The Swahili


Book Description

"As an introduction to how the history of an African society can be reconstructed from largely nonliterate sources, and to the Swahili in particular, . . . a model work."—International Journal of African Historical Studies




The Story of Swahili


Book Description

Swahili was once an obscure dialect of an East African Bantu language. Today more than one hundred million people use it: Swahili is to eastern and central Africa what English is to the world. From its embrace in the 1960s by the black freedom movement in the United States to its adoption in 2004 as the African Union’s official language, Swahili has become a truly international language. How this came about and why, of all African languages, it happened only to Swahili is the story that John M. Mugane sets out to explore. The remarkable adaptability of Swahili has allowed Africans and others to tailor the language to their needs, extending its influence far beyond its place of origin. Its symbolic as well as its practical power has evolved from its status as a language of contact among diverse cultures, even as it embodies the history of communities in eastern and central Africa and throughout the Indian Ocean world. The Story of Swahili calls for a reevaluation of the widespread assumption that cultural superiority, military conquest, and economic dominance determine a language’s prosperity. This sweeping history gives a vibrant, living language its due, highlighting its nimbleness from its beginnings to its place today in the fast-changing world of global communication.




Swahili


Book Description

Swahili By: Ulf L. Nilsson Swahili, in its various forms, is one of the most important and widely spoken languages in the world with more than 100 million Bantu speakers who inhabit East and Central Africa south of the Equator. Swahili lives in two different worlds. One being the standardized Swahili that is spoken in Tanzania as a strict language and with an authority that oversees its proper use. The other is the world that does not follow standardized rules. The primary difference between the two is the Arabic influence in the east and the Bantu structure in the west with loanwords mainly from French. The problem with the various Swahilis is that some Bantu Swahili speakers have complained that in order to speak proper Swahili, they have to learn Swahili at school at the same time that they learn their uncontrolled local Bantu Swahili. There is, and has been, a concern about the future of Swahili, that the officially approved version will be corrupted by loanwords and slang. On the other side, others are worried that Swahili lacks openness towards “living words,” i.e. word borrowings. Ulf L. Nilsson presents a chronicle about the Swahili family, and its lingual neighbors with eyes on Arabic heritage, external influences, cultural history, religion, and politics. Swahili: A Family Chronicle contains good readings about Swahili and the Bantu family in Tanganyika, Kenya, Uganda, and the Congo.




Outline of Swahili Literature


Book Description




The Swahili Novels of Tanzanian Women


Book Description

This book provides a rich and full analysis of female Swahili novelists from a feminist perspective, highlighting their important contributions to the living Swahili literary and intellectual tradition. Compared to the diverse and centuries-old oral literature, or religious-philosophical poetry tradition developing since at least the 17th century, the novel is a relatively young phenomenon in the rich body of Swahili literary output, emerging only in the last hundred years. Since then, academia has focused primarily on male novelists, largely disregarding important female writers such as Ndyanao Balisidya, Zainab Burhani, Martha Mvungi Mlangala, Zainab Mwanga, Lucy Nyasulu, and Zainab Alwi Baharoon. This book traces the evolution of women’s writing in Tanzania, highlighting emancipatory and feminist discourses, as well as intersectional themes of class, education, and urbanisation. The author demonstrates how concepts such as utu 'the essence of humanity', aibu 'shame', 'disgrace' and heshima 'honor', 'social respectability' are used in the novels to articulate the value systems and social norms in Swahili communities, including the gendered perceptions of women that they create. Grounded throughout in the historical and socio-political contexts of the authors it discusses, this book will be an important read for researchers of African literature and women’s studies.




Learn Swahili - Level 1: Introduction to Swahili


Book Description

Interactive. Effective. And FUN! Start speaking Swahili in minutes, and learn key vocabulary, phrases, and grammar in just minutes more with Learn Swahili - Level 1: Introduction - a completely new way to learn Swahili with ease! Learn Swahili - Level 1: Introduction will arm you with language and cultural insight to utterly shock and amaze your Kenyan friends and family, teachers, and colleagues. What you get in Learn Swahili - Level 1: Introduction: - 5 Basic Bootcamp lessons: dialog transcripts with translation, vocabulary, sample sentences and a grammar section - 15 All About lessons: cultural insight and insider-only tips from our teachers in each lesson - 5 Pronunciation lesson: tips and techniques on proper pronunciation Discover or rediscover how fun learning a language can be with the future of language learning, and start speaking Swahili instantly!




Kiswahili


Book Description




Swahili State and Society


Book Description

This text examines the social and political impact of the Swahili language.




Swahili for the Broken-hearted


Book Description

Question: What do you do when you're dumped by the Girl Next Door? Answer: Throw yourself into another madcap adventure and travel from Cape Town to Cairo... A week after breaking up with the GND (his travelling companion through Central America) Peter Moore heads off to Africa to lose himself for a while. In the grand tradition of 19th-century scoundrelas, explorers and romantics, Africa strikes him as the ideal place to find solitude and anonymity in the face of a personal crisis. What follows is Peter's journey from one end of the Dark Continent to the other. Travelling the fabled Cape Town to Cairo route by any means of transport he can blag (or if he must, pay) his way onto, it's an epic trek that sees our intrepid Antipodean experience everything from the southernmost city in Africa to the Pyramids, vast game parks and thundering falls, cosmopolitan cities and tiny villages as he journeys through the very heart of Africa. And travelling on his own, it's inevitable that Peter falls in with a motley cast of characters and has a myriad misadventures: including coming face to face with a wild Hyena with very bad breath, crossing the treacherous Sani Pass, the highest in Africa, narrowly escaping a riot by hiding in a coffin shop, saving oil-covered Penguins in South Africa, acting as an extra in a WW2 epic, not to mention dodging 20,000 single woman trying to catch the eye of the king of Swaziland during the annual Reed Dance. And then there was the time when he was kicked out of Robert Mugabe's birthday bash at gunpoint...




Ebony


Book Description

EBONY is the flagship magazine of Johnson Publishing. Founded in 1945 by John H. Johnson, it still maintains the highest global circulation of any African American-focused magazine.