User:Mark Dingemanse

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Did you know...

Mark Dingemanse is presented this Africa Award for his work on African linguistics, particularly his creation of beautiful maps and illustrations. Presented by Amcaja from the Africa-related regional notice board

From articles I contributed

• ...that Sonjo, a Bantu language of northern Tanzania, has been spoken for centuries in an isolated enclave in Maasai territory?
• ...that a large portion of the vocabulary of the coastal Mozambiquean language Ekoti derives from a past variety of Swahili?
• ...that while the Berber scholar Arsène Roux of France collected and studied an enormous amount of Sous Berber texts and manuscripts, almost nothing from his scholarly work actually saw publication during his lifetime?
• ...that the border between Nilo-Saharan languages and Bantu languages among the languages of Uganda roughly coincides with the Victoria Nile?
• ...that Diedrich H. Westermann found out that some of the Sudanic languages were related to the Bantu languages but did not explicitly state this conclusion until much later in his career, out of respect for his teacher Carl Meinhof?
• ...that the 1318 Mamluk Qala'un Mosque was considered the most glamorous mosque in Cairo until its wooden dome collapsed in the 16th century?
• ...that the Yaaku at a community meeting between 1925 and 1936 decided to abandon their own language in favour of Maasai?
• ...that Bono Manso, the capital of Bono state, was an ancient Akan trading town in present-day Ghana, which was frequented by caravans from Djenné as part of the Trans-Saharan trade?
• ...that Dorobo is a derogatory Maa term for various unrelated hunter-gatherer groups of Kenya and Northern Tanzania?
• ...that the Defaka people of Nigeria are gradually abandoning their language in favour of the language of the Nkoroo, their close neighbours?
• ...that missionaries of the Belgian Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae did missionary work in China, Mongolia, the Philippines, and in Congo Free State/Belgian Congo?
• ...that many speakers of Nobiin were forcedly resettled to Kom Ombo (Egypt) and New Halfa (Sudan) due to the construction of the Aswan High Dam?

I could go on and on, but I will leave it to this gesture to tell you how important you have been to Africa on wikipedia.Ezeu 04:17, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

For your brilliant work on linguistics-related articles and the creation of superb maps, I award you the Barnstar of Diligence TreveX^talk 16:21, 10 August 2005 (UTC) (KC)

For your exceptional work in mentoring newcomers (not to mention your unflagging patience with everyone else), I hereby award you this Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar. --Dvyost 15:41, 16 August 2005 (UTC) (KC)

A little about me

It was late 2003 when I first came across Wikipedia, but it took some time before the truth of the 'edit this page' link dawned on me. Since August 2004, I have been editing here on a regular basis. I was made an administrator in March 2005. As of February 2007, I am no longer an admin, mainly because I simply lack the time to make myself useful but also because I want to dedicate what little time I have to contributing content.

I like this project very much and I am especially keen on countering the systemic bias of Wikipedia in the area of African languages and linguistics, a field in which I hold an MA (Leiden University). I am furthermore likely to be found working on subjects like semantics and cognitive linguistics. A list of articles I have worked on can be found at /pastprojects. As a freelance graphic designer (vormdicht is my graphic design agency), I sometimes like to create maps. A gallery of maps and images I created for Wikipedia can be found here. I also maintain a blog called The Ideophone.

Licensing

With the absolute exception of my image contributions, which are all licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license, all of my contributions to the English Wikipedia in the main, main talk, and template namespaces are licensed as described below. Obviously, I reserve the right to (re)publish my own contributions without having to comply with those licenses myself.