Swahili


  1. History of the Language, Family Relations, and Genetic Affiliations


    2. Swahili is spoken by an estimated 50 million people and other than Arabic is the most widely spoken language in Africa. Swahili is the official language of Kenya and Tanzania. It is also widely spoken in Uganda and the eastern provinces of Zaire.

    Swahili is thought to be an old language. There written documentation dating back to the 2nd century AD that says Southern Arab merchants trading on the East African coast would speak to the natives in their language. The document states that the two languages eventually intermarried.

    Swahili is a Bantu language with some Arabic elements in the language. This is largely due to Arab trade along the East African coast and a thousand years of contact between Indian Ocean peoples. This resulted in a large borrowing of words, mainly from Arabic, but also from Persian and other Indian languages. The word Swahili comes from the Arabic word "sawahil" which means "coast". There are also borrowed words from the Portuguese who controlled the Swahili coastal towns between 1500 and 1700 AD.

    Several dialects of the Swahili language exist. Most of the dialects are mutually intelligible and differ mainly in certain lexical and phonological features.

    Websites:

    The following site gives a brief history of the Swahili language.

    http://www.glcom.com/hassan/swahili_history.html

    The following site gives a profile of the Swahili language. This site contains information such as linguistic affiliation, language variation, orthography, a linguistic sketch, Swahili role in society, and its history.

    http://www.lmp.ucla.edu./profiles/profs04.htm

    On the following site is an account of the origin and spread of the Swahili language.

    http://www.newafrica.com/swahili/language/origin.htm

    This site gives the origin, spread, and history of the Swahili language.

    http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/CIVAFRCA/SWAHILI.htm
     
     

  2. Structural System
    1. Phoneme System
Vowels: There are five vowel phonemes (distinctive sounds) in Swahili represented by the graphs a, e, i, o, and u. These approximately have Spanish or Italian values. There are important differences between English and Swahili vowels. For one, the Swahili vowels are short and are not dipthongized as are the comparable English ones.
 
 
 
 
 
 

It is imperative to note that each vowel in Swahili must be given its full value whether accented or not. Americans tend to neutralize unaccented vowels.
Swahili
as in English
Examples
  
a.wav

a
ah!
baba
"father"
e
say
wewe
"you"
i
be
kiti
"chair"
o
ho!
moto
"fire"
u
too
tu
"only, just"
Consonants: Consonants in Swahili generally have English values, but as in the case of vowels there are considerable differences. Note the following:
    1. p, t, k – These are similar to English voiceless stops, but they can be aspirated or unaspirated.
    2. b, d, g – As English voiced stops, but they are imploded, that is, in Swahili pronunciation the air is sucked into the mouth as they are released.
Websites:

The following sites describe the Swahili phonetic system. These sites have written examples and sound clips that allow you to hear pronunciation of vowels and consonants in language structure.

Swahili Pronunciation

http://www.cis.yale.edu/swahili/sound/pronunce.htm

Swahili Pronunciation

http://www.newafrica.com/swahili/lessons/lesson1.htm
 
 

b. Morpheme System

Swahili is an inflecting language in which both prefixed and suffixed morphemes play a grammatical role, with the functions of prefixes particularly salient in both nominal and verbal morphology. The structure of the verb is agylutinative. There are some consonant alterations that often involve palatalization.

In general Swahili does not have morphological case marking. A single exception is the suffix –ni which forms a locative oblique: nyumba ‘house’, nyumbani ‘in/at [the] house’. Grammatical relations are differentiated through word order and indexing.

 Websites:

This site gives a general description of Swahili grammar and its use in verbal and sentence structure.

http://www.eirelink.com/alanking/modals/documents/do-g-swa.htm

This site demonstrates sound changes in the Swahili language.

http://www.cis.yale.edu/swahili/grammar/changes.htm

    1. Syntax
Adjectives follow nouns in the Swahili language while in English adjectives are before nouns.

Tenses The prefix tenses in Swahili follow a slight pattern. Examples: All or most past tense form contains ‘li’ in the beginning of the third or fourth letter. The present tense form contains ‘na’ in the beginning of the third or fourth letter. The future tense form contains ‘ta’ in the beginning of the third or fourth letter.

Nouns in Swahili are put into various classes according to how those nouns change when expressed in plural form. There are other factors considered in classifying nouns.

 Websites:

This site describes the noun classification system in Swahili.

http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/swahili/swahili.html

The following site gives a detailed description of the modal language of Swahili.

http://www.eirelink.com/alanking/modal/documents/do-m-swa.htm

The following 6 sites deal with language structure.

  1. adjectives


    2. http://conn.me.queensu.ca./kassim/documents/kiswa/kadject.htm#lesson7

  2. grammar and syntax


    3. http://conn.me.queensu.ca./kassim/document/kiswa/knouncl.htm#partii

  3. tenses (past, present, future, and present continuous)


    4. http://conn.me.queensu.ca./kassim/documents/kiswa/ktenses.htm#lesson8

  4. possessive


    5. http://conn.me.queensu.ca./kassim/documents/kiswa/kposasiv.htm#lesson9

  5. sentence structure


    6. http://www.eirelink.com/alanking/modals/data/da-s-swa.htm#S2

  6. nominal system
http://www.eirelink.com/alanking/modals/data/da-n-swa.htm III. Pragmatics The sayings in this site are not necessarily proverbs but are messages you would hear in Swahili that send out both "encoded" and plain messages.

http://www.glcom.com/hassan/kanga.html

 IV. Writing The Swahili alphabet uses the Roman Latin characters. Mainly the Arabs put the language into written form. In each of the sites listed below are samples of the written language.

Websites:

This site lists general conversational words and phrases used in Swahili.

http://www.glcom.com/hassan/swahili.html

This site also lists common Swahili words and phrases but it is a very helpful site for pronunciation. Each word and phrase has a link you can click on to hear the word.

http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi2/2_cult1a.htm

This site lists basic Swahili conversation.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages

This site is called The Internet Living Swahili Dictionary and is maintained by the Yale Program in African Language. This site is a collaborative work by people all over the world. In this site you will find an online Swahili dictionary.

http://www.yale.edu/swahili/home.html
  1. Country Profiles


    2. Swahili is the official language of Kenya and Tanzania. It is also widely used in Uganda and the eastern provinces of Zaire. The following sites give a profile of each country. Each site has information on geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for each country.

    Websites:

    Kenya

    http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ke.html

    Tanzania

    http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/tz.html

    Uganda

    http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ug.html

    Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

    http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/cg.html

  2. Teacher Resources
The following sites consist of lesson plans, activities, student sites, phonetic alphabet books, folktales, recipes, etc.

Websites:

Swahili Alphabet Book. This is a children’s picture alphabet book in Swahili created by a fourth grade class. Each word has the English word, Swahili word, a picture, and audio to hear the Swahili pronunciation.

http://www.beavton.k12.or.us/Greenway/leahy/99-00/swahili/index.htm

The Swahili Coast. This would be a good site for students to explore. On this site students will learn about the geographic locations of the Swahili language, people, culture, and language.

http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi2/swahi.htm

The Swahili Coast lesson plan. This site is a lesson plan that uses the site listed above. In this plan students will examine the origins of the Swahili people and their Arab roots.

http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Classrm/lesson2.htm

Swahili Gallery. This site introduces traditional architecture in the Swahili culture.

http://www.africaonline.co.ke/nmk/glamu.html

Themes, Themes, Themes. This site contains lesson plans, maps, images, recipes, folktales, and student activities on Swahili culture arranged by grade level.

http://www.connectingstudents.com/themes/kenya.htm