Few East African groups have attracted the attention of academics as much as the Swahili of coastal Kenya and Tanzania. The Swahili town of Lamu has even been described as having more professional researchers than doctors per inhabitant (Mazmi and Shariff 1994:2). Researchers commonly describe the Swahili as having a maritime culture (Middleton 1992:8; Nurse and Spear 1985:97; Prins 1965:263-275) and looking to the sea for their livelihood and identity (Mazmi and Shariff 1994:19; Ylvisaker 1975:74-83). They stress the contact of the `sea-prowling` Swahili with the ocean through seafaring, trading, fishing, and boat building to acquire wealth and social standing (Mazmi and Sharif 1994: 19; Middleton 1992: 8). Futhermore, the origin of the word Swahili is said to stress the proximity of the sea, coming from the Arabic sawahil (coast) or being of local origin, swahili (literally this island), making the Swahili variously the people of the coast (Middleton 1992:1) or the people of this island (Mazmi and Shariff 1994:56).

Kiswahili language has undergone a lot of changes in the last decades especially at the lexical level. Many lexical items have been coined, adapted, borrowed or modified to express concepts that were hitherto unknown or non existent in the Swahili world view cosmology. One area that has witnessed a lot of these changes has been the area of sciences, or better put science has been a prime causer of many neologisms in this language. This eventuality has gone a long way to disprove the naive assumptions that the language has not come of age to express scientific concepts.

Simulizi za ugonjwa zinatolewa na mgonjwa na mtu mmoja au wengi wanaoombwa naye wamsaidie wakashauriana hali ya maradhi. Kutambua ugonjwa ni kazi ya kawaida na siyo ya waganga au madaktari tu. Kama pengine, katika Afrika ya Mashariki wenyeji huwa na ujuzi wa kawaida juu ya maradhi, mwili, tiba, dawa za hospitali na za kienyeji. Kila jinsi ya tiba ina njia, lugha na mazoezi yake. Mfano ufuatao unaonyesha maana na matumizi ya dhana na tashbihi (metaphors) katika uganga wa kienyeji. Ni kazi yangu sasa ya kufasiri matumizi ya tashbihi na alama katika mawasiliano ambayo huitwa `simulizi za ugonjwa´, yaani illness narratives ambazo ni dhana ya utafiti katika mawasiliano ya kuganga.