The editors ofSwahili Forum have decided to revive the former bibliographical service with issueing a first follow-up list within the present No. VII of Swahili Forum. The following titles do certainly not cover all the Swahili-related writings of the years since 1993, but could be seen as a new starter, which might create appetite to continue with a bibliographical section. Eventually this could be completed for the past seven years within the forthcoming issues. The following bibliography contains titles which were rather randomly collected by the present editors. The articles which appeared in Swahili Forum I/1994 - VI/1999 are excluded from this list but await documentation in an extra-list, which is forthcoming in one of the next numbers of Swahlli Forum.

Until the Eighties the regional character of Kenyan prose writing was far less marked than that of Zanzibari novels. Different was the situation in poetry; in fact, Kimvita and Kiamu have been used even in modern times (see, e.g., Ahmad Nassir Juma Bhalo, Abdilatif Abdalla and Ahmed Sheikh Nabhany; the last one is well-known for his endeavour in enriching and modernizing Swahili terminology, and a few of his proposed terms, e. g. runinga for `television`, have been accepted). Kenyan prose fiction, on the other hand, used to be much alike to the up-country Tanzanian literary production, written as it was in standard Swahili, sometimes with many colloquial features.

As a subject of scientific interest `Western` comics (i.e. the European, American, Japanese comics) have after all achieved some recognition. From its beginnings in the 1890s the comic has been an economic success, and gradually gained importance in the contemporary cultural production of `Western´ societies. However, only with a development that finally met the tastes of a `Western´ intellectual readership, scientific treatment of comics became academically acceptable. Compared to the Western market, the production of comics in Africa is negligeable, and therefore its scientific reception almost nonexistent. This article, however preliminary, for the first time takes interest in an African comic, specifically the comics in Swahili, as a subject of its own right. Under the guise of discussing the question given in the title on two levels, I intend to present as much material as possible (without stretching copyrights too far), to give a short introduction to the theory of the comic, and to raise the reader´s interest for the Swahili comic. The first level of discussion focuses on a global perspective. Here I take a more theoretical stance, concentrating on the comic as a narrative medium, reflecting its inventory of representation and questions of reading. My main question is: What does the Swahili comic do that other comics do as well? The second level focuses on the local perspective. I look at the setting in which the comic occurs, i.e. Swahili- speaking, urban East Africa, and take into consideration the cultural embedding of the medium: What can the comic do in East Africa that other media or gemes of cultural expression (music, tv, literature, painting, theatre, etc.) do not or can not do? What is new about the comic in East Africa?

Indian Influence in Swahili architecture. The goal of this article is to establish a synthesis of current knowledge on the contribution of the Indian world in Swahili architecture, from the islamisation to the sultanate of Zanzibar. By Indian world, we designate Pakistan and modern India, more precisely coastal regions of Sind, Gujerat and Deccan. Indians have participated at the creation of Swahili urbanism since the eighth century and have acted on the evolution of this architecture. To apprehend the role of India in the Swahili architecture, we will divide our comment in three areas: religious, civilian and military. With an historical introduction to the relationships between Africa and India.

For the past 150 years studies on Kiswahili language, literature and culture have engaged the scholarly attention of many researchers (Hauner 1979. In their analyses of Kiswahili literary works, however, most critical studies have, generally, tended to neglect the aspect of artistic design. Instead, the central focus has primarily been on two interlocking aspects of these works: (1) their content, values or thematic messages and (2) their cultural and socio-historical contexts (Dorsey 1988). This widespread tendency to undervalue the importance of artistic design in Kiswahili literary works is not surprising as it was largely promoted by some of the earlier European authorities who popularised the idea that Kiswahili literature `is not of literary interest´ and `that social, cultural, and historical commentary by anthologists are more relevant to this literature than literary study´ (Biersteker and Plane 1989:451). It is encouraging to see, however, that in recent years more and more scholars, like Mlamali (1980), Fiedel and Shariff (1986), Biersteker (1991) and Mbele (1996), to mention but a few, address issues of artistic design in their critical appraisals of Kiswahili literary works. This article is a modest attempt to follow their example by looking at Utenzi wa Shujaka as an object of design; how the poet has used the technical instruments of verbal craftsmanshjp in his bid to elicit an aesthetic response from his audience.

This article discusses one particular issue of Swahili standardization. which is, in Kiswahili Sanifu, the correct concordial agreement to be applied to the lexeme -ingine (‘other’)? Should it be treated like an adjective, as ‘classical’ works in Swahili grammar claim as well as current educational books do? How can efforts in favour of standardization comply with the appearance of different variants of concordial agreement?

Katika kuangalia lugha ya Kiswahili, utaona kuwa uchaguzi wa lugha hii kama lugha ya taifa nchini Kenya na kama lugha ya taifa na lugha rasmi nchini Tanzania unatokana na mambo mengi ya kihistoria, kisiasa, kidini na hata kijamii. Mambo haya yamesaidia katika kukubalika kwa lugha hii na watu wengi katika nchi hizi na nchi nyinginezo ulimwenguni. Makala haya yananuiwa hasa kuangalia namna ambavyo vita mbalimbali vilivyosaidia katika uenezaji na ukuaji wa lugha ya Kiswahili katika ule makabala wa kuangalia historia ya Kiswahili.

Sign language in Tanzania is a relatively new field of linguistics that is yet to attract many researchers and linguists in particular Tanzanian Sign Language (TSL) functions as a unifying tool for the deaf in the country and, probably, beyond. This language, which is still at its early stage of development, is used in the same linguistic environment with Kiswahili, the national language, which is more established. The situation leaves TSL disadvantaged and is thus likely to cause a one-way linguistic influence, from Kiswahili to TSL. This paper, therefore, examines the nature and impact of the situation. Firstly, it focuses on the question of whether or not TSL is an independent language that has developed as a seperate language, quite distinct from the spoken languages of the communities that surround it, especially Kiswahili. Secondly, it examines the extent to which Kiswahili has influenced TSL and thus the role that the former plays in learning and developing the latter. The results of the study show that Kiswahili has had some influence on TSL but the influence is marginal at lexical level. Of all the signs studied, only 13% were directly related to Kiswahili. The majority of the signs studied were found to be iconic in nature, but only 12% of all signs were semantically transparent. Even in these cases where the signs are transparent, the transparency of the signs is not based on one`s knowledge of Kiswahili. Most of the transparent signs are common gestures that any person of any ethnic origin can interpret. The study has thus established that TSL is more of a sign language than signed language. It is an indigenous African sign language, unrelated to the Western Sign Languages, except for the manual alphabet. Finally, the study predicts that much of the transperancy and iconicity in TSL will gradually fade away as the language develops across time, space, and generations.

The essays offered here originated in a series of conference papers presented over the years at various professional meetings. In the time elapsed since the first of them was offered at the meeting ofthe UNESCO Commission on the History of Geographical Thought (1988), new important works on Swahili history and language have appeared which demonstrate a variety of productive approaches to the problems of Swahili cultural and ethnic history In a publication such as the Swahili Forum it may be appropriate to recognize the steps made, to acknowledge the advances achieved, and to identify the needs remaining John Middleton`s (1992) well-received book presents a thorough and authmitative analysis of the social, economic, and spatial structures which evolved in the international setting of the East African coast Jarnes de Vere Alien`s posthumously published study (1992) pursues the questions of historic identity of the Swahili and of the political styles developed in the process of interaction of Arab-Islamic and African elements of coastal culture The special role of Islam in the formation and dynamics of Swahili city-states` elites has been analyzed slightly earlier by Randall L Pouwels (1987) Pouwels also has addressed coastal historiography in a series of articles some of which are cited in the following essays The fundamental study of the Swahili language by Derek Nurse and Thomas Hinnebusch (1993) revises and elaborates the possibilities of relating the chronology of the development of Swahili to the history of the Bantu-speaking coastal societies, raised in the earlier works singly or jointly by Derek Nurse and Thomas Spear New editions of Swahili texts make available, sometimes for the first time, to African and Western scholars alike, the synchronic nanatives indispensable for historical accuracy of our interpretations (Omar & Frankl 1990, I olmacheva 1993)

Historical texts from the Swahili coast (Swahili-English): Upper Pokomo Elwana, Mwiini Bajuni Pate Amu, She la Matondoni, Mwani Asili ya Mphokomu Fumo Liongo A story. Proverbs and riddles Mashairi Saidi Haji talking about poetry. Kiteko, a story Verse by MA Abdulkadir, Women`s political songs. An old woman reminisces, Mbaraka Msuri, a hadithi. Ngano A story.