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JWAL Golden Jubilee Volumes: Call for Papers
Dear colleagues,
The Editorial Board of the Journal of West African Languages (JWAL) wishes to inform you that we have reached the 50th edition of the journal this year. The year 2023 is JWAL Golden Jubilee Anniversary Year, and is worth celebration! To celebrate this golden jubilee, the Board has agreed to the following theme:
50 Years of Research on West African Languages
Besides publishing the usual JWAL Vol 50.1 and 50.2, we intend to publish a collection or collections of JWAL Vol 50.xx issues to commemorate this anniversary. The difference between the articles in the usual volumes and these anniversary volumes would be that the articles in the anniversary volumes will be REVIEW ARTICLES which are expected to be anywhere from 8000 to 10000 words. Each article will be on a particular topic that has featured prominently in the journal for over the past half century. The article would revisit and review important issues on the topic and summarise the major results achieved, propose new findings, and then point to how the topic might develop in the next 10 to 50 years or so.
Prominent and emerging scholars of West African linguistics are therefore encouraged to submit proposed topics and short abstracts between now and the end of January to be assesssed; a few examples are already provided below. Our goal is to get up to 50 such articles, which will be published online at the journal website as they get assessed and accepted from May until October and then collected together into the special bonanza golden anniversary issue, both in online and hard copy formats. Don't be left out in what is expected to be a rich record of the research in West African linguistics over the past 50 years.
The deadline for submitting a review article is June 30th, 2023.
Proposed Review Articles for JWAL Golden Jubilee Special Issue:
1. Ekkehard Wolff: 'New perspectives on Central Chadic historical phonology and lexical reconstruction'.
2. Flavien Gbeto: Gbe Implosives
3. Annie Rialland: Intonation in West African languages
4. Felix Ameka and co-authors: Variation in Ewe Grammar (several articles)
5. Akinbiyi Akinlabi and co-authors: The syntax/phonology interaction of tone in Dan, a language of Cote D'Ivoire
6. Adams Bodomo and co-authors: Serial verb constructions in West African languages: 50 years on
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.50.
NB: SUBMISSION TO THE GOLDEN JUBILEE SHOULD BE SENT TO:
JWAL 49.2 is out now
We are delighted to announce the latest edition of the Journal of West African Languages.
The Volume 49.2 is now available for free download here.
JWAL included in ERIH PLUS
We are delighted to inform you that JWAL has been approved for inclusion in ERIH PLUS.The ERIH PLUS listing of the journal is available here
JWAL is a Free, Open-Access Journal
The Journal of West African Languages is now a Free, Open-access, Online Journal. Open-access is, here, defined in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative's (BOAI). However, users are to ensure that credit is given to the original publication source. Authors have the copyright and control over the integrity of their work. They have the right to be properly acknowlegded and cited. From 2015, all issues of the journal will be published on this website, and will be immediately accessible to linguists the world over, without the need to register or subscribe. There are no author charges for publication in JWAL.
Copyright of all publication on JWAL
As indicated above, authors are the sole copyright holders of their publications. All contents in the Journal of West African Languages, since 2015, are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.
If you would like to receive email announcements when issues of the journal are released, then please join the JWAL Updates Google group.
Past articles
We are pleased to announce that all past articles are now available for free download. Click on the Downloads tab and follow the links, or use the Search Downloads option to find articles on specific languages or language families, on a particular topic, or by a particular author.
New contributor guidelines and JWAL's Code of Ethics
Contributors are asked to note that the formatting requirements for papers have changed. They are also required to read the Publication Ethics Statement before submitting their articles. See the Contributor page for more details.
The Journal
The purpose of the Journal of West African Languages is to publish articles of good quality and interest in all aspects of language and linguistics that are relevant to the area of West Africa, which may be defined as Sub-Saharan Africa, extending into Central Africa. The Journal was founded in 1964 by the West African Linguistic Society, and has been in publication ever since, with gaps in 1972-73 and 1977-81. The International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) of JWAL is: 0022-5401.
The editorial board comprises: Prof Dr Adams Bodomo (Editor), Dr Hasiyatu Abubakari (Assistant Editor), Dr Isabella Jordanoska (Assistant Editor), Dr Samuel Alhassan Issah (Assistant Editor), Prof Akin Akinlabi (Editoral Advisor), Prof Felix K. Ameka (Editorial Advisor), Prof Flavien Gbeto (Editorial Advisor), Dr Keir Hansford (Consulting Editor), Prof Annie Rialland, and Prof Dr H Ekkehard Wolff.