Domingos Aly:
Domingos Aly is from N’kalapa, Mavago district in Niassa, Mozambique. He is a teacher by profession and, since 1991, he has worked at the Paulo Samuel Kankhomba and Cristiano Paulo Taimo Secondary Schools in Lichinga. From the year 2000, he has collaborated in the Bilingual Program in the production of teaching manuals. His training on the standardisation of writing in Ciyaawo was guided by Professor Armindo S. A. Ngunga. Domingos Aly is co-author of the alphabetisation books Naciloongola, for 3rd Class reading, and Dilaanguka. He has also participated in the translation and adaptation of mathematics and natural science manuals, as well as teachers’ manuals.
Koen Bostoen:
Koen Bostoen is a professor of African Linguistics and Swahili at Ghent University. His research focuses on the historical-comparative study of Bantu languages and on interdisciplinary approaches to the African past. He obtained an ERC Starting Grant for the KongoKing project (2012-2016) and an ERC Consolidator’s Grant for the BantuFirst project (2018-2023). Apart from several (co-authored) articles and book chapters in the fields of African (historical) linguistics, archaeology and genetics, he is the author of Des mots et des pots en bantou: une approche linguistique de l’histoire de la céramique en Afrique (Peter Lang, 2005) and co-editor of a number of books, including The Kongo Kingdom: Origins, Dynamics and Cosmopolitan Culture of an African Polity (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and On reconstructing Proto-Bantu grammar (Language Science Press, 2022).
Paolo Israel:
Paolo Israel is an anthropologist and historian, currently associate professor at the University of Western Cape. He is author of In Step with the Times: Mapiko Masquerades of Mozambique (Ohio University Press, 2014). At present he is working on a nonfiction book titled The Magical Lions of Muidumbe, in which he blends interviews, life stories, descriptions of dance and anecdotes to provide a panoramic view of a witch-hunt and also society in Muidumbe (in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique), where it occurred.
Ahmmardouh Mjaya:
Ahmmardouh Mjaya is a lecturer in African Languages and Linguistics and a Ciyaawo language specialist at Chancellor College, University of Malawi. His main expertise and research interests lie in language and literacy. Ahmmardouh is author of Literacies, Power and Identities in Figured Worlds in Malawi (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023). Previously, he was a PI for a UKRI – GRTA-funded multinational Family Literacy, Indigenous and Intergenerational Learning project coordinated by the University of East Anglia (UK) from 2019 to 2022.
Julius Taji:
Julius Taji is a senior lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, University of Dar es Salaam, and a research associate at the University of the Free State, South Africa. His areas of interest include morphosyntactic structures of Bantu languages, lexicography, and sign language linguistics. Julius has worked extensively on Chiyaawo in Tanzania. His current research focuses on linguistic and sociocultural aspects of plant names among the Yaawo, the formation of these names, and how this naming is intertwined with indigenous knowledge systems. He has also published a Yao-English-Swahili Dictionary (Languages of Tanzania Project, 2017).