Fieldwork

Much of my research over the past few years has focused on Atchan, a Kwa language spoken in Côte d’Ivoire, which I have been researching since 2021. Atchan (also known in Côte d’Ivoire by the name Ebrié) is the ethnic language of the Tchaman people, who according to oral tradition migrated from Ghana to Côte d’Ivoire in the 1700s. The land where the Tchaman built villages later became the site of the French colonial capital and now massive city of Abidjan. Today, there are approximately 57 Tchaman villages, of which roughly half (27) are located within Abidjan.

My research on Atchan has mainly taken place in two villages, Anono and Blockhauss, which are both located within Abidjan (effectively now neighborhoods of the larger city). I also have ongoing collaborations with Maxime Dido (professor of linguistics at Université Alassane Ouattara de Bouaké, and native speaker of Atchan) and Katherine Russell (graduate student in linguistics at UC Berkeley) on Atchan documentation and community-oriented language resources.