Talk:Swahili language

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Contents 1 OVERVIEW 2 Somalia? 3 Most widely spoken language in Africa? 4 Number of speakers? 5 Diphthongs 6 Ki- 7 Swahili literature and poetry 8 Swahili and Sanskrit 9 kiSwahili in the African Union 10 does BAKITA regulate Swahili? 11 Appropriate illustrations 12 Revisions of January 2006 13 "Poopie sticks" 14 Population 15 language request tagging 16 Swahili in the D.R. of Congo (Kinshasa) and more 17 Atlantic Congo? 18 hakuna matata 19 Noun classes 20 incorrect map 21 Imzadi in Star Trek?

[edit] OVERVIEW

"As in English, the proportion of loan words changes as the speaker is communicating at a "lower" or "higher class" situation. In English, a discussion of say, body functions, sounds much nicer if you use Latin-derived words with occasional French terms rather than Germanic-derived words (so-called four-letter words); an educated Swahili speaker will likewise use many more Arabic-derived words with English terms in polite circumstances, though the same phrase could usually be said in Swahili using only words of Bantu origin."

This is definitely a biased absurd generalization and should be removed. Considering the fact that English is a Germanic language makes this statement completely ridiculous.

[edit] Somalia?

i am baffled as to why somalia is included in the list. to my knowledge no body speaks it there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.80.150.125 (talk) 23:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Most widely spoken language in Africa?

The Article states that Swahili is the most widely spoken langauge in Africa with 50 million speakers. That is wrong, there at least twice as many native speakers of Arabic. I also suspect that there are also more speakers of French in West Africa. Somebody should fix that statement.

In most of the second half of the last century, the most widely spoken indigenous language in non-Arabic Africa is Hausa, with over 25 million native speakers and a few million more second language speakers. But the combined population of Kenya and Tanzania is over 70 million, and the population of Uganda is about 26 million. Swahili is an official language in the first two and it was made a required grade school subject in Uganda within the last ten years. Not nearly everyone in Kenya and Tanzania speaks it; but in 20 years, if even 25 percent of those two countries speak it, and if the Ugandan mandate is observed, then Swahili will be head and shoulders beyond Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba. But it still will be spoken by just five to eight percent of non-Arabic Africans. Hurmata 07:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[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?

Native speakers: 800,000, not five million. Since 1960, a mystique has grown up around this one language. Hurmata 07:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The statistics from Tanzania quoted by SIL which I think is what Lutz is quoting are based on census data. These data assume that a person's stated ethnic origin is synonomous with the related language being the person's first language. The Tanzanian census data do not capture "first language". My own experience in Tanzania is that increasing numbers of children have Swahili as their first language even if this is not their "Mother" tongue as such. Therefore Lutz's estimate of the number of first language Swahili speakers is probably an underestimate rather than an overestimate. Peter.edelsten 17:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[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)

• The article says Swahili has no diphthongs and then about three lines later Swahili has also two semivowels ... used to make diphthongs. Diphthong can have subtlely different meanings, but consistency would be good! Peter Grey 19:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I take swahili in college and sometimes we separate the two vowels, as in chui like the example, but other times, such as the different pronouns for "their" (zao, chao, yao, wao) it's a dipthong. another example is chai (coffee) (sorry i don't want to deal with the IPA right now. --Jimmy (talk) 22:36, 28 February 2008 (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)

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)

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)

I agree that Swahili and other Bantu language names are best anglicized by dropping the noun class prefix. The same standard should also be applied to the 'dialect' names listed in this article; e.g. "Unguja (Kiunguja)" instead of "Kiunguja". Zahir Mgeni 14:57, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[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)

[edit] does BAKITA regulate Swahili?

Is it really correct to say that BAKITA is in charge of "regulating" the Swahili language? I've always thought the council was formed to promote and try to standardize the language, but not to act as some sort of arbitrating body that regulates what is and isn't Kiswahili Sanifu. Malangali 20:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Appropriate illustrations

I've changed the caption to the picture of the Lord's Prayer that was added to this article, and also moved it from the section on noun classes (!). However, I think it should be replaced with an image that is both clearer and more relevant. It would be nice, for example, to show an old Swahili text in Arabic script. Zahir Mgeni 20:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revisions of January 2006

This article needs a thorough rewrite. Linguistically, it has numerous false statements. Some of its sources are popular encyclopedias that "haven't done their homework". It seems to have quoted liberally from several university Web sites without attribution (e.g., the Language Resource Center at Columbia University), and they too seem not to have done their homework, with their talk of the "Sabaki subgroup" and other remarks. The article's tone is consistently boosterish, naively enthusiastic.

One deleted passage ran, approximately, "Swahili is NOT largely a blend of non-Bantu languages. In fact, the proportion of loanwords in Swahili is only about as high as the proportion of Latin, French, Greek, etc. in English". This writer clearly didn't realize that the combined percentage of Latin, French, and Greek loanwords in English is at least 65 percent!

There needs to be an entire section added on the history of how the British colonialists created the widespread use of the language of a tribe constituting not quite one percent of the combined population of Kenya and Tanzania. Hurmata 07:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Poopie sticks"

In the OVERVIEW section lies: Overview

"Swahilian, poopie sticks, spoken natively by a tiny, politically insignificant ethnicity". Is this at all necessary? --Apathy 21:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Population

I've taken what I'm sure will be an unpopular step of deleting the population figures in the info box. But we've gone years without getting a credible figure; maybe this will motivate someone to do the necessary research. 40M native speakers is completely unrealistic; that's the entire population of Tanzania, and there are still people there who can hardly hold a conversation in the language. But 700k as in Ethnologue is also difficult to believe. Anyone actually know? kwami 05:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] language request tagging

To add a Swahili language request to an article, put {{Arabic|Swahili=yes}} on the talk page. Chris 19:16, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Swahili in the D.R. of Congo (Kinshasa) and more

The map showing the areas where Swahili is spoken is rather wrong. First, Swahili is spoken and understood by a wide range of people all over the eastern part of Congo, i.e. the whole eastern part of the Orientale province (The provincial capital Kisangani being on the borderline between two lingua franca's of Congo, Lingala -Western Congo's lingua franca- and Swahili), the provinces of North-Kivu, South-Kivu, Maniema and Katanga all have a popultation fluent in Swahili (as a second or third language). In all these provinces you can communicate with people in Swahili, even in very rural areas. Second, in the Republics of Rwanda and Burundi the language is less important. The exception being the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura, on the shores of lake Tanganyika, where the common language used every where and by all is Swahili, but once you go in rural areas the language people speak and understand is Kirundi (which is NOT very similar to Swahili). In Rwanda the use of Swahili is even less important and not at all official. (Kinyarawanda, the mother tongue of all Rwandese is nearly the exact same as Kirundi. people of both language communicate with each other without any problem). Of course, in both republics you'll have less trouble finding someone who speaks Swahili than French or English. Third, quiet the same thing could be said for Uganda, where you'll easely find someone to communicate with in Swahili rather than Englsh (in rural areas) but where Swahili is much less implemented than in Kenya, Tanzania or Eastern Congo.

Swahili in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. With these three countries being members of the East African Community they have taken it upon themselves to spread the use of Swahili and in fact Burundi introduced Swahili as a language to be taught in school as a cdompulsory subject. Thus while for now the language may not be widely spoken it would be wrong to say it does not hold any importance in those countries.

Swahili in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. I was recently in Uganda. Swahili is not common all over the nation. In the regions along lake Victoria and in the South West people speak their local languages next to English, i.e. Lusoga, Luganda, Kinyankole, and others ... Certainly in Buganda and Busoga the use of Swahili is not always appreciated, and you better start speaking English on a Kampala market than Swahili (I was really surprised about that, in the 70's everybody spoke Swahili on a market in Kampala...) although the younger generations, influenced by music comming from Tanmzania and DRC tend to know some Swahili. Once you are in the East, past the town of Jinja, the use of Swahili becomes more and more common. In the town of Mbale everybody could communicate in Swahili. In the north Swahili is the common communication lamguage. Along the borders with the DRC many people know some Swahili. But once again, when you're in Jinja, Kampala or Mbarara you are better of speaking English. (Older) People tend to associate Swahili with the terrible regime of Idi Amin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.165.144.7 (talk) 11:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Swahili spoken in the Middle East. I would like to add onto the main page that Swahili is spoken in Oman by a third of the population as well as in the UAE and the Yemen. Is it possible to update this information to include the numbers of people that speak the language in the Middle East. Also considering that the Indian Ocean trade occurred with the E.A. Coast and the Middle East I would imagine that a high amount of people from those countries speak the language. Especially in Oman which was once united with Zanzibar and the EA Coast under one ruler. Thanairobian 11:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Oman and Yemen yes but the UAE has a very insignificant number of Swahili speakers.

Pidgin-Swahili Pidgin-Swahili is a very wide spoken language, as far as in southern Sudan, Zambia, Malawi, northern Mozambique, Somalia, poeple speak it. Kiswahili is a trade language al over the eastern part of Africa, in which people learn enough to exchange greetings, bargain in markets and ask for directions, when they don't speak a common native language.

Kiswahili in the Central African Republic

I have it from a good source (a central African Citizen) that swahili is widely spoken and understood in this state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theburningspear (talk • contribs) 18:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Atlantic Congo?

In the descent from Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo looks wrong. Lycurgus 09:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Wrong how? Other than the fact that not everyone is going to agree with all the details of the Ethnologue classification, that is. kwami 09:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that was it. I suppose would be nice if the template had an ability to refer to alternate classifications. Lycurgus 10:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Ethnologue leaves a lot to be desired, but I imagine we might get into a lot of arguments over classification otherwise, and if we go individually it could require a huge number of edits every time we change some detail of a classification, unless there's some way of automating it from a master list. kwami 16:29, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, the Ethnologue classification for Khoisan was so bad that we abandoned it entirely. But this is a discussion for Niger-Congo languages, not here. kwami 18:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] hakuna matata

In article hakuna matata, meaning is said as "no worries". I thought it meant "forget past". Which is correct? can anybody help? Lara_bran 08:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Hakuna matata is Kenyan Swahili for "no problem". Matata means "trouble", or "fix" as in to get into a fix. kwami 09:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, kwami! Lara_bran 10:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hakuna is the negation of kuna, which is "there is/are" Jimmy (talk) 12:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Noun classes

The list of noun class examples should include classes 15, 16, 17 and 18 which are referred to in the introduction but not listed in the examples. Also, the class 11 example "uani" is derived from "ua" with the locative suffix -ni which shifts it from class 11 into class 16. As a result you get for example "Ua wangu" (my backyard) but "Uani kwangu" (in my back yard). Peter.edelsten 17:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] incorrect map

Why keep the map that is labeled 'incorrect map'? 83.88.204.203 13:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Better than nothing. I haven't had time to correct it, and have been hoping having it under people's noses would spur someone else to do it. kwami 20:14, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Didn't work. It's been replaced with another map with the same errors. kwami (talk) 07:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, the new map, with different green colors, is rather correct, although for Uganda it isn't really like that, just in the eastern part bordering Kenya and the whole northern half of the country uses Swahili as a communication language. In the rest of the country it'd be better colored light green. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.165.144.7 (talk) 11:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Imzadi in Star Trek?

In the "In non-African popular culture" section it says "Also, the word Imzadi used in Star Trek: The Next Generation is derived from Swahili. It means "beloved"."

Beloved is "mpenzi", isn't it? and Imzadi comes form mpenzi????? --81.38.182.40 (talk) 17:20, 26 March 2008 (UTC)