A book review of `Zanzibar: Kinyang`anyiro na utumwa´by Issa Nasser Issa AI-Ismaily (1999).

Bwana Tela (1856-1927) alikuja Afrika ya mashriki kutoka Ulaya katika mwaka 1297 wa hijti (mwaka 1880 wa miladi), akakaa kwa muda wa myaka khamustaashara takriban. Ingawa alikuja kutangaza dini ya kiNasara, kazi aliyofanya zaidi Mambasa ilikuwa ni ya mambo ya utaalamu wa lugha ya kiSawahili, na mashairi yake, na utamaduni wa waSawahili. Alipata bahati ya kuwa na marafiki wataalamu wa kiMvita, khaswa Mwalimu Sikujuwa al-Batawi, na Bwana Hemedi al-Mambasi. Nyimbo zake za kiMisheni alizotunga kwa kiSawahili hazikutiwa maanani, lakini mahadhi aliokuwa akiimbiya yalibakiya kwa myaka mingi kwa jina la `mahildhi ya Tela´. Bwana Tela alisaidiana na Mwalimu Sikujuwa kuhifadhi t´ungo za washairi wengi wa kale zisipotee, khaswa t´ungo za Bwana Muyaka. Kadhalika alikusanya mithali ya kiSawahili, zaidi ya sita-mia. Karatasi zake alizoandika mambo ya kiSawahili, nyingi sasa ziko maktaba ya SOAS, London, na ni muhimu katika kutusaidiya kufahamu kiSawahili cha kiSawahili. Si makosa kusema kuwa Bwana Tela ndiye mtaalamu mkubwa wa kiSawahili katika wataalamu wote wa kiNgereza.

In conversation, participants operate under the condition that they must demonstrate to each other what they assume to be the nature of their talk. This happens on a sequential basis. Every turn in conversation is typically followed by another one, and therefore it is paramount for the second turn in line, for its own intelligibility, to make clear how it relates to the preceding turn. In this way, by tracing the interpretations that are made `available´ by the participants themselves as they assemble their talk, one can obtain a technical specification from within of the procedures conversationalists use for eo-constructing their encounter. This approach to the study of talk and interaction, heavily influenced by Harold Garfinkel´s (1967) ethnomethodological program, became known as Conversation Analysis (CA). This paper, then, is an attempt to reconceptualize the notion of institutionality in CA. At the same time, because it uses real conversational materials for doing so, it contains a substantive analysis of some of the procedures and situated practices the people in the sample resort to for accomplishing their interaction.

In recent years, the Bantu object affix that is commonly known as the object marker (OM) has attracted considerable debate regarding its status in generative grammar. One view takes the OM to be an incorporated pronoun (see for example, Bresnan and Mchombo 1987; Bresnan 1993). Their analysis is based mainly on the contrast between object marking and subject marking. The subject marker (SM), they point out, behaves as an agreement marker while the object marker behaves like a bound pronoun, freeing the noun from word order restrictions, permitting contrastive focus like a bound pronoun, and permitting non-local anaphoric relations. The other view takes OM to be an agreement marker which licenses a null object (see for example, Bergvall 1987; Kinyalolo 1991; Ngonyani 1996). In this paper I take the second position and, on the basis of Kiswahili constructions in which the lexical object is not realized, I argue that a null object analysis is consistent with VP ellipsis facts, idiom chunks, and co-occurrence between OM and the lexical object. It is consistent with the general analysis of agreement as instantiation of Spec-Head relation (Chomsky 1986a, Kinyalolo 1991). I demonstrate using the elliptical constructions that the verb moves to an Inf-position.

The net has become a widely used means of information and communication within the academic community and beyond. After the glimpse into German-speaking universities with Swahili studies, and the fascinating Kamusi project hosted by Yale University in our last number, we will plunge fully into life this time. There are several Tanzanian and Kenyan newspapers on the net now, most of them offered for free, some requiring subscription. One can find out about radio programs, the time they are being broadcast. Most of the radio stations offer to listen to the program in RealAudio. Students from East-Africa in the USA or in Canada maintain their own sites and offer information on their countries and culture, and many links to other sites related to Swahili language and culture. Johannes Fabian and Vincent de Rooij of the University of Amsterdam are in the process of setting up an internet journal on popular culture in Africa, Swahili texts being a special area of interest.

A book review of `Bukusu tales. Collected arround 1936 by research assistant of Dr. Gunter Wagner (1908-1952).´(1995) by Jan J. de Wolf.

As with other women`s garments, the kanga has always been closely linked with the perceptions and attitudes that the society has about women themselves. These perceptions and attitudes continue to shape and determine the place of women in their socio-cultural context. Just as women`s clothes are often taken to define, if partially, the beings that occupy them, similarly, in characteristically wearing certain garments and not others, women then assign to those garments what is perceived to be their `feminineness`. In Tanzania, the kanga indexes this `femininity` in a strong way, in spite of the fact that men also wear it. Even more so, the messages that appear on the kanga are viewed as a uniquely female form of communication, and women in Zanzibar, the area covered by this study, have been making increasing use of them as an additional strategy which allows them to make strong statements about their concems, while at the same time avoiding any direct conflict which may arise fiom their individual actions.

It is not unexpected that we can find several Swahili-loanwords in Oromo because Swahili- and Oromo speaking people were neighbours for, at least, several centuries. If we are looking for Swahili-loanwords in Oromo we have, of course, to examine the southern Oromo-dialects first.

The locative suffix -ni: In this article we discuss two hypotheses about the origin of the locative suffix -ni. The better known hypothesis (Raum 1909; Meinhof 1941/42) assumes that the suffix -(i)ni developed out of a class 18 demonstrative, though the details of the assumed phonological changes have never been made clear. The competing hypothesis by Sacleux (1939) suggests that locative nouns with -ni started out as compounds with the noun ini `liver´. We think that this second hypothesis is phonologically more plausible and that it also accounts for the specific link with the meaning of class 18 `inside´. Comparison of the spread of the locative suffix -(i)ni and of the word ini `liver´, together with other historical considerations, point to Kiswahili (or Sabaki) as the most likely origin of this locative suffix.

Kiswahili, one among the Bantu languages, was formerly called Kingozi, the Waswahili (as they were called by the visiting Arabs) were originally known as Wangozi. Although Western researchers have manifested great interest in Swahili language and culture, they refuse to consider the arguments of their Swahili counterparts, they do accept but their own evidence and analysis. As far as the development of vocabulary and terminologies are concerned, this should be the work of Waswahili per se, scholars and lovers of the language. The author argues that the coining of word had always been in connection with (1) the function, (2) the sound, and (3) the structure of the item to be named. He shows that the lexical and structural richness of Kiswahili in fact can lead to meaningful and reasonable coining of any words necessary. He proposes to continue the work started after the 1975-meeting in Dar-es-Salaam, i. e. to compile vocabularies of the different dialects of Kiswahili which could form a pool from which material can be drawn for coining new words. There is need for all experts to organize their forces. Tanzanian experts should stop doing the whole work alone. They should incorporate their Kenyan counterparts as well. But this is not enough. There is a call for a joint Panel or Committee which shall coordinate all efforts of developing Kiswahili.