to Human Diversity
Vairão, Portugal
Admire Phiri
I am a functionalist linguist specializing in the languages of Southern Africa, with eight years fieldwork experience working with Kalahari hunter-gatherer communities. I am fascinated by the linguistic prehistory of southern Africa and language change following the pastoralist migrations into the region.
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I hold a PhD in General Linguistics from the University of Stellenbosch which I received for my work on the endangered Khoe-Kwadi language Tjwao. During my doctoral and postdoctoral research at Stellenbosch University and at the University of the Free State, I carried out fieldwork in Zimbabwe and Botswana, where I had the opportunity to study multiple languages of the Khoe-Kwadi and Bantu families. My most recent publications focus on various aspects of the Khoe-Kwadi and southern Bantu languages, including phonology, tense-aspect morphology, subclassification and the role of language contact.
My Publications
Phiri, A., Fehn A.M., Rocha, J. and Dande, I. Forthcoming. Tjwao and Ndebele Social Contact, Zimbabwe. In Di Garbo, F., Kashima, E & Sinnemäki, K. (eds.). Social foundations of Language Contact: A Comparative Survey. Contact and Multilingualism. Language Science Press.
Andrason, A., Mohr, S., Phiri, A, Sibanda N. and Vundla, M. Forthcoming. Hunting gestures in Tjwao. Journal of African Language and Linguistics.
Phiri, A. and Dande, I. Forthcoming. Surviving on the margins: The Tjwa (San) food economies, politics, and the environment in Zimbabwe. Journal of Hunter Gatherer Research.
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