Prof. Dr. Nico Nassenstein

Nico Nassenstein is Professor of African Studies at the Department of Ethnology and African Studies. After studying African Studies, Islamic Studies and German Studies, he completed his PhD at the University of Cologne (on the Rufumbira language, Uganda) and works mainly in the fields of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology/anthropological linguistics and pragmatics.

He works mainly on Lingala, Swahili and Kinyarwanda-Kirundi (and related languages). He has spent about two years in the Congo, in addition to short fieldwork stays in other regions (Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Mallorca), and has more than 24 months of fieldwork experience in Uganda.

His research interests include linguistic variation and phenomena of language contact in the Bantu languages of East and Central Africa, register variation in Africa, language and conflict, transgression and taboo, and language in tourist contexts. His current research focuses on Lingala, Swahili and Kinyarwanda-Kirundi (and neighbouring/related languages).

In addition to his work on the use of Kirundi/Kinyarwanda in the urban context of Kampala (Uganda) as part of subproject B02, he is currently working on a project on the sociolinguistic aspects of tourism on African beaches (with Anne Storch and Angelika Mietzner, University of Cologne). He is also doing descriptive work on the Bangala language (Northeast Congo/Northwest Uganda), researching linguistic variation in Swahili (with Daisuke Shinagawa, TUFS) and investigating the pragmatics of youth language (with Ellen Hurst-Harosh, University of Cape Town).

Foto: Stephanie Füssenich