Runyakitara as an academic discipline and as taught in Ugandan universities, has three major components: Language, Literature and Culture. It is this third component that the present publication is endeavouring to cater for. The term Banyakitara is the plural form of a Munyakitara or native speaker of Runyakitara. One would like to recall that the Bunyoro-Kitara Empire at one point in history covered most of the areas where Runyakitara is spoken today, spreading up to some territories in the present day Tanzania and DRC.

The authors in this book have covered a wide range of topics relating to culture, which include: what culture entails in general terms, kingship institutions among the Banyakitara, gender issues, friendship functions and rituals, marriage, forms of address, kinship and time references, the Empaako, a special form of address among the Banyoro, Batooro and Bahema, among others, recognised by UNESCO as part of its intangible heritage, taboos, omens and signs, traditional religion as well as death and its rituals.

Suffice it to say, however, that this kind of work, where cultures of related groups of people are compared, should be a challenge for other scholars in Uganda and beyond to do the same for a better appreciation and understanding of our societies.

This monumental book traverses diverse time zones and disciplines. Prof A.B.K Kasozi and his team of editors have made Makerere University proud. Government, faculty staff, alumni, and students should find it as a useful reference book. It is so well written that any book club would be privileged to select it as book of the year! (Prof. Edward B. Rugumayo, Chancellor, Mountains of the Moon University)

This book documents all you ever wanted to know about Makerere’s nascent years since 1922. A sneak peek into contents of the volume reveals alluring commitments to growth and change in research and innovations: ‘growing a research-led university’; from analogue to digitalization; and from the let us all be men motto to we build for the future. A leap into the next century reveals witting and unwitting breakthroughs, daunting constraints and challenges for a regional model by Uganda’s flagship university. What makes Makerere tick? How does it survive and thrive? Who are the immortalized alumni forbearers of Makerere? The book is worthy reading to find all the answers to these and related queries.

(Prof. Ruth Mukama, Formerly Professor of Linguistics at Makerere University; currently Head of Department, African Languages at Kabale University)

At one time, Makerere was called the Harvard of Africa; and there was, therefore, a real opportunity for Makerere to become our national sacred cow. Then came the neo-liberal ‘revolution’; with its mass production of graduates and the conversion of our technical colleges into universities, the establishment of numerous private universities, and the near abdication of government from the education sector. As Makerere embarks on the second century of service, we must maintain what made it great. This book tells many stories of that greatness. The content herein will definitely energise the debate amongst those who are interested in Makerere and university education in general. (Prof. Samwiri Lwanga-Lunyiigo, Retired Professor of History, Makerere University)

Some philosophers of old thought of humour and comedy as bad things. Plato detested comedy because it is often at the expense of another person. Epictetus is said never to have laughed; he saw it as a mark of weakness. Over time, humour has come to attract special attention in Philosophy and Literature as a mode of thought, existential expression, and communication. Works of great philosophers such as Bertrand Russell and Slovaj Žižek are clothed in wit and playfulness, something that has significantly contributed to their appeal. Satire has become one of the predominant ways of speaking truth to power and convention. It is a weapon of the weak; a vessel through which otherwise unacceptable views are relayed to the powerful. It is like pressing boils while blowing them with cool air.

This book endeavours to cover the major areas of language study as they relate to Runyakitara. They range from phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, translation and interpretation, including the orthography of Runyakitara.

In Uganda, the mutually intelligible languages or dialects that make up Runyakitara include:

• Runyankore, to which should be associated sub-dialects such as Ruhima, Ruhororo, Runyaruguru, Rutagwenda and to some extent Rukooki.
• Rukiga, to which should be associated such sub-dialects as Runyaifo, Runyangyezi, Rusigi, Ruhimba, Rugyeri, Ruheesi, and Runyabutumbi.
• Runyoro, to which should be associated such sub-dialects as Ruruuli, Runyara, and Rugangaizi.
• Rutooro, to which should be associated such sub-dialects as, Rusongora, Rutuku, Runyakyaka, Orutooro rwa Hansozi and Lubwisi.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), we have Ruhuma and Ruhema. In Tanzania we have Runyambo, Ruhaya and Kikerewe.

This important collection demonstrates the possibilities of rethinking heritage and memory in Africa, not as fixed marketable products but as living parts of contested pasts, presents and futures. The chapters skillfully illuminate how novelists, artists, activists and ordinary people have continuously unsettled, and even subsumed, the categories that were imposed and naturalized in colonial archives. This wonderful multidisciplinary group of scholars show how engagement with the continuities of knowledge over time, beyond the academy or the state, remains critical to the possibility of justice.” (Edgar C. Taylor, Lecturer in History, Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Makerere University).

This is a timely response to the calls for both the decolonizing of the syllabus and of African renaissance. I cannot think of any book in the market which has this approach and depth of a variety of articles.” (John Blackings Mairi, Professor of Literary Linguistics, University of Juba).

This book essentially poses the question: Are there lessons to draw from Africa’s rich past to steer through the present into the future? It is a riveting effort at reincarnating the rich diversity, accumulated and tested cultural heritage, with in situ logics of existence. Identities, tested philosophies, practices and aesthetics of communities are embedded on every page the reader turns. A timely and relevant book at this juncture when Africa seems to have culturally thrown the baby out with the bathwater.” (Godfrey Asiimwe, Associate Professor of Development Studies, Makerere University).

This publication brings together issues that educational researchers, policy-makers and practitioners in the Global South are currently grappling with, in the hope of widening the global discourse on these and related matters. It is worth noting that whereas the Global South faces the gravest challenges in educating its citizens and is the arena for a wide range of educational experiments, voices of researchers from Africa are almost muted in the global discourse on educational research, policy and practice. Rather than leaving it to the few international experts to speak for them, this publication provided a platform for contemporary scholars and researchers from or in Africa to share their views with the rest of the world.