Hello hello! Today, we are looking at the continent of Africa. This is a place of great cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity. In fact, there are more than 1500-2000 spoken languages in Africa, and there are arguably even more dialects. These fall into four main language families: Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, and Khoisan. One of the most widely spoken languages, and now the lingua franca of many African countries, is Swahili. This language is unique in its origin and history, and this language is what we are looking at today.

Modern Swahili has roots in many places, including the Arabic and Persian languages. To understand Swahili, we have to look at grammar--specifically Swahili noun classes. Noun classes, in any language, are just a categorization of nouns based on grammatical rules. In certain languages, "gendered nouns" are a type of noun class (such as French or Spanish). For Spanish, there are the masculine-singular, feminine-singular, masculine-plural, and feminine-plural classes. For languages like Swahili, though, there are 18 noun classes. It is through these noun classes that one can see influence from other languages.

Before we go into noun classes, let's talk about the history of East Africa, where Swahili was said to have originated. Around 200-300 CE, transcontinental trade in the region became more common--specifically trade from Arab merchants. The Bantu people of East Africa were exposed to Arab and Persian traders, and thus began the influence of Arabic (and Persian, but I don't know Persian so it's harder for me to draw specific examples of influence) on Swahili. Arab culture spread to Tanzania and Mozambique, and by the 8th century, it had spread to Mombasa (in Kenya) as well.

Swahili was originally spoken by the Bantu people only along the coastal parts of Eastern Africa, but it has since spread across the continent. It was thanks to the Middle Eastern traders and merchants that the language spread so rapidly. As one may guess, there needs to be some form of common tongue between two parties doing trade with each other, so Swahili became a good middle ground--especially after Arabic influence into the language became more profound.

It's interesting to note that the Arabic influence on East Africa directly affected the already existing Bantu languages, while the even-more-prominent Arab and Muslim influence in North Africa didn't seep into existing languages; rather, it materialized in the form of Arabic being an actual language that is spoken there. In fact, the "Middle East" encompasses Northern Africa, or the Maghreb, along with the area between Central Asia and the Mediterranean.

Alright, back to noun classes. Now that we know where the Arabic influence on Bantu peoples came from, we can talk about specific evidence of influence. Again, Swahili has 18 noun classes. Swahili is actually called Kiswahili in the regions where it is spoken, and we will see why in just a bit. Noun classes are formed based on the word's characteristics as a noun and based on vowel harmony in Swahili. There are nine basic distinctions, and a plural and singular version of each distinction, making 18 noun classes.

Let's look at the first and second noun classes, just for an example. These first two noun classes are nouns about people (like "children" or "teacher") and animals (including birds, insects, and fish). The singular noun class is distinguished by the first syllable, "m-," and the plural noun class uses "wa-." So, the word for "child" is "mtoto," while the word for "children" is "watoto." The word for "age" is "zee," making "mzee" the word for "elder" and "wazee" the word for "elders."

We can see examples of Arabic influence in the third and fourth noun classes. The third noun class (singular) is denoted by "ki-" and the fourth (plural) is denoted by "vi-." The two classes contain nouns that already take words with "ki-" and "vi-," as well as nouns for body parts and nouns for languages. Thus, "Japanese" in Swahili would be "Kijapani." This is also the reason why Swahili is called Kiswahili; the "ki-" is added to the language name of "Swahili."

A little tangent: the language of Chewa is called Chichewa in countries that speak it (like Malawi), and it is because the "ki-" from Kiswahili becomes a "chi-" in Chichewa (but it follows the same rules of denoting language nouns).

The Arabic word for "book" is كتاب (the transliteration is spelled "ktāb" or "kitaab"). The plural, in Arabic, is كتب (transliteration: "kutub" or "ktb") because it follows the Arabic rules for pluralization. "Kitaab" is a noun of Arabic origin that Swahili was influenced by.

"Book" in Swahili is "kitabu" (the last "u" syllable comes from the rule in Swahili of open syllables; all words end with a vowel sound rather than a vowel or a consonant sound that is present in English). However, the plural, "books" is not "kutubu" in Swahili. Rather, it follows Swahili noun class rules, and "kitabu" (singular) becomes "vitabu" when plural. This is one of many examples of Arabic influence on Bantu languages, with Bantu languages simultaneously keeping its own structures.

Moving on to the fifth and sixth noun classes of Swahili: the fifth (singular) class is denoted by "m-" (similar to the first noun class), and the sixth (plural) class is "mi-." The word for "tree" is "mti," while the word for "trees" is "miti."

And onto Arabic! The world for "exam" in Arabic is امتحان ("āmtḥān" or "imtihaan" in transliteration). "Exams" is الامتحانات (transliteration: "alimtihaanaat" or "ālāmtḥānāt"). In Swahili, the word for exams is "mtihani," but it should come as no surprise that "exams" is not "al-mtihanat." Rather, it is "mitihani" and stays true to its Swahili noun class rules.

A word that English borrowed from Swahili, "safari," actually has roots in Arabic. The word "safari," in English, means "a hunting expedition in Eastern Africa" according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. The second definition for the word, on Merriam-Webster, is "a journey; an expedition." The word has the exact same spelling in Swahili (where English took it from), and it also means "a journey."

The Arabic word for "a journey" is سفر. The transliteration for it is (drumroll, please)... "safar" ("sfr" without the short vowels written in). When Swahili took the word "safar" into their language, they had to add a vowel to the end of it to abide by their open syllable rule, like I mentioned previously. Thus, they made the word "safari," which is now a word most English speakers know as well!

I know I touched on "Swahili" vs. "Kiswahili" earlier, but where did the word "Swahili" come from in the first place? It actually came from Arabic as well. The Arabic word "ساحل" (transliteration: "sahil") means "coast" or "of the coast," which is fitting for the Arab traders and merchants who entered Africa through the eastern coast (as well as the Bantu people originally being people of the coast). The word has a plural form "سواحل" (transliteration: "sawahil"). The Bantu people took the plural, "sawahil," and made it into the name of the language (after added a final vowel to fit with the open syllable rule, of course). Thus, the name "Swahili" came to be. Recall that "ki-" can denote a language noun. When the Bantu people say "Kiswahili," they literally mean "language of the coast."

These are only a few examples of many to show the Arabic influence on Swahili. I won't go into detail, but Swahili has borrowed number words from Arabic as well, including words for "six," "seven," "eight," and "nine," to name just a few.

Isn't that fascinating?! Swahili today is a mix of its Bantu origins with Persian and Arabic influence. Other languages that also left marks on Swahili are Portuguese and Malay. Swahili actually used to be written in Arabic script, but it was changed to Latin script (to represent the words phonetically) after the Portuguese took over the land in 1500-1700 AD.

The spread of trade and Islamic culture helped Swahili expand into the rest of the African continent. The words and structures I touched on are just a small, small slice of the entire rich history of the language--which is tied so closely with trade activities, culture, and the migration of people groups at the time. I hope you enjoyed a small taste of it, and I'll see y'all next week!