A descriptive study of Eastern Herero as a preparation for comparative research of dialects of the Herero language

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Our project has concentrated on our main objective, a descriptive study of Herero. Relevant data for this study were collected during fieldwork in Eastern Herero speech communities. The description has focused primarily on the tone system, tense/aspect/mood system, and the structure of complex sentences. Some of the results of the research have been published as peer-reviewed articles, and others were presented at international and domestic conferences. As for the perspective of international joint research, this project has started joint research with Lutz Marten (University of London) on Herero in 2010. In addition, as further effort to bring together current research on Herero/ Bantu languages from international communities, we organized the International Workshop on Bantu Languages in Osaka in 2012, and invited two Bantu linguists from England as guest speakers. The main objective of this workshop was to discuss our on -going research and to establish a direction for future international joint research. The workshop turned out very fruitful not only for the project but also for the Bantu linguistics community in Japan in general, and helped to build a solid foundation for further development of broader international joint research on African linguistics.