Tracing Language Movement in Africa ed. by Ericka A. Albaugh and Kathryn M. de Luna (review)

Interdisciplinary methods involving language have become nearly indispensable for some historians of Africa, particularly those working on the distant past, for whom comparative historical linguistics and oral traditions offer glimpses of a time without written forms of record keeping. Especially during the past half century, both approaches have opened up new possibilities for recovering reliable narratives throughout sub-Saharan Africa for periods before the nineteenth-century advent of colonial rule.¹ As more disciplinarians embraced nontraditional methods, longue durée approaches spanning millennia became common and, to some extent, familiar. By necessity, however, the use of language-centered methods require proficiency in multiple disciplines. Those already committed to mixed methods frequently work with archaeological and climatological evidence as well. These scholars tend to be, in the words of Albaugh and de Luna, "unrepentant disciplinary appropriators" (5), sampling what they need to construct the most complete and informative histories possible.

The use of language-centered methods for deeper histories has generated a fair amount of controversy; Albaugh and de Luna draw attention to some of the unproductive, or damaging, assumptions inherent in research focused on the more recent past as well. Of particular value is their discussion of language use as an uncritical index for identity (8–12), and the "fiction of language as a bounded, single entity" when treated as an analytical unit (12–13). Tensions in the use of language across various disciplines inform the organization of the volume, highlighting the consequences of approaching language in parts or as a whole, as fixed or fluid, and as fragmenting or consolidating.

The goal of Tracing Language Movement in Africa—to present the approaches of various disciplines and facilitate scholarship across boundaries, and to explore questions that arise in the wake of juxtaposing perspectives and assumptions—is most welcome. For readers interested in surveying the variety of approaches and perspectives that scholars take in the study of language change, the volume can serve as a reference guide or introductory text. Chapter 1 by Albaugh and de Luna and Chapter 2 by Derek Nurse provide excellent examples of the comparative method, and Chapter 4 by Scott MacEachern provides an accessible discussion of the challenges and possibilities of bridging language data with archaeology. For those interested in specific case studies, each contribution discusses methods and then puts them in practice, permitting readers to glean information about diverse regional, national, and temporal categories.

Language variously emerges as a lens for observing the context and outcome of conquest, conflict, and contact in the contributions by Maha Ennaji (Chapter 6), Fallou Ngom (Chapter 7), and Albaugh (Chapter 9); popular politics by Derek R. Peterson (Chapter 8); pragmatism and creativity in changing national and urban spaces by Fiona McLaughlin (Chapter 10), Philip W. Rudd (Chapter 13), and Nico Nassenstein (Chapter 14); and the ideas and relationships that allow the large-scale circulation of vocabulary by David M. Gordon (Chapter 12), Maureen Warner-Lewis (Chapter 15), Robert W. Slenes (Chapter 16), and Hanétha Vété-Congolo (Chapter 17). Individual contributors ground themselves primarily in the standards and methods of their own disciplines; much of the interdisciplinary conversation emerges between, rather than within, chapters.

As the editors note, Western ideas about language and language change in Africa tend to be constrained by their Enlightenment origins (13). The treatment of languages as singular, bounded, and stable either synchronically or over time is a misleading premise that ignores the fluidity and permeability of language in action (16–17). By placing scholars of many disciplines in conversation, Tracing Language Movement in Africa exposes some of the pitfalls and possibilities of language-based research, sparking important debates for which future work must be held accountable.