Talk:Swahili language
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[edit] Number of speakers?
"It is spoken by over 50 million people[1], of whom there are approximately five million first-language speakers and thirty to fifty million second-language speakers[citation needed]" Huh?
[edit] Diphthongs
In the -vowels- sections it was said that in Swahili there are no vowels. What is it then, the -wa- in Swahili???
I've arranged it talking about semivowels. Please, someone with a better knowledge than me, look at it and improve it, specially the IPA symbols that I've copied form another page but that I cannot see at all. --81.38.172.141 11:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I know nothing about Swahili, but with a good Phonetics background I'd say the part about no diphthongs in Swahili should be deleted and that it should perhaps say that diphthongs are only formed with the approximants /j/ and /w/ or something like that.--Coyne025 04:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Ki-
I think that we should move the article to 'Kiswahili' not only for preserving the language's native name, but for consistency. We keep the ki- on both Kinyarwanda and Kirundi. Why not here? --Ionius Mundus 01:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
- This is a matter of habit. Kiswahili is the name in Swahili or Kiswahili if you prefer. Some linguist prefer it to Swahili as to differentiate between Swahili (the people) and Kiswahili (the language), although this is useful I don't think this is necessary. Should we have Français and langue française? I think appending the term language is more than enough, and would be redundant if we had the ki- prefix. As for consistency with Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, it's irrelevant. Many bantu languages have a ki- prefix but many don't or have another prefix. Should we have kingala, kitetela, kiluba, kizulu or isiZulu, etc. I personally prefer the usage without language specific prefixes, but I cannot generalize this. --moyogo 08:22, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
- We've been gone through this many times before (see above, and the archived talk). Basically, the argument for keeping it at Swahili language is that the MoS prescribes use of the most common terms in article names; and arguably in English, Swahili is more common than Kiswahili. Additionally, the MoS registers a preference for English terms (where available) above terms in other languages, and Swahili is the English term for what in Swahili is called Kiswahili (are you with me?). Those two points also account for things like Yoruba being located at Yoruba language and not at Yorùbá language and Zulu being located at Zulu language and not isiZulu. This applies to some of Moyogo's examples too. Lingala, of which the li- part is usually analyzed as the li- noun class prefix, is located at Lingala language simply because Lingala is the most common name in the English literature. — mark ✎ 11:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
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- There's a long article explaining why the word is "Swahili" when speaking in English at this page on the Internet Living Swahili Dictionary. Lakini ukisoma Wikipedia kwa Kiswahili, jina la makala kuhusu lugha ya Waswahili ni "Kiswahili," na makala kuhusu lugha kutoka Uingereza ni "Kiingereza," siyo "English." Malangali 11:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
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- On second thought, I do think that it is redundant to say 'Kiswahili language', but I still prefer 'Kiswahili'. But it seems that this has already been throughly discussed and opposed. --Ionius Mundus 15:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Swahili literature and poetry
(Crossposted from the Africa-related regional noticeboard) I just discovered that we have practically nothing on Swahili literature and poetry. Babbage alerted me to his creation of Utendi wa Tambuka, one of the earliest known literary works in Swahili (1728), and upon expanding it a little I noticed that we didn't even have categories like Category:Swahili poetry and Category:Swahili literature (I have since created the first). Is there anyone else who feels like creating at least some stubs on Swahili literature? As a small start, I wrote utenzi. Asante sana! — mark ✎ 12:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
On a sidenote, Knappert (1982) describes four genres: the tale (ngano), the song (wimbo), the epic (utenzi), and the proverb (mathali). — mark ✎ 13:22, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Swahili and Sanskrit
The Swahili word for "Lion" is "Simba",
the word for "Lion" in ancient Sanskrit is "Simha".
Interesting!
Are there any older sources (books, oral records) for Swahili that can be compared with Sanskrit?
- You might want to check out false cognate. — mark ✎ 22:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I just did...but that doesn't apply here since the Swahili language is described on this page as having influences from India.
- It does, since an Indian origin is effectively ruled out by the fact that cognates are found throughout the Bantu language family (see Bantu Lexical Reconstructions I-III). — mark ✎ 20:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] kiSwahili in the African Union
Is it possible to provide some clarification and reference for the status of kiSwahili in the African Union? In Languages of the African Union it is mentioned as an official language, separately from the other African languages. It seems that there was an effort to promote the language in the "OAU 1st Conference of African Ministers of Culture 1986, Port-Lous Mauritius. (...) This conference adopted two important documents: (...) Resolution N° 16 on the adoption of Kiswahili as an OAU working language. (...) Unfortunately: * the resolution on the use of kiswahili has never been implemented by the OAU, nor by any other African intergovernmental organization;" [1]. Probably, we have to distinguish between what is going on in paper and in practice. In paper, all African languages (kiSwahili included) and Arabic, English, French and Portuguese are working languages. In practice, only Arabic, English, French and Portuguese are working languages - see for example the languages available in the official site of the AU. So, it seems there was an effort to do the same for Kiswahili, but in vain. How can we have a straightforward account of this subject? --Michkalas 22:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
