the domestic level. In the first part, the article discusses the right to adequate food from an international human rights perspective. It deals, amongst others, with the background, aim and contents of a national framework law on the right to food. In the second part, attention is given to the role of civil society in the promotion of a framework law. This is illustrated by using the example of South Africa, where the lack of availability and accessibility of food to the poor would justify the adoption of a framework law.
Essay

Denn ich bin kein Einzelfall, sondern einer von vielen: Afro-deutsche Rapkünstler in der Hip-Hop Gründerzeit

2004

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Essay

Denn ich bin kein Einzelfall, sondern einer von vielen: Afro-deutsche Rapkünstler in der Hip-Hop Gründerzeit
2004
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Irgendwann im Jahre 82, oder war es schon '83, auf jeden Fall schien die Sonne draußen, sah ich bei "Formel 1" das erste Mal MCs rappen: "New York, New York, big city a dream, but everything in New York ain't at all like what it seem". Grandmaster Melle Mel, mit Nietengürtel zwischen Ghettodekor – Mülltonnen und, soweit ich mich erinnern kann, ein Throw-up im Hintergrund – hauchte durch seine ungeheure Präsenz dem Playback Leben ein. Mehr Leben als ich es je von einem anderen Musiker außerhalb Afrikas erlebt hatte.
Literary work

Love of convenience

2004

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Literary work

Love of convenience
2004
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The train door slid open with a hissing sound as he stiffened in preparation for the dash out. The conductors had just begun checking tickets in the first rows of the cabin. Fortunately. he already stood waiting in the passageway. As he rushed out onto the dimly-lit platform, a cold gust of air seared his face. He put up his collar and tucked his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. This short story won the 2nd prize of the May Ayim Award for Black Literature, 2004.
Literary work

Ich hab’ geträumt (dass sie alle nicht umsonst starben)

2004

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Literary work

Ich hab’ geträumt (dass sie alle nicht umsonst starben)
2004
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
This song is a tribute to people murdered in Germany by individuals, groups, and state institutions for the colour of their skin, their origin, or their contribution to the struggle against racism. To download and read the corresponding spoken word poem, click on the link under "Related identifiers" on the right. This song and the corresponding poem won the 3rd prize of the May Ayim Award for Black literature, 2004.
Essay

Language, music, loving to learn

2004

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Essay

Language, music, loving to learn
2004
Yakpo, K.

Abstract
In the final two years of school, my glowing reputation as a multilinguist went hand in hand with a dismal failure in mathematics. When at a certain point, I realised that there was no hope of improvement, I began holding up my algebra book for the math teacher to see, while actually studying the grammar book that I had hidden behind it. By that time, my performance at school had plummeted to an all time low. School was no longer the gravitational centre of my intellectual life. I had developed passionate interests that figured nowhere in the curriculum: African, Asian and Latin American history, archaeology, socialism, Hip Hop, international politics, percussion, drawing, French-language literature, dancing, anti-racism activism, soccer. My school was full of German middle-class kids who played tennis, spent time in cafés and dated each other. All this bore little relation to the multipolarity of my life. Everything changed when I abruptly decided to leave my school for the Heidelberg International Peace School.
Press article

Breakthrough at the FAO: Voluntary guidelines on the right to food adopted

2004

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Press article

Breakthrough at the FAO: Voluntary guidelines on the right to food adopted
2004
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
On September 23rd 2004, the Committee on World Food Security of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) adopted the text of the Voluntary Guidelines for the Implementation of the Right to Adequate Food. The Voluntary Guidelines are an important new ins- trument in the combat against hunger because they chal-lenge one of the main causes of hunger, the lack of political will of governments.
Press article

Another world is possible: The World Social Forum in Mumbai

2004

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Press article

Another world is possible: The World Social Forum in Mumbai
2004
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
FIAN participated in this year’s World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, with some thirty people, most of them from the Indian sections and Coordinations that did a great job in preparing FIAN’s participation and the fact-finding mission beforehand. Others joined in from FIAN Sweden, Norway, Ghana, the Philippines, and Austria. All the participants of this year’s World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai, India agreed that it was special: in terms of the number of participating organisations and individuals (some 100,000 people attended), in terms of the venue – the conference rooms were tents erected on the bare earth on an old exhibition site, and in terms of the participants: for the first time, activists and people from communities and movements of vulnerable and marginalised groups attended in their thousands.
Press article

Globalising human rights through extraterritorial obligations

2004

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Press article

Globalising human rights through extraterritorial obligations
2004
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
For many, the typical case of a right to food violation involves a state that violates a victim's right in its own territory – a violation of internal obligations. But in recent times, human rights activists and legal experts have been drawing attention to the fact that the character of many violations goes beyond that. With globalisation, violations of the right to food do not halt at borders of states. Many cases involve the violation of extraterritorial obligations – when a state violates the rights of persons living in another country. The first international expert conference on these types of obligations under the International Bill of Human Rights was held in January 2003 with the participation of FIAN.
Press article

When trade produces hunger: The World Trade Organization meets in Cancún, Mexico

2003

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Press article

When trade produces hunger: The World Trade Organization meets in Cancún, Mexico
2003
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The 5th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) took place in Cancún, Mexico from 10- 13 September of this year. FIAN representatives were present at the meeting together with other civil society organisations in order to raise a unified voice against the policies of the WTO which are not at all in the interest of the poor and hungry of the world. The purpose of the WTO is to liberalise trade as completely as possible, including agricultural products. It is the objective of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) that the Southern markets in agricultural products are forced open as quickly as possible. FIAN and many other civil society organisations have been heavily criticising the AoA.
Press article

From legislative framework to framework legislation: A strategy for implementing the right to food

2003

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Press article

From legislative framework to framework legislation: A strategy for implementing the right to food
2003
Künnemann, R., Pabst, S., & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The implementation of the human right to food is a complex task that requires political measures, laws and programmes in a number of areas, such as social, agrarian and economic policies. A framework law can guide the process of filling these gaps and provide a time table for the process leading to the full realization of the human right to food.
Report

Towards a framework law on the right to adequate food in South Africa

2003

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Report

Towards a framework law on the right to adequate food in South Africa
2003
Kallmann, K. & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
A cross-section of South African civil society organisations has come together in this seminar which are in one way or the other involved in the struggle for the realisation of the right to food. The South African Constitution entitles everyone to access to sufficient food and South Africa has signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which includes the right to food. At the same time, large parts of the South African population suffer from continuous hunger and malnutrition or experience periods of severe food shortage. The Constitutional text also provides for the progressive realisation of the right to food through legislative and other measures and in that it again mirrors the realisation obligation of the ICESCR. However, the South African state has so far not taken any concrete steps to specifically implement the right to food. The idea of a framework law on the right to food is to initiate and follow through such an implementation process. Going beyond the very general constitutional statement, it would contain elements such as a list of existing legislation relevant to the right to food; a list of “missing” legislation and remedies; an enumeration of targets to be achieved, a time-frame and benchmarks against which progress could be measured; institutional responsibilities and monitoring arrangements, etc.
Press article

Trockener Maisbrei und steinige Böden

2003

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Press article

Trockener Maisbrei und steinige Böden
2003
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Die Gumbu Mutale hatte das gleiche Schicksal ereilt wie viele Gemeinschaften in Südafrika während der Apartheid. In aufeinanderfolgenden Wellen wurde die Gemeinschaft von ihrem fruchtbarem und wasserreichen Land an den Ufern des Limpopo-Flusses gewaltsam vertrieben und auf unfruchtbarem Land im Homeland Venda zwangsangesiedelt. Das ursprüngliche Land wurde der südafrikanischen Armee überstellt und zum Sperrgebiet erklärt.
Press article

Pap und steinige Böden

2003

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Press article

Pap und steinige Böden
2003
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
In Südafrika kämpft die Gumbu-Gemeinschaft um ihr land - mit bescheidenem Erfolg. Staat und Militär halten an ihrem land fest, das mächtige Militär will keinen Präzedenzfall schaffen. Erst durch durch eine Öffentfichkeitskampagne von nationalen wie internationalen Landrechte-Organisationen scheint Bewegung in die Frage der Landrückgabe zu kommen.
Interview

Welcher Pfad führt zur Geschichte? Ein Interview mit Linguist von Advanced Chemistry

2002

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Interview

Welcher Pfad führt zur Geschichte? Ein Interview mit Linguist von Advanced Chemistry
2002
Yakpo, K., Güngör, M., & Loh, H.

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Abstract
Als Mitbegründer von Advanced Chemistry hat Linguist in Deutschland HipHop-Geschichte geschrieben. Der Song „Fremd im eigenen Land" machte AC zu Beginn der Neunzigerjahre in der europäischen HipHop-Szene zu Idolen. Wie keine andere Gruppe haben Advanced Chemistry die frühen Jahre der HipHop-Kultur in Deutschland und in Europa beeinflusst. Im Gespräch mit Linguist bekamen wir spannende Details und weit greifende Analysen über den Aufstieg von Deutschrap und den Zusammenbruch der paneuropäischen HipHop-Szene zu hören. Linguist hat all das selbst erlebt und dennoch eine kritische Distanz zu dieser Geschichte entwickelt.
Press article

A reforma agrária em África do Sul

2002

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Press article

A reforma agrária em África do Sul
2002
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Em Agosto deste ano, participei de uma missão de investigação sobre a situação do direito a se alimentar na República da África do Sul, como atividade da Campanha Global pela Reforma Agrária, promovida por FIAN e “La Via Campesina”. A missão tinha por objetivo documentar casos concretos de violações, sobretudo as que são devidas a fraqueza conceituai do programa vigente de reforma agrária. Além disso, uma outra meta era de fazer nascer naquele país uma colaboração mais ativa de FIAN e La Via Campesina com outras organizações da sociedade civil. A missão foi organizada e acompanhada por NKUZI, uma ONG especializada em apoiar camponeses com reivindicações por terras no quadro da reforma agrária.
Press article

Subcontinental Challenges: FIAN in India and Sri Lanka

2002

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Press article

Subcontinental Challenges: FIAN in India and Sri Lanka
2002
Yakpo, K. & Pabst, A.

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Abstract
Interview with Sabine Pabst, the new Head of South Asia Desk in the International Secretariat. Kofi Yakpo asked her about the situation of the Right to Food, peasant struggles, and agrarian reform in India and Sri Lanka.
Press article

"So far, women are reluctant to claim their rights"

2002

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Press article

"So far, women are reluctant to claim their rights"
2002
Yakpo, K. & Ratshitanga, G.

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Abstract
Interview with Gloria Ratshitanga, a field worker for NKUZI, a South African NGO that supports rural communities in claiming back their land. Kofi Yakpo asked Gloria about the situation of women in the current land reform process.
Press article

"Indígenas make up a large part of the peasant population and have suffered most from evictions and expropriations in the past"

2001

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Press article

"Indígenas make up a large part of the peasant population and have suffered most from evictions and expropriations in the past"
2001
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
In October, Martin Wolpold-Bosien, head of the Central America Desk and Anja Kristina Wiese, a lawyer and volonteer programme officer for FIAN, left for Guatemala on a fact-finding mission. Anja told HUNGRY about the background of the mission. Kofi Yakpo interviewed Anja on the mission.
Press article

Den Hunger an den Wurzeln packen

2001

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Press article

Den Hunger an den Wurzeln packen
2001
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
„Was?! Von dieser Baracke aus bewegt ihr so viel in der Welt?" Die FIAN-Aktivistin aus Indien traut ihren Augen kaum, als sie zum ersten Mal die Schaltzentrale des internationalen Sekretariats betritt. In dem eingeschossigen Plattenbau mit Blechdach in einem Heidelberger Vorort entfaltet sich rege Geschäftigkeit, denn heute sind gleich zwei Erfolgsmeldungen eingetroffen. Aus Genf kommt die Nachricht, dass endlich bei der UN-Menschenrechtskommission das Amt des UN-Berichterstatters für das Recht auf angemessene Nahrung eingerichtet wird. FIANs jahrelange Lobbyarbeit bei den UN-Organisationen für die Schaffung des Amts hat sich ausgezahlt. In Ghana ist die Entschädigung eines internationalen Minenkonzerns an eine umgesiedelte Dorfgemeinschaft auf Druck der dortigen FIAN-Sektion aufgestockt worden.
Academic paper

Language rights in the South African constitution

2000

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Academic paper

Language rights in the South African constitution
2000
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa entrenches the right to mother-tongue use in several ways. The importance accorded to language rights is manifest in the fact that a separate and detailed section on language exists in the constituent and formal provisions of the chapter 1. Section 3 declares eleven languages "official South African languages at national level". Further subsections entrench the right to use the official languages vis-à-vis national and provincial administrative bodies. Linguistic rights also form part of the Bill of Rights of chapter 2, and chapter 7 on judicial authority and the administration of justice. The provisions on language are best placed within the larger context of language policy in South Africa. Language rights are therefore subject to restrictions, i.e. where the exercise of a right may be limited to “where practicable“. Using the example of four relevant cases decided by the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the scope of the language provisions can be determined, in particular by examining how these rights are limited. It is argued that the Court has so far interpreted language rights restrictively by rigorously applying the limitations where possible. It is suggested that the Court’s prudent approach must be understood within a socio-economic context in which the position of the colonial languages, and English in particular, makes it largely impossible to realise the equitable use of the African languages to the extent that the Constitutional text promises.
Thesis

Grammatikalisierung von Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Bislama

1996

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Thesis

Grammatikalisierung von Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Bislama
1996
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Das Bislama ist eine der weniger bekannten Pidgin und Kreolsprachen der Welt. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werde ich die überschneidenden Funktionen des Grammems "bae" veranschaulichen und die möglichen diachronen Verbindungen zwischen Grammatikalisierungsprozessen in den Bereichen von Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität aufzuweisen versuchen. Dies geschieht mithilfe eines Korpus von in Vanuatu während einer viermonatigen Feldforschung gesammelten Primärdaten sowie unter Berücksichtigung historischer Quellen. Ich gehe ebenso auf formale Prozesse ein, die mit dem funktionalen Wandel des Grammems "bae" im Bislama in Zusammenhang stehen.
Essay

La meilleure musique du monde

1996

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Essay

La meilleure musique du monde
1996
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
La musique africaine n'est pas plus rebelle ni plus révolutionnaire que la musique occidentale. Si la musique populaire peut sembler bruyante, spectaculaire ou inconvenante. elle ne cherche pas pour autant à provoquer des bouleversements radicaux. On peut dire plutôt qu'elle est une conséquence de ceux-ci et qu'elle traduit souvent d'une manière très aigue les preoccupations et aspirations de chaque socleté. Les paroles illustrent les conditions de vie et la culture de chaque artiste. Ceci s'applique tout specialement à, l'Afrique, où les musIciens sont confrontés beaucoup plus directement aux réalités de la vie des masses que les musiciens occidentaux. Si les musIciens africains peuvent acceder parfois à une certaine richesse, Ils ne peuvent se soustraire aisement au reseau complexe des relations sociales qui prevaut en Afrique. Les sanctions sociales seraient alors implacables. Toute sa vie, le musicien africain reste donc une partie integrante de son "quartier".
Interview

Advanced Chemistry, Hip Hop pur aus Heidelberg: Ein Interview mit Linguist von Advanced Chemistry

1993

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Interview

Advanced Chemistry, Hip Hop pur aus Heidelberg: Ein Interview mit Linguist von Advanced Chemistry
1993
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
Hip Hop ist eine Kultur, nicht nur eine Musikrichtung. Sie setzt sich aus verschiedenen Elementen zusammen und begründet eine Lebensart. Die Leute leben Hip Hop oder sind Hip Hop. Es gibt einerseits die Sparte rappen, dann Breakdance, drittens Sprühen, Graffiti, und als viertes die ganze DJ-Kultur, also der Umgang mit Plattenspielern. Viele Bands neigen gerade in Deutschland zur Selbstdarstellung und vergessen dabei, dass die Wurzeln des Hip Hop nicht in Deutschland liegen. In der afro-amerikanischen Kultur ist der Hip Hop verwu­rzelt und ich finde es wichtig, diesen Ursprung den Leuten immer wieder klar zu machen.
Literary work

Linguist: Die alte Schule

1993

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Literary work

Linguist: Die alte Schule
1993
Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
The solo track "Die alte Schule" by Linguist (aka Kofi Yakpo), from the eponymous compilation album, extols the four pillars of Hip Hop culture (rap, breakdancing, DJing, and graffiti art) and was a staple at concerts and Hip Hop jams in 1990s Europe.
Literary work

Advanced Chemistry: Fremd im eigenen Land

1992

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Literary work

Advanced Chemistry: Fremd im eigenen Land
1992
Hahn, F., Landomini, T., & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
"Fremd im eigenen Land" (Stranger in My Own Land) is the foundational song of German conscious rap and a modern Hip Hop classic. At a time when Germany was gripped by post-unification nationalist frenzy, Advanced Chemistry's song denounced the tide of racist violence sweeping across the country, challenging dominant notions of German identity, ethnicity, and belonging. Decades later, “Fremd im eigenen Land” is widely recognised as one of the most emblematic protest songs of Germany.
Literary work

Advanced Chemistry: Ich zerstöre meinen Feind

1992

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Literary work

Advanced Chemistry: Ich zerstöre meinen Feind
1992
Hahn, F., Landomini, T., & Yakpo, K.

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Abstract
"Ich zerstöre meinen Feind" (I Destroy My Enemy) is the B-side of "Fremd im eigenen Land" and the first recorded battle rap in German. Linguist, Toni L, and Torch address a fictional adversary, dismantling him through wordplay using the most complex rhyme structures and rhetorical techniques yet seen in German Hip Hop music. Filled with nested patterns, inversions, internal rhymes, onomatopoeia and alliteration, allegories, metaphors, hyperbole and similes, the track's high-tempo delivery and flow set new standards, marking a turning point in German lyricism.