Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Maps Volume I
- Figures Volume I
- Tables Volume I
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part One Language Contact and Genetic Linguistics
- Part Two Linguistic Areas
- Part Three Language Spread
- 11 The Geographic and Demographic Expansion of Malay
- 12 Geographic and Demographic Spread of Swahili
- 13 Arabic Language Contact
- Part Four Emergence and Spread of Some European Languages
- Part Five Language Diasporas
- Author Index
- Language Index
- Subject Index
- References
12 - Geographic and Demographic Spread of Swahili
from Part Three - Language Spread
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 June 2022
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Maps Volume I
- Figures Volume I
- Tables Volume I
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part One Language Contact and Genetic Linguistics
- Part Two Linguistic Areas
- Part Three Language Spread
- 11 The Geographic and Demographic Expansion of Malay
- 12 Geographic and Demographic Spread of Swahili
- 13 Arabic Language Contact
- Part Four Emergence and Spread of Some European Languages
- Part Five Language Diasporas
- Author Index
- Language Index
- Subject Index
- References
Summary
Originating from its relatively tiny native speaking population on the narrow East African coastal strip and its adjacent islands, the Swahili language today has spread throughout East and Central Africa to become the most widely spoken African language after Arabic. This chapter explores the various forces – trade, religion, education, wars, and urbanization – that have led to this momentous linguistic expansion over the years. In the process, the language came in contact with a number of other languages – of international traders and invaders like the Arabs and the Portuguese, of settler communities of Indian and Arabic descent, and of a broad range of African ethnic groups inland – that resulted in the emergence of new varieties of the language. In conclusion, the chapter will look at how, through the different spaces and contexts of linguistic contact, Swahili came to impact on other languages of East and Central Africa.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Language ContactVolume 1: Population Movement and Language Change, pp. 358 - 381Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
Abdulaziz, Mohammed. H & Osinde, K.. 1997. Sheng and Engsh: Development of mixed codes among urban youth in Kenya. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 125.43–64.Google Scholar
Batibo, Herman. 1992. The fate of ethnic languages in Tanzania. In Language death: Factual and theoretical explorations with special reference to East Africa, ed. by Brenzinger, M., 85–98. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Bosha, I. 1993. Taathira za Kiarabu Katika Kiswahili pamoja na Kamusi Thulathiya (The influence of Arabic language on Kiswahili with a trilingual dictionary). Dar es Salaam: Dar es Salaam University Press.Google Scholar
Duke, Lynne & Rupert, James. 1997. Power behind Kabila reflects Congo War’s Tutsi roots. International Herald Tribune (May 29), p. 7.Google Scholar
Fabian, Johannes. 1986. Language and colonial power: The appropriation of Swahili in the former Belgian Congo 1880–1938. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Githiora, Chege. 2008. Kenya: Language and the search for a coherent national identity. In Language and national identity in Africa, ed. by Simpson, A., 235–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Githiora, Chege. 2018. Sheng: Rise of a Kenyan Swahili vernacular. Suffolk: James Currey.Google Scholar
Gorman, T.P. 1974. The development of language policy in Kenya with particular reference to the educational system. In Language in Kenya, ed. by Whiteley, W.H., 397–453. Nairobi: Oxford University Press,Google Scholar
Goyvaerts, Didier L. 1988. Indoubil: A Swahili hybrid in Bukavu. Language in Society 17.2.231–42.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 1979. Some linguistic characteristics of African based pidgins. In Readings in creole studies, ed. by Hancock, I.F., Polomé, E., Goodman, M., & Heine, B., 89–98. Ghent: E.Story-Scientia.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 1982. The Nubi language of Kibera – An Arabic creole. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.Google Scholar
Hinnebusch, Thomas J. 1996. What kind of language in Swahili? Afrikanistiche Arbeistpapiere 47.73–95.Google Scholar
Iliffe, John. 1969. Tanganyika under German rule 1905–1912. Nairobi: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Kapanga, Andre M. 2001. Recreating a language. A socio-historical approach to the study of Shaba Swahili. Cultural Survival 25.2.52–5.Google Scholar
Kapanga, Mwamba Tshishiku. 1991. Language variation and change: A case study of Shaba Swahili. PhD dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaigne.Google Scholar
Kaviti, Lillian. 2015. From stigma to status: Sheng and Engsh in Kenya’s linguistic and literary space. In Habari ya English? What about Kiswahili, ed. by Diegner, Lutz & Schulze-Engler, Frank, 223–53 (Leiden: Brill).Google Scholar
Kioko, Eric Mutisya. 2015. Regional varieties and ethnic registers of Sheng. In Youth language practices in Africa and beyond, ed. by Nassenstein, Nico & Hollington, Andrea, 119–48. Berlin: De GruyterGoogle Scholar
Legere, Karsten. 2006. Language endangerment in Tanzania: Identifying and maintaining endangered languages. South African Journal of African Languages 22.3.99–112.Google Scholar
Lodhi, Abdulaziz Y. 2000. Oriental influences in Swahili: A study in language and culture contacts. Gothenburg: Universitatis Gotheburgensis.Google Scholar
Lodhi, Abdulaziz Y. 2008. Indians and Indic languages in Eastern Africa: The status of South Asian languages in Eastern Africa. Paper presented at the Workshop on Language Planning and Language Policies, organized by the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, India, March 4–6, 2008.Google Scholar
Luffin, Xaviere. 2014. The influence of Swahili on Kinubi. Journal of Pidgins and Creoles 29.2.299–318.Google Scholar
Mangat, J.S. 1969. A history of Asian in East Africa 1886–1945. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marshad, Hassan. 1984. An approach to code elaboration and its application to Swahili. PhD thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar
Mazrui, Alamin & Shariff, Ibrahim Noor. 1994. The Swahili: Idiom and identity. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Mekacha, Rugatiri D.K. 1993. The sociolinguistic impact of Kiswahili on ethnic community languages in Tanzania: A case study of Ekinata. Bayreuth: Bayreuth African Studies.Google Scholar
Michieka, Martha. 2012. Language maintenance and shift among Kenyan university students. In Selected proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference on African Linguistics, ed. by Connell, Bruce & Rolle, Nicholas, 164–70. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Mkude, Daniel. 2011. The impact of Swahili on other languages in Tanzania: An illustration from Luguru. In North–south contributions to African languages, ed. by Thornell, Christina & Legewre, Karsten, 51–60. Cologne: Rudiger Kopfe.Google Scholar
Mojola, Aloo Osotsi. 2000. The Swahili Bible in East Africa (1844–1996). In The Bible in Africa: Transactions, trajectories and trends, ed. by West, Gerand O. and Dube, Musa W., 511–23. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Msanjila, Y.P. 2007. Utumiaji wa Kiswahili na Lugha za Jamii Kijinsia Nchini Tanzania. Nordic Journal of African Studies 16.1.18–29.Google Scholar
Mukhwana, Ayub. 2014. Je, Sheng ni Lahaja ya Kiswahili? Nadharia ya Utambulisho wa Maana. In Miaka Hamsini ya Kiswahili Nchini Kenya, ed. by Simala, I., Chacha, L. & Osore, M., 188–200. Nairobi: Twaweza Communications.Google Scholar
Mutonya, Mungai & Parsons, Timothy H.. 2004. KIKAR: A Swahili variety in Kenya’s colonial army. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 25.111–25.Google Scholar
Neale, Barbara. 1974. Kenya’s Asian languages. In Language in Kenya, ed. by Whiteley, W.H., 69–85. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nurse, Derek & Spear, Thomas. 1985. The Swahili: Reconstructing the history and language of an African society, 800–1500. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Olukya, Godfrey. 2016. Swahili language now compulsory in Ugandan schools. The Africa Report (July 1). (Available at www.theafricareport.com/East-Horn-Africa/swahili-language-now-compulsory-in-ugandan-schools.html.)Google Scholar
Omulokoli, Watson A.O. 1995. The contribution of George L. Pilkington to Christian work in Uganda, 1890–1897. Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Pike, Charles. 1986. History and imagination: Swahili literature and resistance to German language imperialism in Tanzania 1885–1910. International Journal of African Historical Studies 19.2.201–34.Google Scholar
Republic of Kenya. 1976. The Kenya National Committee on Educational Objectives and Policies. Nairobi: Ministry of Education.Google Scholar
Roehl, K. 1930. The linguistic situation in East Africa. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 3.2.191–202.Google Scholar
Rosendal, Tove & Mapunda, Gastor. 2014. Is the Tanzanian Ngoni language threatened? A survey of lexical borrowing from Swahili. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 35.3.271–88.Google Scholar
Roy-Campbell, Zaline M. 1992. Power and pedagogy: Choosing the medium of instruction in Tanzania. PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Schadeberg, Thilo C. 2009. Loan words in Swahili. In Loanwords in the world’s languages: A comparative handbook, ed. by Haspelmath, Martin and Tadmor, Uri, 76–102. Berlin: De GruyterCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheriff, Abdul. 2010. Dhow cultures of the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism, commerce and Islam. London: C. Hurst & Co (Publishers) Ltd.Google Scholar
Strandes, Justus. 1961. The Portuguese period in East Africa. Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau.Google Scholar
Vitale, Anthony J. 1980. Linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of a pidgin Swahili of Kenya. Anthropological Linguistics 22.2.47–65.Google Scholar
Westermann, Diedrich. 1925. The place and function of the vernacular in African education. International Review of Missions 14.1.25–36.Google Scholar
Wizara ya Elimu na Mafunzo ya Ufundi (Ministry of Education and Vocational Training). 2014. Sera ya Elimu na Mafunzo. Dae es Salaam: Government Printers.Google Scholar
Wright, Marcia. 1971. German missions in Tanganyika 1891–1941. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Yoneda, Nobuko. 2010. “Swahilization” of ethnic languages in Tanzania: The case of Matengo. African Study Monographs 31.3.139–48.Google Scholar