Christiaan Kooyman is currently working at the Biological Control Centre for Africa in Cotonou, Republic of Benin, which is part of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. He has lived and worked in East Africa for many years. One of his hobbies and part of his work is taxonomy, which entails describing and giving names to organisms among other things. Because of this work, he became interested in local names, especially Kiswahili ones. He has noticed that many of these names are being forgotten, partly because people find it easier to use the English equivalents, partly because the Kiswahili names are often ambiguous or not very precise. For the latter reason, he often adds descriptors to the original names.

Participants / Washiriki