Paul Newman
Memorial 327; IUB
(812) 855-7447
(812) 855-5363 FAX
The purpose of the West African Languages Institute (WALI), which replaced the former Nigerian Studies Institute by expanding its geographical scope, is to promote research and facilitate the dissemination of knowledge on the languages of West Africa. The Institute focuses on empirical, descriptive research both on large multinational languages and on small endangered languages. The Institute aims to foster intellectual contacts and exchanges between American and West African scholars by encouraging IU faculty and students to do research in West Africa and by helping to arrange short-term visits to IU by West African scholars. The Institute also facilitates visits to IU by other international scholars and advanced graduate students interested in the study of West African languages. The list of persons having visited the Institute over the past few years includes scholars from Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, England, France, Germany, Norway, and Russia. The Institute's major research accomplishment to date has been the preparation of a comprehensive reference grammar of Hausa (published by Yale University Press, 2000), which was funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation.
