{"product_id":"gather-your-ancestors-raevin-jimenez-9780299358006","title":"Gather Your Ancestors: Gender, Language, and Belonging in Southeast Africa","description":"\u003cp\u003eHistorically, southeasternmost Africa has been home to a large variety of speech communities, including Nguni, East Bantu, Khoi, and San--the legacy of a long and complicated history of migration, interaction, assimilation, and disaggregation between many peoples. With detailed, careful analysis, Raevin Jimenez guides readers through a thousand years of human movement, cultural contact, and social development in this region. Taking a historical linguistics approach, she sheds new light on this history by focusing on Nguni speakers' use of gendered practices--including initiation, marriage, and avoidant speech known as \u003ci\u003ehlónipha\u003c\/i\u003e--to blend multilingual and diverse communities.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUse of gendered institutions inaugurated variable social spaces that could either elide or accommodate difference and thus enabled a multiplicity of community types. Contrary to previous assumptions about the roles of men and women in precolonial southeasternmost Africa, Jimenez shows that gender impacted life and social interactions across a large variety of important domains and became a way of forming, negotiating, and maintaining community. These developments shaped and remain visible in southeastern African speech communities today, and understanding them is vital to understanding the region's long history and current linguistic society.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Raevin Jimenez\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0299358003\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780299358006\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Wisconsin Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/18\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 300\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.00lbs","brand":"Raevin Jimenez","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":49001007546623,"sku":"9780299358006","price":89.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/gather-your-ancestors-raevin-jimenez-9780299358006","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}