Swahili language

“ In addition, it contains references to further information in E. 0. Ashton, Swahili Grammar (1944) and E. C. Polomé, Swahili Language Handbook (1967) .
CONTENTS OF SYNOPSIS
1/ The most common type of sentence in Swahili contains an 'inflected verb phrase.' This phrase may consist of a single verb (par. 29 - 35) , or of two verbs (par. 68 - 69) .
2/ The sentence may or may not contain a subject expression, 3/ and it may or may not contain object expressions. 4/ It may also contain references to time, manner, etc., but these will give the learner relatively little difficulty. ”

“ The word stress always falls on the next-to-last syllable of a word. But there are certain prefixes which never take word stress. They are egg: , -na- , -li- , -ta-, -me- and -nge- (par. 29 ) , and the relative prefixes (par. 42 ) . If one of these would otherwise be the next-to-last syllable of the verb, then the meaningless syllable ku is inserted (from a historical point of view, 'retained,' and not 'inserted') . 52/ In the same tenses, if there is an object prefix, the meaningless ku is not needed.
53/ The most troublesome thing about Swahili verbs is the way they form the negative. ”

“ To it belongs Swahili, the language of Zanzibar, only less valuable as a means of communication and trade than the Haussa of the Sudan, the most important of the dialects under the influence of the Hamitic languages. The African languages are by no means to be called a family, but rather a great mass of dialects, numbering by hundreds, of varying structure, as to the relations of which there is great discordance of opinion even among the most recent and competent authorities. ”

“ The most curious thing in this collection is perhaps the latter part of the tale of 'Sultan Majnun,' from p. 254, where every one present joins in singing the verses, if they may be so called, which besides are not in Swahili. The words niulaga for the Swahili nimeua, and nilawa for nalitoka, are such as occur in more than one mainland language. I have heard stories referred to and partly told in which the verse parts were in the Yao and the Nyamwezi languages. But it is a constant characteristic of popular native tales to have a sort of burden, which all join in singing. ”

“ Both students and instructor are led to break texts down into two inventories: nouns and short sentences. The former are important in Swahili because of the role played by concordial agreement between nouns and many other words: the latter serve largely as the basis for drills involving changes of tense, and changes from affirmative to negative. Included here are most of the drills to accompany the first news item ”

“ Kiswahili (Swahili) is the mother tongue of the Bantu people living in Zanzibar and nearby coastal Tanzania; although Kiswahili is Bantu in structure and origin, its vocabulary draws on a variety of sources, including Arabic and English, and it has become the lingua franca of central and eastern Africa; the first language of most people is one of the local languages Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write Kiswahili (Swahili) , English, or Arabic
total population: 78.2%
male: 85.9%
female: 70.7% (2003 est.) ”

“ One general language, with great divergence as to dialects, prevails over this whole region of country. There are not only verbal resemblances, but there is a peculiar grammatical structure, scarcely known to any other language, that pervades and characterizes all the dialects of this one great family. A very large number of words are common to the Mpongwe dialect on the west coast, and the Swahili on the east, as may be seen from a grammar of the Mpongwe, published by the missionaries at the Gaboon years ago. ”

“ Occasionally he had met a white-skinned Arab who reminded him most strongly of the Bible patriarchs, and who seemed very desirous of being on friendly terms with the white man. But these black Arabs who spoke Swahili, the language of Unguja, though they affected outward politeness, were working hard against the good influence of the East African Mission and trying to persuade the Chief to reconsider his first grant of land and expel the white people who were spies in the service of the great Balozi and the English men-of-war, watching to intercept slave dhows.... ”

“ Each tribe speaks a different language or dialect of Bantu, the chief groups being described in the article Bantu Languages. Swahili, a Bantu tongue with an admixture of Arabic, &c., is understood by many tribes besides those which have been under the direct influence of the Zanzibar Arabs, and it is the most general means of communication. The religion of the Congo tribes is difficult to define. ”

“ Here, however, when I have attended to the affairs of our household—a small one, since we no longer live in the big Consulate—and have paid an occasional visit to some other Consul's wife or the nicer among the missionary women, I give myself up to the study of Swahili, the local language. Spencer, who is strong in fifty things where I am weak or totally wanting, is not absolutely of the first quality as a linguist, while I seem to have rather a gift that way. I am much complimented on my French, and although I dislike German I force myself to speak it. ”

“ As traders, the Bihéans have gained certain advantages. Their Umbundu language almost takes the place in Central West Africa that the Swahili takes on the eastern side. It will carry you fairly well, at all events, along the main foot-paths of trade. They are richer than other tribes, too; they live a little better, they wear rather larger cloths, and get more to eat. But they are naturally despised by neighbors who live by fighting, hunting, fishing, and the manly arts. They are tainted with the softness of trade. ”

“ There are specimens of several styles of Swahili. The best and purest language of Zanzibar is represented by the tales told to me by Hamisi wa Kayi, as he is commonly called, though his name is written Khamis bin Abubekr. They are 'The Washerman's Donkey' (p, 1) , 'An Indian Story' (p. 139) , 'Hasseebu Kareem ed deen' (p. 331) , 'The Kites and the Crows' (p. 363) , 'The Hare and the Lion' (p. 369) , 'The Spirit and the Sultan's Son,' (p. 379) , 'Blessing or Property' (p. 391) , and the 'Story of Liongo' (p. 439) ”

“ The two books in this series which are concerned with Swahili and Lingala set out the grammar of those languages in the form of a series of individual notes, distributed throughout the units of the course. ”

“ TABLE 1
1 Under certain circumstances, the markers that occur before consonants also are found before vowels:
2 The symbol # stands for the fact that most nouns of Class 5 have no overt marker at all when the stem begins with a consonant.
3 Classes 9 and 10 have no special prefix syllable for nouns, but many nouns in this class begin with a nasal sound (/m, n/ etc.) .
4 when a stem begins with the vowel /i/ (e.g. /ingi/ 'many') and the prefix ends with /a/, the vowel that is pronounced is /e/: /wengi, mengi, pengi/, instead of the nonexistent */waingi, maingi, paingi/. ”

“ Anita Politano, language teacher and trainer of teachers in Hilo, Hawaii;
Kenneth L. Rehg, former language specialist for the Peace Corps in Ponape and currently a graduate student at the University of Hawaii, who made many comments over a long period of time;
J. Richard Reid, Chairman of the Department of Romance Languages at Clark University, both as a language teacher and as a trainer of teachers;
John M. Thiuri, one of the best language instructors I have seen or heard of, who teaches Swahili at the Foreign Service Institute ”

“ Sooner or later, we need an official language, what is it going to be?"
"Why one official language? Why not several?" Cliff scowled. "Say Arabic, here in this area. Swahili on the East coast. And, say, Songhoi along the Niger, and Wolof, the Senegalese lingua franca, and—"
"You see," Peters interrupted. "Already you have half a dozen and you haven't even got out of this immediate vicinity as yet. Let me develop my point." ”

“ CHAPTER XI THE HYRAX AND THE ELEPHANT The returning caravan brought new people to the village. It had met an Arab trader coming up the river with his porters and some armed men for a bodyguard. The Arab could speak a little Bantu, and the language he talked to his men was a dialect called Swahili, which is something like Bantu and is spoken by most of the traders. When he saw the villagers’ rubber and palm oil and heard about their country, he seemed much interested, and wished to try their markets. ”

“ Eastwards of the Yao domain, and bounded on the north by the range of that language in the Ruvuma valley and by the separate group of Ki-makonde (No. 10) , ranges the well-marked Makua genus. The languages thus described occupy the greater part of Portuguese East Africa away from the watershed of Lake Nyasa. The Makua language is probably divided into the following dialects:—I-medo, I-lomwe, I-tugulu and Anguru. There are other dialects unnamed in the Angoji coast-region, where, however, strong colonies of Swahili-speaking people are settled. ”

“ Slavonic: sub-dialect of Russian.
Susoo.
African: Mandingo dialect of Senegambia.
Sussex.
Provincial dialect of England. Glossary by Cooper, Brighton, 2nd edition, 1853; Works by M. A. Lower.
Sutra-renchong.
Javanese alphabet of Sumatra. See Palembang.
Swabian (Schwabische) .
(1) Sub-dialect of old High-German; typical dialect of the middle ages, representing the dynasty of Hohenstauffen. It was the dialect of the Minnesingers.
(2) Modern. Dicty. by Schmid, Stuttgart, 1831. See Halle.
Swahili.
African: Kaffir language of Zanzibar; also called Ki-Suaheli. Handbook by Steere, London, 1870. ”

“ The Swahili live principally along the coast of British East Africa and at Zanzibar. They are a mixed race, being the descendants of Arab fathers and negro mothers. Their name is derived from the Arabic word suahil, coast; but it has also been said, by some who have found them scarcely so guileless as might have been expected, to be really a corruption of the words sawa hili, that is, "those who cheat all alike." However that may be, the men are as a rule of splendid physique and well qualified for the calling that the majority of them follow, that of caravan porters. ”

“ The Zanzibar traders have here settlecl in such nunibt^rs that Ei-Swahili has become the dominant language in Kota-Kota. This Moham- medan colony has the advantage of possessing some thermal springs in its vicinity ”

“ We have an Arabic MS. in the mission library at Zanzibar, containing the story of 'Hasseebu,' but differing in many of the names and circumstances from the form given in the Arabian Nights. I do not know how far others of the tales may come from Arab sources. It must be remembered that as a Swahili is by definition a man of mixed Negro and Arab descent, he has an equal right to tell tales of Arab and Negro origin. ”

“ The Swahili are essentially a mixed people, the result of long crossing between the negroes of the coast and the Arabs, with an admixture of slave blood from nearly all the East African tribes. Among Swahili are found every shade of colour and every type of physique from the full-blooded negro to the pure Semite. Usually they are a powerfully built, handsome people, inclined to stoutness and with Semitic features. ”

“ Nearly every Swahili town has some little difference in its talk, and even the various quarters of the town of Zanzibar have their varieties. Thus Kokoni is the home of a colony from Lamoo and Mombas who speak very good Swahili; Baghani was till lately inhabited by the Harthi Arabs, who spoke a very corrupt Arabized dialect; while the people of Ng'ambo, being chiefly freed slaves, have a twang and a dialect peculiar to themselves. ”

“ The Swahili men wear a long white cotton garment, like a night-shirt, called a kanzu; the women—who are too liberally endowed to be entirely graceful—go about with bare arms and shoulders, and wear a long brightly-coloured cloth which they wind tightly round their bosoms and then allow to fall to the feet. All are followers of the Prophet, and their social customs are consequently much the same as those of any other Mohammedan race, though with a good admixture of savagedom. ”

“ To that end we proposed to engage a dozen Swahili and half that number of Wa’Nyamwezi. Porters at that time were very scarce; but having secured one or two good men as a nucleus, we sent them into the bazaar at Nairobi to bring us any other men they could find who wanted employment.
[Pg 7]
The Swahilis are natives of Zanzibar and the adjacent coasts. They are of mixed—very mixed—descent, being mainly the offspring of various native slaves and their Arab masters. ”

“ His son, Koranja, a rather good-looking young fellow for a native, had been down to Mombasa with a safari, and spoke Kiswahili fairly well. He seemed very intelligent. Some of the old men of the tribe also spoke Kiswahili, which, we presumed, they had picked up from passing Arab or Swahili safaris. Kinuthia bade us adieu and returned to his own village the other side of the Sagana, having received from us a suitable present of beads, etc., to gladden his heart, or rather the hearts of his wives. ”

“ It is partly occupied by a negro tribe, the Wadigo, who have their chief settlements to the northward. Where the hills begin to show themselves distinctly, lie the villages of the half-Swahili people, called by the coastmen, Washenzi, i. e. wild folk, and by the people of the mountains Waboonde, i. e. valley people. They talk a dialect of Swahili much mixed with Shambala words and phrases. The mountains themselves are occupied by the Shambala, but there is at least one large valley running up among them, which is occupied by the Zegulas, who are their next neighbours to the southward. ”

“ This group might be described as Kaguru-Sagala-Kami. It is one which occupies the inland territories of German East Africa, between the Swahili coast dialects on the east and the domain of the Nyamwezi (No. 11) on the west. On the north this group is bounded by the non-Bantu languages of the Masai, Mbugu and Taturu, and on the south by the Ruaha river. This group includes Kigogo and Irangi.
[v.03 p.0359]
(9) The dialects of the Comoro Islands, between the East African coast and Madagascar, are styled Hi-nzua or Anzuani and Shi-ngazija. They are somewhat closely related to Swahili. ”