Shimaore language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Shimaore | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Mayotte | |
| Total speakers: | 80,140 (2002) | |
| Language family: | Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo Volta-Congo Benue-Congo Bantoid Southern Narrow Bantu Central G Shimaore |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | bnt | |
| ISO 639-3: | swb | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Shimaore (French also: Mahorais) is one of the two indigeneous languages spoken on the island of Mayotte; Shimaore being a dialect of Comorian, while Shibushi is descended from languages spoken on Madagascar. Historically, Shimaore- and Shibushi-speaking villages on Mayotte have been clearly identified, but Shimaore tends to be the de-facto indigeneous lingua franca in everyday life, would it only be because of the larger Shimaore-speaking population. Only Shimaore is represented on the local television news program by RFO. The 2002 census references 80,140 speakers of Shimaore in Mayotte itself, to which one would have to add people living outside the island, mostly in metropolitan France.
The same 2002 census indicates that 37,840 persons responded as knowing how to read or write Shimaore. However this number has to be taken with caution, since until a few years ago Shimaore did not have a standard writing system. One has recently being developed by Association ShiMé and is slowly starting to spread.
From a sociolinguistic perspective, French tends to be regarded by many Shimaore speakers as the language of higher education and prestige, and there is a temptation by native maorese to provide an all-French education to their children. This puts a lot of pressure on Shimaore and the language may become endangered within the next ten years if nothing is done.
Although French remains the official language in Mayotte, Shimaore will probably be taught in Maorese schools starting in the next few years, and a pilot project began in fall 2004. As in many parts of France where local languages are introduced in the school system, this has led to tensions between partisans of an French-centered education system and administrations, versus those promoting a more diversified approach. Shimaore's position in this regards is however different from other regions (such as Brittany), since the language is locally spoken by a majority of the population. The project in Mayotte has been inspired by similar project involving Kiswahili in eastern Africa countries.
Mayotte is a geographically small territory, but frequent exchanges between villages have not started until the last quarter of the twentieth century. As of 2004 linguistic differences between the east and west part of the island, and between the main city of Mamoudzou and the remote villages, are still noticeable, especially when it comes to phonological differences. One typical example is the word u-la (to eat), notably pronounced this way in the city due to the influence of a brand of yogurt bearing the same name, but pronounced u-dja in other parts of the island.
[edit] Bibliography
- Blanchy, Sophie (1987). L'interprète. Dictionnaire Mahorais - Français et Français - Mahorais. CMAC, Mayotte. L'Harmattan, Paris.
- Cornice, Abdillahi D. (1999). Manuel grammatical de shimaore. Mamoudzou, Mayotte: L'Association SHIME - Le SHImaorais MEthodique.
- Kordji, Chamsidine, Martine Jaquin, et alia (1999). Narifundrihe shimaore - Apprenons le shimaore. Association SHIME, Mamoudzou.
- Maandhui, Ousseni (1996). Parlons Shimaore. Editions du Baobab, Mamoudzou.
- Rombi, Marie-Françoise (1983). Le Shimaore (Île de Mayotte, Comores): Première approche d'un parler de la langue comorienne. Paris: Société d'Etudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France (SELAF).
