This paper considers some of the questions posed by literary translations both from and into Swahili. While the questions a translator might address as she proceeds with each translation may be the same, their differing answers often highlight the translator’s different position towards, and history with, each target language, as well as her aesthetic and political commitments in each. The projects discussed are Mlenge Fanuel Mgendi’s comic short story Starehe gharama (Comfort is Expensive) about a young schoolboy’s misadventure on a daladala bus in Dar es Salaam and Tope Folarin’s Caine Prize shortlisted story Genesis (Mwanzo), in which two Nigerian boys living in the American Midwest witness their mother’s struggle with her new surroundings.

Kuanzia mwaka 1964 hadi 1993, idara ya Kiswahili katika Shirika la Uchapishaji wa Lugha za Kigeni ilitafsiri na kuchapisha jumla ya vitabu 258 vya Kichina kwenda Kiswahili huku wasomi wa Kiswahili walitafsiri vitabu 26 vya Kiswahili kwa Kichina. Kwa kulinganisha idadi na maudhui ya vitabu hivyo katika enzi ya mapinduzi na ya mageuzi, makala hii inadhihirisha utegemezi wa tafsiri kwa sera ya serikali na mazingira ya jamii. Kwa hivyo, changamoto za kitaaluma na za kiuchumi zilizopo katika kutafsiri vitabu kwenda au kutoka Kiswahili nchini China zinakabili serikali, wachapishaji, waandishi, watafsiri na wasomaji kwa pamoja. / Between 1964 and 1993, the Kiswahili department of the Foreign Languages Press of China translated and published 258 books from Chinese into Swahili while 26 books were translated from Swahili into Chinese. This article highlights the dependency of translation processes on government policies as well as societal circumstances by comparing the number of books and their content during the periods of revolution and reform. Thus, the academic as well as economic challenges in the context of the translation of books from and into Kiswahili have to be addressed by the government, the publishers, authors, translators as well as readers.

In Egypt, Swahili has a prominent role as it is used in teaching, religious activities and journalism related with East African Countries. This is a sign of the good relations between Egypt and East African areas where Swahili is used. These relations are also based on the religion of Islam. Translations from Swahili into Arabic and vice versa play a special role in the cultural exchange between Egypt and Swahiliphone East Africa. Two Egyptian institutions are especially active in translation, the university of Al-Azhar and the National Centre for Translation. This article gives an overview of translation activities in Egypt and discusses their opportunities and challenges.

Lugha ya Kiswahili imeenea na kukua kiasi cha kuweza kupambana na zingine katika ngazi za kimataifa kwenye mfumo wa sasa wa utandawazi. Hata hivyo, Kiswahili hakiwezi kupata fanaka inayotarajiwa huko nje iwapo hakithaminiwi na kudhaminiwa nyumbani (Afrika Mashariki). Bado lugha ya Kiswahili inakumbana na pingamizi nyingi mno; na miongoni mwa vikwazo hivyo ni mielekeo ya lugha inayobainika katika jamii. Makala hii inajikita zaidi katika mielekeo ya viongozi wa Afrika Mashariki, na wasomi wa Kiswahili kuhusu nafasi na umuhimu wa Kiswahili. Viongozi na wasomi wana ushawishi mkubwa sana kutokana na nafasi yao katika jamii. Wote wanaheshimika na kuenziwa; viongozi kutokana na mamlaka waliyopewa, na wasomi kwa sababu ya maarifa waliyonayo. Kutokana na ukweli huo, tabia na mienendo yao, pamoja na matamko yao mbalimbali yana athari kubwa sana katika jamii. Mara nyingi, watu wengi hupenda kuiga wayafanyayo; hali inayobainika pia katika matumizi ya lugha. Kabla ya kuijadili mielekeo na matumizi yao ya lugha, maswala mawili muhimu yanayochangia ujenzi wa hiyo mielekeo katika jamii yatazungumziwa: thamani ya lugha, na zoezi la kujifunza lugha ya pili.

This paper discusses the problems caused by the linguistic features used by speakers as the basis of determining their social identity. The concept of identity is broad and closely related with socio-cultural and eco-spheres environment of the speakers. The speaker’s identity is determined by employing both social and linguistic features in the overall analysis. The linguistic features include the whole range of language use, from phonetic features to lexical units, syntactic structures and family names. This paper therefore argues that the speaker’s linguistic features pose some problems in determining the speaker’s identity. The first problem concerns the concepts of language and dialect which are defined differently by different scholars. The second problem refers to multilingual speakers with diversified linguistic competence, and lastly, it has been noted with concern that some speakers use artificial family names which are not from their ethnic origin, hence complicating the process of determining the identity of the speakers.

Swahili ist keineswegs eine besonders „exotische“ Sprache, aber dennoch fällt es schwer, eine gu-te moderne Grammatik des Standard-Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) zu finden. Insbesondere die Inter-pretation der vorkommenden Tempora, Aspekte oder Modi des Verbs sind in den erhältlichen Grammatiken diskrepant bis widersprüchlich. Der Artikel versucht, einen systematischen Ansatz für eine strukturelle Matrix des TAM-Systems im Swahili herauszuarbeiten. Dabei beziehe ich mich auf die von Shankara Bhat in The Prominence of Tense, Aspect and Mood (1999) vorge-schlagene typologische Methode. Bhat legt dar, dass nicht jede Sprache jede Dimension von TAM gleich gewichtet, sondern dass jeweils eine davon vorherrscht. Eine Analyse von TAM in einer be-stimmten Sprache muss sich daher an der prominenten Dimension orientieren. Im Artikel wird herausgearbeitet, dass das Tempus die strukturierende Dimension im Swahili darstellt und dass im Gegensatz dazu der Aspekt nicht systematisch grammatikalisiert ist. Dabei war es nötig, die im Swahili vorkommenden TAM-Formen funktional zu interpretieren und zu benennen, da diese in der aktuellen Literatur teilweise sehr unterschiedlich analysiert werden.

This bibliography is an update of Thomas Geider’s comprehensive bibliography of 100 pages which he published in Swahili Forum 10 (2003). Thomas Geider had almost finished it when he fell ill in April 2010. He left the manuscript when he passed away on 15 October 2010. It has been completed and edited by the editors of Swahili Forum, and comprises mainly works published between 2003 and 2009. Also included are some works published in 2001 and 2002 which came to Thomas Geider’s attention after he had completed his 2003 bibliography.

Book review of the biography "Mfinyanzi Aingia Kasri – Siti Binti Saad, Malkia wa Taarab", written by Nasra Mohammed Hilal (2007)

Kithaka wa Mberia (b.1956) is one of the most innovative Kenyan poets. Until now he has published four collections of poems and three plays. His poems contain a strong political and social criticism, sometimes in the form of animal allegories. He condemns various acts of violence done to women, like rapes of schoolgirls or prostitution caused by poverty. Some compositions seem life-stories of real persons, others are overtly didactic and moralizing, but in all the theme of social justice is almost obsessive. Another group of poems highlights the author’s concern with his surroundings and with the “health conditions” of the Earth in general; thus, for instance, he denounces the devastation of Kenyan soil in order to get foreign currency. His love of nature makes him address affectionate verses to animals, insects and plants. Formally the poems have little in common with the poetic tradition of the Swahili coast as they are in free verse. Kithaka exhibits a rich vocabulary of botanical and zoological terms and is fond of various forms of word-playing like chiming and punning; an important role in his poetry is played by parallelism. Moreover, he introduces into Kiswahili visual poems where typography is relied upon to perform expressive effects. Kithaka wa Mberia, together with other East African contemporary poets, proves that Swahili poetry is able to express universal themes and can reach a high artistic value even without repeating traditional models.

This article will present a short story which appeared in the newspaper Mzalendo on the 15th January 1978, but it took twenty-six years before it was published in a book. Presumably it was written in the same period as both the play Kaputula la Marx and probably also as some of Kezilahabi’s poems from the second collection Karibu ndani (1988). It is a period of his most critical works. In Mayai – Waziri wa Maradhi the author blames, in a highly symbolic manner, the leading classes of his country who became rich at the expense of common citizens during ten years of Independence, symbolized by ten emaciated ghostly children.