Faculty

Oluseye AdesolaOlyuseye Adesola
Yoruba

Olyuseye holds a PhD in Linguistics from Rutgers University. In addition to teaching Yoruba courses from beginning through advanced level at Yale, he is also the Associate Director of the African Anaphora Project at Rutgers Univesity. He has published several articles on Yoruba studies and Linguistics. His current research interests include Comparative Syntax, African Linguistics, Stylistics, African History, Yoruba Culture and Literature, Second Language Acquisition, Africa and its Diaspora, Syntactic Theory, Anaphora, Wh-movement and Focus Constructions.

Sandra SannehSandra Sanneh
isiZulu

Sanneh grew up in South Africa speaking English, Afrikaans and Sesotho. She studied African Languages at the University of Witwatersrand and at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, and has an M.A. in Linguistics from Yale. She teaches courses in isiZulu and on language and identity in South Africa at Yale University.

SYMariame Sy
Wolof

Mariame Sy is the Coordinator of Columbia’s African Language Program and a Lecturer in Wolof and Pulaar. She has taught Wolof during the regular academic year for many years, as well as summer courses at the Summer Cooperative African Language Institute (SCALI) and The Colorado Project study abroad program in Senegal. Her research interests include the morpho-phonology and syntax of West-Atlantic languages such as Wolof and Pulaar, and first and second language acquisition.

Beatrice2Beatrice Okelo
Kiswahili

Beatrice Okelo is a doctoral candidate (ABD) in Linguistics at Indiana University. She has been teaching Beginning Kiswahili at Indiana for four years, and is currently teaching courses in the History of American Education and Cell Biology – in Kiswahili – to IU students in the Swahili Flagship immersion program. She is a fluent speaker of Dholuo and her doctoral dissertation focuses on the morpho-syntax of that language.

wanjoguJohn Kiarie Wa’Njogu
Kiswahili

Kiarie Wa’Njogu is the Director of the Program in African Languages at Yale University. Wa’Njogu specializes in language and sociolinguistics. His interests include foreign language curriculum development, teaching methodology, material development, and assessment. Other areas of interest are language planning, language and democracy, ethnicity, Kiswahili and other African literature.