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This content will become publicly available on December 20, 2025

Title: Language maps and sociolinguistic data: Developing linguistic cartography of Bantoid languages
Drawing language maps is not normally considered an important part of linguists’ work. Nonetheless, language maps influence their users’ perceptions and understandings of the characteristics of the languages that they represent. Therefore, given their communicative power, wide accessibility, and generalized use for educational purposes, attention must be paid as to what messages language maps convey about the languages that they visualize since different cartographic styles can be suited to representing some language ecologies better than others. However, decisions at this level are not normally made explicit by cartographers, and the ways in which certain ideologies surface in language maps can escape the attention of both linguists and cartographers alike. This article clarifies why these issues are especially relevant in a domain such as that of the study of Bantoid languages and proposes some novel cartographic models that have been used for representing the languages of Lower Fungom in western Cameroon. These include some cartographic strategies for the representation of the language ideologies of speaker communities and of individual multilingualism. The latter is both a key and under-researched feature in Bantoid sociolinguistics and the article suggests how scholars who are not sociolinguists may nevertheless contribute to its exploration.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1761639
PAR ID:
10573031
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Publisher / Repository:
Hamburg University Press
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Afrika und Übersee
ISSN:
0002-0427
Page Range / eLocation ID:
87 to 113
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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