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James Essegbey

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Professor of African Languages and Linguistics
Ph.D., Leiden University

Office Hours — Fall 2023

  • By appointment

Areas of Interest

My research interests include the description and documentation of endangered languages, syntax-semantics interface, the varieties of English spoken by people of African descent, and the influence of African languages on creoles. I work on the Kwa languages of West Africa, especially Gbe (i.e. Ewe, Gen, Aja and Fon), Akan, and Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) languages (Nyangbo and Animere). I also investigate the influence of the Gbe languages on Suriname creoles.

Selected Papers

  • 2019 Cutting across the Gbe divide. In Essegbey, James & Kallulli Dalina & Bodomo, Adams (eds.), The grammar of verbs and their arguments: a cross-linguistic perspective, 85-114. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe
  • 2018 The influence of writing on oral traditions: the case of Nyangbo. In Leonard Muaka & Esther M. Lisanza (eds.), Language in contemporary African cultures and societies. Lanham: Lexington Books. 77-90
  • 2017   Divergence and convergence among Ghana-Togo Mountain languages. In Language Typology and Linguistic Universals (STUF). With Felix Ameka
  • 2017   Language endangerment, documentation and revitalization. In R. Vossen and G. Dimmendaal (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of African languages, 833-842.Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • 2015   “Is this my language?”:  Developing a writing system for an endangered-language community. In J. Essegbey, B. Henderson, and F. McLaughlin (eds). Language documentation and endangerment in Africa. John Benjamins, 153-177
  • 2015   Language use at home and performance in English composition in multilingual Ghana.  2015. (urn:nbn:de:0009-10-42168) . With Sika Ahadzie and Felix Ameka. https://www.afrikanistik-aegyptologie-online.de/archiv/2015/4216/
  • 2013   Serialising languages: Satellite-framed, verb-framed or neither. In Ghana Journal of Linguistics, Vol 2 (1), 19-38. With Felix Ameka (http://www.ajol.info/index.php/gjl/article view/90783)
  • 2013 Cross-linguistic influence in language creation: assessing the role of the Gbe languages in the formation of the Creoles of Surinam. Lingua 129 (2013), 1-8. (with Bettina Migge & Donald Winford)
  • 2010   Locative expression in Tutrugbu: losing typological characteristics due to contact. Journal of West African Languages 37, 93-118

Courses Taught

  • AKA 1130 Beginning Akan 1
  • AKA 1131 Beginning Akan 2
  • AKA 2200 Intermediate Akan 1
  • AKA 2201 Intermediate Akan 2
  • SST 2501 African Elements in the Americas
  • SSA 4903 Africanisms in the Americas
  • SSA 4930 Black Englishes
  • SSA 4930 Methods of Language Documentation