Linguistics expert elected British Academy Fellow for work on African languages
Lutz Marten, Professor of General and African Linguistics at SOAS University of London, has spent more than three decades researching African languages and their contribution to theories of language.
His work shows how African language research provides key insights for understanding human communication, in terms of structured systems of meaning and as connected to culture, society, history, identity, nature and other domains of human life.
He has now been elected a Fellow of the British Academy in recognition of his contribution to the humanities and social sciences. His research has shown that the language we use, our choice of words and the order in which we place them and the ways in which language use change can reveal patterns of structural variation, cultural contact, and social change.
I am profoundly happy and honoured to have become a Fellow of the British Academy. My election highlights the importance of linguistics and African languages for academic study and societal impact,
"I am profoundly happy and honoured to have become a Fellow of the British Academy. My election highlights the importance of linguistics and African languages for academic study and societal impact," Marten said.
Language can express identity, shape relationships and influence how people understand themselves, nature and the societies around them. Marten said he was "looking forward to becoming involved in the work the British Academy is doing in promoting languages and the humanities and social sciences more widely."
These are areas where teaching and research today is more important than ever," he added
Professor Marten is among 92 new Fellows elected in 2026 for making outstanding contribution to their fields. The award draws attention to work that places African languages at the heart of questions about how human language, cognition, and communication.
What African languages reveal about communication
Much of his work focuses on Bantu languages spoken across eastern and southern Africa, including Swahili, Bemba and Herero. Challenging established notions of language relationships, his work examines how language structures vary, how languages influence one another and how they change through contact and use.
The view highlights that language as a system of meaning making, and that meaning depends on social relationships, shared knowledge and cultural context.
This approach is also developed in Professor Marten’s work in theoretical linguistics and the model of Dynamic Syntax, which explains language structure in terms of how speakers and hearers use language to build representations of meaning in context.
When language becomes a public-health issue
Looking at language, communication and meaning from a different angle, during the Covid-19 pandemic Professor Marten worked with Professor Nana Sato-Rossberg on a project that examined how information about Covid-19 was translated and interpreted among London’s multilingual communities.
I am looking forward to becoming involved in the work the British Academy is doing in promoting languages and the humanities and social sciences more widely.
It highlighted that public-health communication is not only about exchanging words between languages, but also about making information understandable within different linguistic and cultural contexts.
Research built through collaboration
Professor Marten’s work is shaped by long-term collaboration. He has worked with researchers and communities across Africa and has held visiting positions at universities in Tanzania, South Africa, Japan, China and elsewhere. His current research includes collaborative projects on variation in Swahili dialects, comparing Bantu languages, and documenting and describing Kitaveta, a Bantu language spoken in Kenya.
His election to the British Academy recognises a distinguished academic career. More broadly, his election also recognises the wider significance of African languages to understanding how language develops, changes and connects with different areas of human life.
