
Introduction to Kiswahili
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Farsi, German, Portuguese, English and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania,
In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Zone G.
The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural sawāḥil (سواحل) of the Arabic word sāḥil (ساحل), meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")).
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711, in Arabic-script, they were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India[8]. Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
Methali (e.g."“Haraka haraka haina baraka — Hurry hurry has no blessing"". http://www.kiswahili.net/3-reference-works/proverbs-and-riddles/proverbs-and-riddles-east-african.html. ), i.e. “wordplay, risqué or suggestive puns and lyric rhyme, are deeply inscribed in Swahili culture, in form of Swahili parables, proverbs, and allegory”. Methali is uncovered globally within ‘Swah’ rap music. It provides the music with rich cultural, historical, and local textures and insight.
Name
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language' Waswahili refers to the people of the '
Sounds
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of
Vowels
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: /ɑ/, /ɛ/, /i/, /ɔ/, and /u/. The pronunciation of the phoneme /u/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
/ɑ/ is pronounced like the "a" in father
/ɛ/ is pronounced like the "e" in bed
/i/ is pronounced like the "i" in ski
/ɔ/ is pronounced like the "o" in American English horse, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
/u/ is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in wrote.
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each letter is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced /tʃu.i/, with hiatus.
Consonants
| | ||||||||
| m /m/ | | | n /n/ | | ny /ɲ/ | ng’ /ŋ/ | | |
| mb /mb/ | | | nd /nd/ | | nj /ɲɟ/~/ndʒ/ | ng /ŋɡ/ | | |
| Implosive stop | b /ɓ/ | | | d /ɗ/ | | j /ʄ/ | g /ɠ/ | |
| Tenuis stop | p /p/ | | | t /t/ | ch /tʃ/ | | k /k/ | |
| Aspirated stop | (p /pʰ/) | | | (t /tʰ/) | (ch /tʃʰ/) | | (k /kʰ/) | |
| Prenasalized fricative | | mv /ɱv/ | | nz /nz/ | | | | |
| Voiced fricative | | v /v/ | (dh /ð/) | z /z/ | | | (gh /ɣ/) | |
| Voiceless fricative | | f /f/ | (th /θ/) | s /s/ | sh /ʃ/ | | (kh /x/) | h /h/ |
| | | | r /r/ | | | | | |
| | | | l /l/ | | | | | |
| | | | | | y /j/ | w /w/ | |
Notes:
The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto [m.to.to] "child", nilimpiga [ni.li.m.pi.ɠa] "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa [m.bwa] "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, [ndi.zi], as does nenda [ne.nda] (not *[nen.da]) "go".
The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as [s z h r], respectively.
Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo [tembo] "palm wine", but tembo [tʰembo] "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common. Some writers mark aspirated consonants with an apostrophe (t'embo "elephant").
Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers (the extent to which this is demonstrated generally depends on the original mother tongue spoken by the individual), and are often both realized as alveolar lateral flap /ɺ/, a sound between a flapped r and an l also found in Japanese.