Jan Vansina (born in Belgium) is a historian and anthropologist specializing in Africa. He was first trained as a Medievalist and ethnographer but became known as one of the most prominent Africanist scholars. In his work, he focuses on the history of African societies prior to European contact. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin. A medievalist is a person who specializes in medieval studies. ... Ethnography (from the Greek ethnos = nation and graphein = writing) refers to the qualitative description of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. ... The University of Wisconsin is a public university in the state of Wisconsin. ...
Vansina assisted Alex Haley (the author of the novel Roots) in deciphering several African words that had been handed down from Hailey's ancestors, determining that they were of Mandinka origin.[1] Alex Haley Alexander Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 - February 10, 1992) was an African American writer (though he was also proud of his Irish and Cherokee ancestry). ... The Mandinka are a Mande people of West Africa, all descendent physically or culturally from the ancient Mali Empire which controlled the trans-Saharic trade from the Middle East to West Africa. ...
References
Vansina, Jan (1966). Kingdoms of the Savanna. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
Vansina, Jan (1985). Oral Tradition as History. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
Vansina, Jan (1994). Living With Africa. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Vansina, Jan (2004). Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom. Translated (from French) by the author. Africa and the Diaspora series. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
Vansina, Jan (2004). How Societies Are Born: Governance in West Central Africa Before 1600. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia Press.
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