Grammar of Loss

Anne Storch teaches African Studies at the University of Cologne, Germany. Her research focuses on various languages of Nigeria, South Sudan, Kenya, and Uganda, resulting in contributions to the cultural and social context of languages, the semiotics of linguistic practices and Indigenous linguistic theories.

'This innovative book offers a deeply human and refreshingly honest approach to linguistic scholarship. Its focus on the largely defunct Nigerian Hone language and blends rigorous research with storytelling techniques. The book’s structure defies traditional grammar formats, instead presenting a logical, accessible, and emotionally resonant journey through language, culture, and identity. The author challenges Western academic norms by foregrounding indigenous spirituality, lived experience, and the realities of her own fieldwork experience. Rich in interdisciplinary insight, Anne Storch writes with compassion and scholarly precision and crafts both a critical academic contribution and a powerful act of cultural preservation. The Grammar of Loss provides valuable insight for researchers, educators, and students across disciplines and is a must-read for anyone interested in the transformative power of language.'Sally J. Delgado, University of Puerto Rico at Cayey‘A vivid and poignant account of a disappearing language, which captures how language is situated in a place and embedded in a community of speakers, rather than treating it as data to be extracted for academic analysis and dissection.’ Paul O’Connor, Associate Professor, United Arab Emirates University‘Every now and then a rare gem of a book comes along, bold, pioneering and rigorously argued in a narrative, almost playful style that means you just can’t put it down.Grammar of Loss by Anne Storch is just such a book. Prof Storch takes on the debates around decolonising language study by doing decolonising and telling the story of how it can be done, the pitfalls, partnerships and the narrative power of anti-extractive, imaginative approaches as a living, creative decoloniality.The book is a tour de force, the kind that only the very best of scholars, at the height of their analytic and narrative powers can pull off. You are in for a treat. Expect to be changed by this book.’Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair for Refugee Integration through Education, Languages and Arts

• 1. Introduction 2. Extractivism 3. Levitating backwards 4. Ghosts 5. Roasted chicken and the motorpark 6. Nothing is numerous or few in itself 7. Confucianists 8. You and me 9. Wandering 10.What can no longer be known 11. Crackles and glitches 12. Colonialism