PROF Lutz Marten

Biography	Lutz Marten is Professor of General and African Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He is a former Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Cultures and Head of the Doctoral School, as well as a former UK C-Director of the London Confucius Institute. From 2020 to 2024 he was the editor of the Transactions of the Philological Society and in 2024 he was elected as the President of the Philological Society, the oldest UK learned society dedicated to the study of language. He is also the Founding Chair of the International Conference on Bantu Linguistics. He is interested in how language is structured and used, how languages differ and change over time, and how language is linked to culture, society, history, nature and other domains of human life. Most of his work is related to African languages and he has worked with collaborators and communities across the continent for many years. His recent and current research projects include Morphosyntactic Variation in Bantu, Cultural Translation of Covid-19 in London’s Community Languages, the Description and Promotion of the Kenyan Bantu Language Kitaveta, and Variation in Swahili. His publications include At the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface (OUP 2002), A Grammatical Sketch of Herero (Otjiherero) (with Wilhelm Möhlig and Jekura Kavari, Köppe 2002), The Dynamics of Language (with Ronnie Cann and Ruth Kempson, Elsevier 2005), Colloquial Swahili (with Donovan McGrath, Routledge 2003/2012), and Morphosyntactic Variation in East African Bantu Languages: Descriptive and Comparative Approaches (co-edited with Hannah Gibson, Rozenn Guérois and Gastor Mapunda, Language Science Press 2024).
Research Interests	Language and Linguistics, African Languages, Bantu Languages, Swahili, Language Variation and Change, Language Documentation, Multilingualism, African Studies

Biography

Lutz Marten is Professor of General and African Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He is a former Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Cultures and Head of the Doctoral School, as well as a former UK C-Director of the London Confucius Institute.

From 2020 to 2024 he was the editor of the Transactions of the Philological Society and in 2024 he was elected as the President of the Philological Society, the oldest UK learned society dedicated to the study of language. He is also the Founding Chair of the International Conference on Bantu Linguistics.

He is interested in how language is structured and used, how languages differ and change over time, and how language is linked to culture, society, history, nature and other domains of human life. Most of his work is related to African languages and he has worked with collaborators and communities across the continent for many years. His recent and current research projects include Morphosyntactic Variation in Bantu, Cultural Translation of Covid-19 in London’s Community Languages, the Description and Promotion of the Kenyan Bantu Language Kitaveta, and Variation in Swahili.

His publications include At the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface (OUP 2002), A Grammatical Sketch of Herero (Otjiherero) (with Wilhelm Möhlig and Jekura Kavari, Köppe 2002), The Dynamics of Language (with Ronnie Cann and Ruth Kempson, Elsevier 2005), Colloquial Swahili (with Donovan McGrath, Routledge 2003/2012), and Morphosyntactic Variation in East African Bantu Languages: Descriptive and Comparative Approaches (co-edited with Hannah Gibson, Rozenn Guérois and Gastor Mapunda, Language Science Press 2024).

Research Interests

Language and Linguistics, African Languages, Bantu Languages, Swahili, Language Variation and Change, Language Documentation, Multilingualism, African Studies