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An Historical Review of the Arabic Rendering of Swahili Together with Proposals for the Development of a Swahili Writing System in Arabic Script (Based on the Swahili of Mombasa)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Yahya Ali Omar  and
P. J. L. Frankl
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Extract

This article provides an historical review of the Arabic rendering of Swahili, while Appendix A (Parts I and II) contains proposals for the development of Arabic script to yield a phonologically adequate writing system for a variety of Swahili spoken on the East African coast – the variety known as kiMvita (central Swahili), and spoken from just north of T’akaungu to Mombasa, and thence as far south as Gasi. Parallel possibilities for the refinement of romanised script are not considered in any detail.

It should be stressed that kiMvita, the variety of Swahili here described, is not the standardised language. For a number of reasons, the Swahili speech of Zanzibar town, together with the Swahili spoken by Africans from the interior of the continent but resident in Zanzibar, were the varieties of Swahili with which the pioneering standardises of Swahili were familiar.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , April 1997 , pp. 55 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1997

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Footnotes

*

The author is deeply indebted to Dr K.M. Hayward and Professor R.K. Hayward, to the former for reading successive drafts of the manuscript, and to the latter for Figures 1, 2 and 3.

A font for a Swahili-Arabic script as proposed in Appendix A has been devised by Michael Mann, to whom we readily express our gratitude.

References

1 Taylor, W.E., Introduction to Stigand, C.H., A Grammar of Dialectic Changes in the kiSwahili Language (Cambridge, 1915), p. xGoogle Scholar.

2 Allen, J.W.T., The Swahili and Arabic Manuscripts and Tapes in the Library of the University College Dar-es-Salaam (Leiden, 1970), p. viiiGoogle Scholar.

3 Research on the origins of Islam along the coast of East Africa has recently been conducted by Dr Mark Horton, under the aegis of the British Institute in Eastern Africa.

4 Owen, W.F.W., Narrative of Voyages … (London, 1833), ii, p. 153Google Scholar; Boteler, Thomas, Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery (London, 1835), ii, p. 203Google Scholar.

5 Gacek, Adam, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the School of Oriental & African Studies (London, 1981), Item 246Google Scholar.

6 Directorate of Archives, Goa, “Livros das Moncoes do Reino” (MR), and “Macao”.

7 Krapf, [J.L.], “Three chapters of Genesis translated into the Sooahelee language”, JAOS, I (1849), p. 264Google Scholar.

8 A welcome exception is A Poem concerning the Death of the Prophet Muhammad: Utendi wa Kutawafu Nabii, ed. Allen, J.W.T. et al. (Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter, 1991)Google Scholar.

9 Krapf, J.L., Outline of the Elements of the Kisuaheli Language (Tübingen, 1850), p. 16Google Scholar.

10 Steere, Edward, A Practical Guide to the Use of the Arabic Alphabet in Writing Swahili according to the Usage of the East Coast of Africa (Zanzibar, 1891)Google Scholar.

11 Omar, Yahya Ali & Frankl, P.J.L., “Swahili letters from the Taylor papers”, South African foumal of African Languages, 1994, XIV, Supplement (1), Part 2, Item 8Google Scholar.

12 SOAS MS 10294 (Habari za waKilindi).

13 Oded, Arye, Islam in Uganda (Jerusalem, 1974), pp. 93–6Google Scholar.

14 Taylor, W.E., African Aphorisms or Saws from Swahili-land (London, 1891), p. xGoogle Scholar.

15 The illustration of Mwalimu Sikujua's handwriting in Swahili-Arabic script is taken from volume iii of the Taylor papers (SOAS MS 47754, Section Y, p. 2); the text is transliterated in W.E. Taylor's hand in volume vii (SOAS MS 47757, PP I14–15).

16 Taylor, W.E., “Observations on the texts and the translation of the Inkishafi”, in Stigand, C.H., A Grammar of Dialectic Changes in the kiSwahili Language (Cambridge, 1915), p.94Google Scholar.

17 [Taylor, W.E.], Raha isiyo Karaha [“Unhampered Happiness”] (Kisauni, 1892)Google Scholar. An annotated copy of this rare item was once in the possession of the East African Swahili Committee (MS 47); the copy sent by Taylor to the CMS in London cannot now be found. The tract was reprinted in London in 1897 & 1902; a fourth printing was issued in Nairobi, possibly in 1940, but with the text in romanised script only, and that without the diacritics.

In 1887–8 Taylor was hoping to publish “Some materials for a justification of the diacritical printing of Swahili [in romanised script]” (SOAS Archives, Tucker Collection, PP MS 43/29). It seems that such a publication never appeared, but much of the material is contained in Burt, 's Swahili Grammar & Vocabulary (London, 1910), pp. 149–151Google Scholar.

18 Wright, Marcia, “Swahili language policy 1890–1940”, Swahili, XXXV/i (1965), pp. 40–8Google Scholar; Brumfit, Ann, “The rise and development of a language policy in German East Africa”, Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, II (1980), pp. 219–331Google Scholar.

19 Velten, Carl, Praktische Anleitung zur Erlemung der Schrift der Suaheli (Göttingen, 1901), VorwortGoogle Scholar.

20 (a) Beech, Mervyn W.H., Aids to the Study of Ki-Swahili (London, 1914), p. 5Google Scholar; (b) ‘Abdallah b., Sayyid Nasir, ‘Ali b. (ed. Hichens, W. [& Ali Hinawi, Mbarak]), Al-Inkishafi ‘The Soul's Awakening’ (London, 1939), pp. 124–9Google Scholar; (c) Allen, J.W.T., Arabic Script for Students of Swahili, Supplement to TNR 1945 & “An Amendment” to the foregoing, TNR, LXIX (1968), pp. 51–2Google Scholar; (d) Williamson, John, “The use of Arabic script in Swahili”, Supplement to African Studies, VI/4 (1947), p. 6Google Scholar.

For students of Swahili in Arabic script the most valuable of these four items is J.W.T. Allen; material for a second edition is available.

21 Beech, , op.cit., p. vGoogle Scholar. See also the Kenya Code of Regulations, Secretariat Circular No 34 of 5:v:1928, offeríng a language bonus of fifty pounds to officers obtaining not less than 80% in the Higher Standard Swahili examination “for which purpose additional marks are given for a knowledge of Coast Arabic script”.

22 For an exception to this statement see the letter from the qāḍī of Zanzibar to Taylor, W.E., in Omar, Yahya Ali & Frankl, P.J.L., op.cit. (1994), Part 2, Item 38Google Scholar.

23 Wilson, F.B., A Note on Adult Literacy amongst the Rural Population of the Zanzibar Protectorate (Zanzibar, 1929), p.6Google Scholar.

24 Letter from Shaykh al-Amin b. Ali [al-Mazru‘i] to J.W.T. Allen; reproduced in Allen, J.W.T., op.cit. (1945), pp.70–5Google Scholar.

25 Allen, J.W.T., op.cit. (1945), p.5Google Scholar.

26 Allen, J.W.T., Tendi: Six Examples of a Swahili Classical Verse Form (London, 1971), p. 10Google Scholar.

27 Lambert, H.E., review in BSOAS, XXVII (1964), p.205Google Scholar.

28 Tucker, A.N., “Orthographic systems and conventions in sub-Saharan Africa”, in Current Trends in Linguistics VII, ed. Sebeok, Thomas A. (The Hague/Paris 1971), p.625Google Scholar.

29 It is regrettable that despite scouring three continents, a copy of Mwalimu wa Watoto has not yet come to light.

30 kiti: chair – the name of the letter denoting the seat and arms of a chair which the form of the letter (in Arabic script) crudely represents.

31 Frankl, P.J.L. in consultation with Omar, Yahya Ali, “The nature of aspiration in Swahili”, ZDMG, CXLI/2 (1991), pp.366–75Google Scholar.

32 Hayward, K.M., Goesche, M. and Omar, Yahya Ali, “Dental and alveolar stops in kiMviṯa Swahili”, African Languages and Cultures, II/i (1989), pp.51–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 ngowe: a beak-like shape found, for example at one extremity of certain species of mango; thus the name of the letter denotes its shape in Arabic script.

34 rosuko: from -suka ‘twist’ the name of the letter denotes its shape in Arabic script.

35 Allen, J.W.T., op.cit. (1971), p.25Google Scholar.

36 Taylor, W.E., in Burt, F., Swahili Grammar & Vocabulary (London, 1910), p.7Google Scholar.