Organizers
Oluseye Adesola
Senior Lector II, Yoruba
Oluseye holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Rutgers University. In addition to teaching Yoruba courses from beginning through advanced level at Yale, he is also the Associate Director of the African Anaphora project at Rutgers University. He has published several articles on Yoruba studies and Linguistics. His current research interests include Comparative Syntax, African Linguistics, Stylistics, African History, Yoruba Culture and Literature, Second Language Acquisition, Africa and its Diaspora, Syntactic Theory, Anaphora, Wh-movement and Focus Constructions.
Senior Lector II, isiZulu
Sandra Sanneh has been teaching isiZulu and other Southern African Languages and Literatures in the Yale Program in African Languages under the auspices of the Yale Council on African Studies since 1989. Sanneh grew up in South Africa speaking English, Afrikaans and Sesotho. She studied African Languages at the University of Witwatersrand and at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and has an M.A. in Linguistics from Yale.
Courses: Sanneh teaches courses in Zulu Language and Literature through advanced level and offers tutorials in Sesotho, Afrikaans, Setswana and Chichewa. She also teaches a course for students in the Nursing and Medical Schools called Communication and Healing that is an introduction to the discourse of healing in Zulu language and culture.
Web Materials: In collaboration with Dr. Audrey Nonhlanhla Mbeje (U. Pennsylvania), Sanneh created IsiZulu Sanamuhla (Contemporary Zulu), an online Zulu course for Elementary and Intermediate level students. The course is based on a series of everyday conversations with Zulu speakers filmed in and around Durban, South Africa. For access to the website contact african.studies@yale.edu.
Research interests: Sanneh’s research interests are in codeswitching, in particular the fluid four-language argot of Soweto (is’Camtho), in the changing status and usage of local languages in contemporary South Africa, and in how linguistic etiquette (ukuhlonipha) impacts women’s access to healthcare.
Director, Program in African Languages
Senior Lector II, Kiswahili
Specialization: Language education and sociolinguistics. Interests include foreign language curriculum development, teaching methodology, material development, and assessment. Other areas of interest are language planning, language and democracy, ethnicity, Kiswahili and other African literatures and literary criticism.
Program Staff:
Hira Jafri
Program Manager
Joy Sherman
Program Administrator