Professor Dr Dmitry Bondarev
Head of 'Ajami Lab' | Member UWA
West African Linguistics and Islamic Studies
Address
Office
Contact
Projects
Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’ (UWA) (2019–2025)
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2021–2024: Project Lead RFH05:
Script Styles versus Dialects and Languages: A Case for Songhay in Islamic Manuscripts of Timbuktu and Jenne - 2020–2023: Project Lead FNT02:
Change and Retention in Annotated Manuscripts of West Africa
Affiliated Projects
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2017–2029: Head of project:
African voices in the Islamic manuscripts from Mali: documenting and exploring African languages written in Arabic script (Ajami) - 2015–2018: Head of project:
African voices in Islamic manuscripts from Mali: A study of African languages written in Arabic-based script (Ajami)
Cultural Heritage
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2013–2019: Head of project:
Safeguarding the Manuscripts of Timbuktu (2013–2019)
SFB 950 ‘Manuscript Cultures in Asia, Africa and Europe’ (2011–2020)
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2015–2019: Project Lead of sub-project A05:
Islamic Manuscripts with a Wide Spaced Layout as Mediators of Teaching Practices in West Africa - 2013–2015: Project Lead of sub-project A05:
Writing and reading paratexts in West African Islamic manuscripts: a comparative study of commentaries on Arabic texts in Old Kanembu and Old Mande
Research Interests and Activities
Dmitry Bondarev’s research interests cover African linguistics, literacy studies and translational studies, especially in the context of Islamic exegetical traditions in African languages, the history of writing in Arabic based scripts (Ajami), and palaeography and codicology of West African Islamic manuscripts. In 2003, serendipity introduced Bondarev to a collection of photographs of the Qur’an manuscripts from Nigeria that contained a large corpus of unknown archaic Kanuri (Old Kanembu) going back several centuries. In subsequent years, many more such manuscripts were discovered in Nigeria proving the antiquity of writing in sub-Saharan Africa. To decipher and describe Old Kanembu, Bondarev had to keep up with his linguistic training, extend his knowledge of Saharan languages, and acquire new expertise in manuscript studies and Islamic studies. While doing his research at SOAS, Bondarev became involved in the activities of the Forschergruppe (FOR 963) ‘Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa’ and in 2012 joined the newly formed SFB 950 ‘Manuscript Cultures in Asia, Africa and Europe’. Encouraged by the SFB and, later, the Cluster’s interdisciplinary research, Bondarev expanded his interests toward manuscript production and visual organisation of paracontent which led him to initiate research projects on Islamic manuscripts with Ajami annotations beyond Nigeria, now covering the whole of West Africa.