Swahili

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.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1984. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 308-319).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1967. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Diss.--Fakultät Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft--Bayreuth--Universität, 1993. / Bibliogr. p. 223-237.

Yuning Shen’s study deals with transitivity and verb valency in Kiswahili using a corpus-based approach. The author relates the methods used and results with previous studies dealing with the same topic, namely Whiteley (1968), Abdulaziz (1996) and Olejarnik (2005). He uses the meta-function-rank-matrix (MF/R) from Chinese to point out the fallacy of adopting such a matrix from one language and imposing it on another. Using the parts of speech annotation TreeTagger (Schmid 1994, 1995) to examine previous verb classifications, the author discusses the divergent use of concepts such as verb radicals, verb stems and verb bases as used in different theoretical approaches. / Kitabu hiki cha Yuning Shen kinahusu uelekezi na mpangilio wa vitenzi katika lugha ya Kiswahili kwa kutumia mkabala wenye msingi wa kopasi ya kiisimu. Mwandishi anazihusisha mbinu zilizotumika na matokeo yake na kazi za utafiti zilizotangulia zilizoshughulikia mada hiyo yaani Whiteley (1968), Abdulaziz (1996), na Olejarnik (2005). Shen anatumia mkabala wa mpangilio wa viwango tofauti vya matumizi ya lugha (meta-function-rank-matrix, MF/R) iliyotumika kwa utafiti wa lugha ya Kichina kwa ajili ya kuonesha udhaifu wa mkabala huo kwani unaiga mfumo unaofanya kazi katika lugha moja na kuutumia kwa lugha nyingine bila kuzingatia kuwa lugha ni tofauti. Kwa kutumia njia ya matawi ya kutenganisha vipashio vya maneno (TreeTagger) iliyobuniwa na Schmid (1994, 1995) kwa lengo la kuchunguza njia za awali za kuainisha vitenzi, mwandishi anayajadili matumizi yanayotofautiana ya dhana mbalimbali kama vile viini vya vitenzi, mashina ya vitenzi, na mizizi ya vitenzi jinsi ambavyo zimetumika katika mikabala mbalimbali ya kinadharia.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1992. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Clifford Hill. Dissertation Committee: JoAnne Kleifgen. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-135).

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the life and works of Muhamadi Kijuma of Lamu. Lamu is one of the districts of Kenya's Coast Province. Kijuma's life (1855-1945) spans almost the entire colonial period.;Little was known about his life and works before this research worker started collecting Kijuma's own manuscripts found in Europe and East Africa, documents of the period, and facts from the memories of the old people at Lamu who were still alive when this worker arrived there in 1980.;Kijuma was a scribe, calligrapher, composer of songs and dances, musician and maker of musical instruments. In the first chapter, Kijuma's genealogy and his life is dealt with in detail. The remaining chapters investigate more closely the various activities in which he engaged, particularly after his return from Zanzibar in 1908.;The first of these was the singing competitions in which Kijuma took an active part, and by which the Colonial Office in Lamu managed to change the political, economic and social structure of Lamu to replace it with its own. The cultural and the religious aspects of these singing competitions are discussed. The origin of what is called in Swahili tarabu has been discovered, as well as the fact that it was Kijuma who imported it into Lamu, that Kijuma was a moving force amongst those who made tarabu known all over East Africa, and that he was the first to make a kinanda in Lamu, and to compose the dances called Mwasha and Kinanda.;The main tool of the singing competitions was the Swahili song, and the following subject discusses Kijuma's songs, and deals especially with Kijuma's mafumbo "Riddles and metaphors", and to show that these mafumbo were used by Kijuma in his songs only, not in his poems. The bulk of these songs were collected from Kijuma's compatriots in Lamu, Matondoni and Mombasa in Kenya, and are edited here for the first time. Kijuma's composing of songs inspired him to compose also long poems and to copy them out artistically. Therefore, the third subject comprises all the literary works which Kijuma either composed and scribed, or only scribed. Some of these have been identified for the first time as being Kijuma's compositions, or as simply scribed by him. Other manuscripts have been identified as being the works of other poets, although it has been alleged by other Swahili scholars that they were Kijuma's compositions. Kijuma's sources for composing these poems have also been identified. This third subject shows that Kijuma indirectly participated in preserving Northern Swahili literature, and producing valuable data upon which the scholars of Swahili are still depending. The main sources for this subject were Kijuma's manuscripts found at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, in the University College of Dar-es-Salaam, and in Hamburg, and Kijuma's correspondence with his European clients. Kijuma's talents enabled him to produce many works of visual art, including title-pieces for his manuscripts. So, the fourth subject is: Kijuma as a craftsman (Fundi). Under this heading, all Kijuma's available works of visual art are discussed, showing that he was skilled in sculpture, wood-carving, drawing, calligraphy, tailoring, and decorative knitting. It is important to note that Kijuma introduced many symbols in these artistic works. These symbols are discussed and displayed for the first time. The fifth subject deals with Kijuma's religion.;This research worker came, later, to realise that the title of this thesis might have been; Kijuma's religion, because it was found out, by reading all about this subject, that all the preceding subjects are relevant to the questions which arise in the consideration of this subject. In addition to this, it is the only aspect of Kijuma's life which Swahili scholars and missionaries have written about in some detail. They have considered Kijuma as a Christian, but judging by the available data, Kijuma must have been a Muslim. The sixth and final subject, discusses Kijuma's personality, extrapolating from his own poem Siraji which is transliterated, translated, and given in the appendix.

No description available.

Researchers in the field of Swahili studies have noted the need for a comprehensive, detailed catalogue of the Swahili manuscripts at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London). They have had occasion to make this recommendation in print (see, for example, Omar and Frankl 1994 and Frankl 1999) and - presumably many more times, and to no specified audience - in life, as they pored over unitemised or inaccurately labelled files of eminent scholars in the field. It is precisely this need for a comprehensive, widely accessible catalogue that the Swahili Manuscripts Project at SOAS was established, in October 2001, to address. In this article, the present authors undertake to describe the catalogue being created and to discuss problems they have encountered and observations they have had opportunity to make in the course of their work.