Salikoko S Mufwene

Native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Salikoko S. Mufwene is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and the College, Professor on the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, on the Committee on the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, and on the Committee on African Studies. His current research is in evolutionary linguistics, which he approaches from an ecological perspective, focused on the phylogenetic emergence of language and on how languages have been affected by colonization and world-wide globalization, especially regarding the indigenization of European languages in the colonies and language birth and death. He brings into all this fresh African, Africanist, and creolist perspectives, having published a great deal in African and creole linguistics.

Mufwene is the founding editor of Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact. His distinctions include lectures at the Collège de France (Fall 2003), teaching at Harvard University (spring 2002) and four times at the Summer Institute of the Linguistic Society of America (1999, 2005, 2015, 2017), and recognition as a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America (January 2018). He was also a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Lyon (2010-2011) and Director of the University of Chicago Center in Paris during the 2013-2014 academic year. He chaired the Department of Linguistics from July 1995 to June 2001 and was the interim faculty director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, at Chicago (2018-2020).

Mufwene has also been elected as a fellow of the following scientific organizations:

• American Philosophical Society, May 2022.
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences, April 2023.
• Appointed to the "Chaire Mondes Francophones" at the Collège de France for the 2023-24 academic year.
  • Courses taught at the Collège de France and related seminars by guest speakers: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHFU8yWQ83n4MehdCUn2oi2WvYDuQyxcx
  • Colloquium at the conclusion of the tenure of the Chaire: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHFU8yWQ83n4qYfbQxUdm_vcA8MgVIQDr

Recent Publications

Books:

• Language Evolution: Contact, competition and change (Continuum Press, 2008).
• Iberian imperialism and language evolution in Latin America (edited volume, University of Chicago Press, 2014)
• Complexity in language: Developmental and evolutionary perspectives (lead editor, co-edited with Christophe Coupé & François Pellegrino. Cambridge University Press, 2017)
• Bridging linguistics and economics (co-edited with Cécile B. Vigouroux, Cambridge University Press, 2020).
• The Cambridge handbook of language contact. Volume 1: Population movement and language change, lead editor, with Anna María Escobar, Cambridge University Press, 2022.
• The Cambridge handbook of language contact. Volume 2: Multilingualism in population structure, lead editor, with Anna María Escobar, Cambridge University Press, 2022.
• Migrations humaines et évolution linguistique : les parcours des créoles et du français. Paris: Collège de France. [Written version of my inaugural lecture for the Chaire annuelle Mondes francophones 2023-24.]
• Ecological perspectives on language endangerment and loss. Springer Nature, 2025.
• Uniformitarianism in language speciation: From creolistics to genetic linguistics, co-edited with Enoch O. Aboh, Cambridge University Press. 2025.

Selected Articles/Chapters:

• 2017a. “Individuals, populations, and timespace: Perspectives on the ecology of language Revisited.” Language Ecology 1.75-103 (co-authored with Cécile B. Vigouroux.)
• 2017b. “Language vitality: The weak theoretical underpinnings of what can be an exciting research area.” Language. Perspectives 93.e-202-e223; 93.e306-e316.
• 2018a. “‘Socio-Cultural Transmission’ in Language Evolution? Comment on ‘Rethinking [the] Foundations of Language from a Multidisciplinary Perspective’” by Tao Gong, Lan Shuai, & Yicheng Wu. Physics of Life Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2018.06.015.
• 2018b. “Language evolution from an ecological perspective.” In the Handbook of ecolinguistics, ed. by Alwin Fill & Hermine Benz, 73-88. Routledge.
• 2018c. “Population movements, language contact, linguistic diversity, etc.” Postscript. In Tracing language movement in Africa, ed. by Ericka A. Albaugh & Kathryn M. de Luna, 387-414. Oxford University Press.
• 2019. “The evolution of language as technology: The cultural dimension,” in Beyond the meme: Development and structure in cultural evolution, ed. by Alan C. Love & William C. Wimsatt, 365-394. University of Minnesota Press.
• 2019. “The legacy of Braj B. Kachru through World Englishes and Culture Wars.” World Englishes, 38.162-169.
• 2020. "Global English and World Englishes from an evolutionary perspective: A rejoinder to Anna Kristina Hultgren." Nordic Journal of English Studies 19(3).130-136.
• 2020b. “Do linguists need economists and economists linguists?” co-authored with Cécile B. Vigouroux. In Bridging linguistics and economics, ed. by Cécile B. Vigouroux and Salikoko S. Mufwene, 1-57. Cambridge University Press.
• 2020c. “Grammaticization in the development of creoles.” In Patterns of Linguistic Convergence in Africa, a Festschrift for Bernd Heine, ed. by Rainer Vossen, 153-169.
• 2020d. “Creoles and pidgins: Why the latter are not the ancestors of the former.” In The Routledge handbook of language contact, ed. by Evangelia Adamou & Yaron Matras, 300-324.
• 2020e. “Genetic creolistics as part of evolutionary linguistics,” in The Handbook of historical linguistics, vol. 2, ed. by Brian Joseph, Richard Janda, & Barbara Vance, 395-422. Wiley-Blackwell.
• 2020f. “Language shift.” The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, ed. by James W. Stanlaw. Wiley. Electronic publication, 9 pages.
• 2020g. “Decolonial linguistics as paradigm shift: A commentary.” In Colonial and decolonial linguistics – Knowledges and epistemes, ed. by Ana Deumert, Anne Storch, & Nick Shepherd, 289-300. Oxford University Press.
• 2020h. “Population structure and the emergence of World Englishes.” In The Cambridge handbook of World Englishes, ed. by Daniel Schreier, Marianne Hundt & Edgar W. Schneider, 99-119. Cambridge University Press.
• 2021. “Linguistic diversity, formal education, and economic development: The Sub-Saharan African chicken-and-egg dilemma?” In Language & the sustainable development goals, ed. by Philip Harding-Esch & Hywel Coleman. London: British Council.
• 2021b. “Sociolinguistics of Diaspora: A Commentary” (with Cécile B. Vigouroux as first author). DOI: 10.1111/josl.12536. Journal of Sociolinguistics 25:754–761.
• 2022a. “The verticalization model of language shift from a population-structure perspective: A commentary." In The verticalization model of language shift: The great change in American communities, ed. by Joshua Brown, 166-194. Oxford University Press.
• 2022b. “The Linguist, language, and economic development: A commentary on Language, linguistics and development practices.” In Language, linguistics and development practices, ed. by Deborah Hill & Felix Ameka, 267-289. Palgrave Macmillan.
• 2022c. “Language contact: What a rich and intellectually stimulating history since the late 19th century!” (with Anna María Escobar). In The Cambridge handbook of language contact. Vol. 1: Population movement and language change, ed. by Salikoko S. Mufwene & Anna María Escobar, 3-39.
• 2022d. “Language contact in population structure.” (with Anna María Escobar). In The Cambridge handbook of language contact. Vol. 2: Multilingualism in population structure, ed. by Salikoko S. Mufwene & Anna María Escobar, 3-25.
• 2022e. “Multilingualism and super-diversity: Some historical and contrastive perspectives.” In The Cambridge handbook of language contact. Vol. 2: Multilingualism in population structure, ed. by Salikoko S. Mufwene & Anna María Escobar, 145-171.
• 2023a. “Linguistic hybridization in the emergence of creoles.” Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry 10: 74–89. https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2022.32
• 2023b. “Exceptionalizing genetic creolistics: A rejoinder to Michael Parkvall & Bart Jacobs on the emergence of Berbice Dutch.” Folia Linguistica 57: 205-215.
• 2023c. “Sound language policies must be consistent with natural language evolution.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 281: 1–22.
• 2023d. “An iconoclast’s approach to decolonial linguistics.” In Shades of decolonial linguistics, ed. by Sinfree Makoni et al. Multilingual Matters: Global Forum on Southern Epistemologies. Multilingual Matters.
• 2023e. “Foreword” to Inspirations from a lofty mountain: Festschrift in honor of Professor WilliamS-Y. Wang on his 90th birthday, ed. by Gang Peng et al., xxiii-xxxi. City University of Hong Kong Press.
• 2025a. “Languages are cultural artifacts and align with cultural evolution: Comment on ‘Language follows a distinct mode of extra-genomic evolution’,” by Balthasar Bickel, Anne-Lise Giraud, Klaus Zuberbühler, Carel P. van Schaik. Physics of Life Reviews 52: 57-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2024.12.003.
• 2025b. “Language Practices in ‘Francophone Africa’: A Legacy of European Colonialism.” An opinion piece. Language Policy in Africa 1: 8-19.