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Renowned historian to speak on slave languages

Press release issued: 21 September 2005

The languages spoken by African slaves transported to the Americas will be the focus of a public lecture at Bristol University on Saturday, September 24.

The languages spoken by African slaves transported to the Americas will be the focus of a public lecture at Bristol University on Saturday September 24.

Entitled '"To Form a Language Perfectly Adapted": Slave Languages in the Making of an Atlantic World', the lecture will be given by Professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto, internationally respected historian and best-selling author.

The lecture will take place during this year's Colston Research Society Symposium, a three-day meeting at the university which will bring together historians and archaeologists of the circum-Atlantic region.

They will explore the ways in which the activities of European pioneers and adventurers, and their interactions with the peoples and environments of territories extending around the Atlantic basin, contributed to the emergence of an 'Atlantic World'.

This truly international conference seeks to further broaden the study of the Atlantic by considering the contribution made by Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, German, and Scottish pioneers and adventurers, as well the English, to the emergence and development of the Atlantic World over the period from around 1492 to 1810.

The meeting is sponsored by the Colston Research Society and organised by the University's Department of Hispanic, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies, and Department of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The lecture takes place at 7pm on Saturday September 24 in the Great Hall at the Wills Memorial Building.  It is free of charge and open to everyone.

Felipe Fernández-Armesto is Professor of Global Environmental History at Queen Mary, University of London, and Prince of Asturias Professor at Tufts University.   Works by Professor Fernández-Armesto have been translated into twenty-two languages.  They include Before Columbus, Millennium: a History of the Last Thousand Years, and Food: a History.

He presents Analysis on BBC Radio 4, among frequent journalism and broadcasting, and Millennium was the subject of a ten-part television series on CNN and BBC2

The Colston Research Symposium entitled Pioneers, Adventurers and the Creation of the Atlantic World takes places from Friday September 23 to Sunday September 25.

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