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The challenges of intercultural communication are an integral part of many undergraduate business communication courses. Marketing gaffes clearly illustrate the pitfalls of translation and underscore the importance of a knowledge of the culture with which one is attempting to communicate. A good way to approach the topic of translation pitfalls in international business communication is to start with the challenge of English idioms. This article discusses a multilayered assignment that demonstrates the hazards and challenges of idioms in the translation process. By making students active decoders and translators, this assignment allows students to experience the potential for misunderstanding when communicators lack a common culture and to realize the rationale for prescriptive warnings about figurative idioms in intercultural communication. (Contains 4 tables.)

Investigated diversity in the classroom, student background and learning experiences, and perceptions about the relationship between foreign language learning and issues of race, gender, class, and social justice among university students studying Spanish, Japanese, and Swahili. Found more racial diversity in Japanese and Swahili classes and in beginning Spanish classes than in advanced Spanish classes. (VWL)

Discusses various theories of spelling development including their relevance to regularly spelled languages. Concludes that, as in other languages, children are integrating many different types of linguistic knowledge in their attempt to spell words correctly; dialect, orthography, and grammatical knowledge are all important. (SG)

Uses a sociocultural framework to suggest task engagement as a viable construct in second language learning research. Examines second language learner data to identify task engagement as it emerges, unfolds in dialogic activity, and becomes associated with he transformation of task, self, and group. (Author/VWL)

Discusses changes that have occurred with regard to issues of language acquisition in Kenya in the last several decades, and the challenges these changes pose for educators and linguists today. Evaluates discrepancies that exist between theoretical norms and actual language behavior, especially as they affect the English language. Solutions to significant problems facing language education are addressed. (Author/VWL)

Examines data recorded in Shaba, a province in the Congo, and documents the marked preference to employ French discourse markers in Shaba Swahili discourse. Treats discourse markers as a special kind of contextualization cue that ties parts of a discourse to each other, creating cohesion and coherence. (Author/VWL)

Assumes the overall frame work of Extended Standard Theory of grammar, with a focus on the lexicon. It assumes Chomsky's theory that the projection of a verb and its arguments onto syntax is determined by its lexical specifications. Emphasizes a lexical approach to Swahili verbal suffixes. (Author/VWL)

Explores theoretical issues concerning instructional technology for African language instruction, gives a brief description of WebCT (a web-based instruction framework), and describes its practicality in the instruction of African languages with special focus on Swahili and Yoruba. (Author/VWL)

Examines the role of the language teacher in the age of computers, which appears radically minimized in the language classroom. Particular examples are drawn from the Stanford Swahili Project. (Author/VWL)

Examines the linguistic situation in Kenya and the teaching of Kiswahili in Kenyan schools. While there is widespread support for the school program, there are major problems to be overcome, particularly in the areas of language attitudes, teacher training, and course materials. (Author/VWL)

Examined the emergence of Runyakitara as a new language in Uganda in the 1980s. The formation of Runyakitara through the realignment of four Western Bantu varieties illustrates the potential for the use of language as a resource in ethnic competition. Discusses the construction of Runyakitara in the context of the current political situation in Uganda. (Author/VWL)

Shows the acute dilemma facing a country with a widely spoken indigenous language, Kiswahili, in circumstances where a foreign language, English, has become the de facto language of instruction. Discusses the background of this policy and suggests an alternative, bilingual policy that gives equal weight to Kiswahili and English. (MJP)

Following previous reports, this paper contains additional information about the multilingual situation in the multiethnic town of Bukavu in Zaire. Focus is on codeswitching, an important characteristic of the overall dynamic picture of linguistic interaction. Myers-Scotton's markedness model is discussed. (13 references) (Author/LB)

Using ethnographic observations of classroom interaction in three primary schools, determinants of teachers' language choice and codeswitching among English, Swahili, and mother-tongue were explored: official school policy, cognitive concerns, classroom management concerns, values and attitudes about societal multilingualism. (36 references) (Author/LB)

The motives for the integration of French elements into Lubumbashi Swahili are investigated. Based on an analysis of three different texts, it is argued that the mixing process is carefully regulated and controlled to serve several communicative functions. (18 references) (Author/LB)

Describes the Kiswahili language and the increasing interest taken in studying Kiswahili by African-American students. Overall, college students' interest in foreign languages is declining, but awareness of and curiosity about African languages, particularly Kiswahili, represent student interest in African culture and heritage. (SLD)

The role of Tanzania's first President in promoting Swahili is outlined, and language policy is seen as one of the inevitable components of crises management. The recent reversal of an early policy of eventual Swahili-medium secondary and higher education is noted. (42 references)(JL)

Explores three major problems related to the use of Kiswahili as the language of instruction in Tanzania teacher training colleges, including the lack of a clear Kiswahili academic register; inadequately prepared tutors; and problems in the dissemination of terminologies. (19 references) (Author/CB)

Questions Kenyan language instructional policy, arguing exclusive use of English for science instruction confuses students and impedes learning. Offers examples the authors observed in elementary classrooms in Kisii and Kwale districts when teacher use of English synonyms rather than Kiswahili words led to confusion, misunderstanding, and ineffective teaching. (CH)

Describes the African language program at Michigan State University, which provides (1) supervised, individualized instruction for high-demand languages, on two levels; (2) regular classroom instruction for Swahili and Hausa; and (3) non-credit, self-instructional programs for low-demand languages. Sample forms are appended. (AM)

Introduces a special section on self-instructional language programs, and provides a brief list of materials, and their sources, for independent study of some uncommonly taught languages. (AM)

This paper examines the morphosyntax of the East African Swahili-based urban youth language or stylect Sheng. Research on urban youth languages has often focused on these varieties as sites of rapid change and linguistic creativity. However, we show that many of the structural features which appear to make Sheng stand out when compared to (Standard) Swahili are widespread across East African Bantu languages. We examine nominal and verbal domains, as well as clausal syntax, and highlight areas in which Sheng exhibits features in common with its contact languages, as well as features which appear to reflect instances of independent innovation. The study shows that Sheng is not a "simplified" version of Swahili which deviates from the grammar of Swahili in a range of ad hoc ways. Rather, the language exhibits features of retention and contact-induced borrowing, as well as systematic changes which are reflective of variation across the Bantu languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite stroke being a leading cause of death and disability in sub-Saharan Africa, stroke awareness remains a major hurdle to early stroke response and care in the region. To improve stroke awareness, we endeavoured to borrow a leaf from initiatives in high-income countries, beginning with the translation and dissemination of the acronym, FAST (Face, Arms, Speech, Time) to Swahili. We formed a translation group consisting of two stroke physicians, one nurse and two professional translators, all native Swahili speakers. Forward translation of the original document from English to Swahili was done by one Swahili translator; followed by a backward translation by another translator. Clinician reviews and cognitive reviews were then done, and a final translation was developed. We developed the acronym UPESI, a Swahili translation of the word, FAST. The acronym stands for U so kupooza upande mmoja; P ooza mkono/mguu (au kupoteza hisia); ugumu ku- E leza/kuongea; SI mu upesi translating to face drooping, arm/leg paralysis, difficulty in speaking/explaining and fast to the phone. The result of this process is a Swahili translation of the FAST tool for stroke awareness campaigns. The translation will improve communication during stroke campaigns and increase awareness of stroke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The on-going implementation of the new curriculum of the new education system in Kenya includes the administration of technology in the classroom. In this study, this was achieved through the use of a gamified app in a local private school in Kenya, a gamified Swahili app. As Swahili is the language that is Kenya's national and one of two official languages, it is an important language to master in school. The inclusion of a gamified app in addition to the traditional material used in the classroom is to increase their motivation, and engagement of the language learning process of the students. The participants expressed the enjoyment that they felt as they used the gamified app to supplement the material that they had been given to practice. This pilot study used both qualitative (using a questionnaire) and quantitative methods to gather the results of the control group (CG) and experimental group (EG) to ascertain the impact of their understanding through the pre- and posttest that the students did. The EG showed substantial improvement in the posttest after using the gamified app t(21) = −2.783, p = 0.011. Additionally, the students reported that they enjoyed using the gamified app to practice their Swahili reading comprehension materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was an endeavor to map out a personality trait structure of the Swahili language that may be used to develop indigenous eastern African personality assessment instruments. We followed the psycho-lexical approach where we not only identified trait terms from the Swahili dictionary but also from free descriptions collected from indigenous Swahili speakers. In combination, these two routines led to a pool of 3,732 personality-relevant terms, which was reduced in several steps to a set of 948 terms, identified as the most relevant trait-descriptive terms, including a small set of 26 adjectives, a large set of 531 nouns, and a substantial set of 391 verbs. This working set of 948 terms was lastly reduced to a final set of 661 most useful terms, converted into brief communicable sentences based on 439 nouns (comprising 250 type nouns and 189 attribute nouns), 199 verbs, and 23 adjectives. The list of 661 items was used to collect self and peer ratings from 480 university and high school students. An analysis of ratings on the 661 items revealed a six-factor personality trait structure that included Virtue, Imprudence, Negative Valence, Self-importance, Deceptiveness, and Attentive Conversation. Separate analyses were done using the type nouns, the attribute nouns, and the verbs, to assess the differential contribution of these word classes to the makeup of these Swahili Six. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human social behavior is a function of peoples’ personalities and individual differences. As humans engage in social behaviors, peoples’ traits and other unique attributes come out and get noticed, and community members may feel tempted to talk about these attributes and either encourage them or discourage them: words are created and they become part of the community’s lexicon. In this study we employed the psycho-lexical approach to hunt for those words that describe people’s traits and unique attributes and that have thus become encoded in the lexicon, in particular of the Swahili language, an eastern Africa Bantu language. We used two resources for this purpose, (1) a Swahili dictionary, as the tangible repository of the lexicon, and (2) free descriptions. As a final result we concluded that the trait vocabulary of the Swahili language contains a useful set of 1,338 trait terms, of which 4% are adjectives, 55% are nouns, and 41% are verbs. Thus, nouns form the largest number of trait terms, followed by verbs, while adjectives occupy an insignificant third position in the Swahili trait vocabulary.

Introduction: Despite stroke being a leading cause of death and disability in sub-Saharan Africa, stroke awareness remains a major hurdle to early stroke response and care in the region. To improve stroke awareness, we endeavoured to borrow a leaf from initiatives in high-income countries, beginning with the translation and dissemination of the acronym, FAST (Face, Arms, Speech, Time) to Swahili. Methods: We formed a translation group consisting of two stroke physicians, one nurse and two professional translators, all native Swahili speakers. Forward translation of the original document from English to Swahili was done by one Swahili translator; followed by a backward translation by another translator. Clinician reviews and cognitive reviews were then done, and a final translation was developed. Results: We developed the acronym UPESI, a Swahili translation of the word, FAST. The acronym stands for Uso kupooza upande mmoja; Pooza mkono/mguu (au kupoteza hisia); ugumu ku-Eleza/kuongea; SImu upesi translating to face drooping, arm/leg paralysis, difficulty in speaking/explaining and fast to the phone. Conclusion: The result of this process is a Swahili translation of the FAST tool for stroke awareness campaigns. The translation will improve communication during stroke campaigns and increase awareness of stroke.

In Africa, rapid urbanization covers archaeological sites and limits the utility of traditional archaeological field survey methods. This is not only a crisis for archaeological heritage conservation, but it also distinctly impacts anthropological understandings of African urban trajectories since much evidence for precolonial urbanism lies within areas of rapid expansion. However, high-resolution multitemporal satellite data may facilitate reconstructions of urban growth in African cities, enabling archaeological surveys to target undeveloped areas for prospection within the interstices of modern urban development. This paper describes an application of satellite remote sensing for archaeological prospection within the rapidly urbanizing hinterland of Zanzibar Stone Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Survey results reveal settlement trajectories around the city over the last millennium, drawing attention to the role of rural agricultural land as a factor in the emergence of precolonial urbanism and the continued significance of rural places as urbanization progressed into the Colonial era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts a linguistic analysis of metaphor use in the Tanzanian Swahili Uhuru daily headlines that report soccer events. We purposively and conveniently chose 35 headlines published in 1960s–2020s to examine metaphor use in the newspaper as a way of attracting readership and interest. We addressed four objectives, namely (i) explaining how the use of metaphors in soccer reporting headlines has evolved over time; (ii) establishing a typology of metaphors used in the headlines; (iii) explaining the source of their metaphoricity; and (iv) discussing the linguistic features of the metaphors. The study was guided by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Findings suggest that some metaphors used in the early decades were marked for tense and aspect, as opposed to those used in later decades. Also, the metaphors can be classified as fight metaphors, war metaphors, destruction metaphors, daily activities metaphors, and miscellaneous domain metaphors. Their metaphoricity comes from associating linguistic items with domains such as animal names, farming, topography, and slang expressions. Verbs formed the most popular category. The study’s significance is that metaphors carry cultural information, are persuasive, and arouse readers’ interest. They can also be helpful to learners of Swahili.

AbstractMany studies on names have investigated the naming of people, plants, places, and inscriptions on transport facilities. However, very little is currently known about the naming of microloans, their connotations, and morphology. This article studied the Swahili speakers’ construct and connotations of microloan names in Tanzania. Data for this article was randomly generated from social media platforms, online newspapers, YouTube TV channels, and interviews with some debtors. Drawing on onoma-pragmatic approach in the semantic analysis of data, the findings show that the microloan names connote loan disbursement, loan repayment, loan goals, and loan adversities. Regarding the shapes of the microloan names, compounding, associative constructions, context-borrowing, and reduplication methods are the notable linguistic methods employed in the creation of the loan names. Essentially, this article unveils the Swahili speakers’ linguistic innovations on the creation and semantic connotations of the microloan names which reflect diverse experiences. Furthermore, it calls for the respective authorities to regularly review the interest rates charged by informal credit providers so as to create favourable conditions for both—moneylenders and borrowers.

In today’s communications, Short Message Service (SMS) and Internet protocol-based messaging systems are the most widely used channels. These services are currently the target of an unprecedented number of threats due to their rising appeal. Some spammers have more nefarious motives, even though most spam stems from businesses seeking to promote their products. In recent years, as new security threats such as Smishing have emerged, the amount of SMS spam has experienced substantial growth. The scientific community has paid less attention to SMS spam than email spam even though both are extensively utilized. SMS spam presents extra processing hurdles. These include the use of lexical variants, SMS-like contractions, or sophisticated obfuscations, which degrade the performance of conventional filtering solutions. In this study, we investigate the efficacy of deep-learning models for filtering Swahili SMS spam based on linguistics and behavioral patterns using a real-world dataset from telecommunications companies in Tanzania. To validate the effectiveness of our models we subjected them to the UCI dataset of spam messages written in English. The models were trained and tested with 10 k-fold cross-validation. The experimental results show that the CNN-LSTM-LSTM hybrid model attained the highest accuracy of 99.98 on the Swahili dataset while CNN-BiLSTM performed better on the UCI dataset with an accuracy of 98.38.

Communities of the East African coast have had a long history of international interaction. Swahili maritime networks linked African port towns across the Indian Ocean seaboard, thus enabling merchandise to reach the hinterlands of the continent. One of these Swahili towns is the ancient city of Gedi, located on the central Kenyan coast near the medieval town of Malindi. Located inshore, 6 km from the main ocean to the southeast and 3 km from Mida Creek to the southwest, Gedi’s lack of seaward connectivity has perplexed scholars. To effectively function within the vibrant Indian Ocean maritime trade networks of the 10th to 16th centuries CE, Gedi needed access to the sea. Inevitably goods had to be transported overland from a port or landing place. The ‘MUCH to Discover in Mida Creek’ project carried out an archaeological survey around the Creek to form a broader understanding of the region’s maritime past. The study identified a range of sites that evidence past coastal activity. In particular, a concentration of contemporary house sites at Chafisi near the closest point on the Creek to Gedi would suggest it may have acted as an outport for the stone town.

This review article aims to provide an overview of the works published in the last decades on colour terminology and categorisation in some African languages1, and Hausa and Swahili in particular. It gives information about different African languages (Ndebele, Setswana, Xhosa, Chichewa, Egyptian-Coptic, Himba and Chakali), then it traces the main works covering the area of Hausa and Swahili language, from the earliest papers until now. Even though these languages have a rich tradition of studies, the amount of works devoted to colour naming is fairly limited. The theoretical approaches of the studies that have appeared in the last few decades are rather heterogeneous, and include perspectives from lexical semantics, cognitive semantics and sociolinguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Muyaka's poetry as it is known today was first recorded in the 1890s, mainly written down by Mwalimu Sikujua who used Arabic script as well as an adapted Swahili-Arabic writing system to document the language. Sikujua's versatility when using the Arabic script as well as his use of variant spellings suggest a writing practice that embraces rather than avoids orthographic variation. His use of diacritics including the shadda and hamza is particularly noteworthy. Muyaka's poems with their frequent repetitions as well as the writing of the poet's name feature multiple spellings by Sikujua even when applying the adapted Swahili-Arabic script. Sikujua invented solutions that best approach a Swahili pronunciation but he also displays a detailed understanding and creative use of a wide range of Arabic signs and diacritics. The complexities of writing Swahili with Arabic script benefit from Sikujua's creativity. It is this versatility and creativity that has been largely ignored and misinterpreted as merely inconsistent in studies where standardization is considered preferable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communities of the East African coast have had a long history of international interaction. Swahili maritime networks linked African port towns across the Indian Ocean seaboard, thus enabling merchandise to reach the hinterlands of the continent. One of these Swahili towns is the ancient city of Gedi, located on the central Kenyan coast near the medieval town of Malindi. Located inshore, 6 km from the main ocean to the southeast and 3 km from Mida Creek to the southwest, Gedi's lack of seaward connectivity has perplexed scholars. To effectively function within the vibrant Indian Ocean maritime trade networks of the 10th to 16th centuries CE, Gedi needed access to the sea. Inevitably goods had to be transported overland from a port or landing place. The 'MUCH to Discover in Mida Creek' project carried out an archaeological survey around the Creek to form a broader understanding of the region's maritime past. The study identified a range of sites that evidence past coastal activity. In particular, a concentration of contemporary house sites at Chafisi near the closest point on the Creek to Gedi would suggest it may have acted as an outport for the stone town. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological field surveys in Zanzibar, Tanzania point to the role of specific rural agricultural regions in shaping social transformations across the East African coast and the Indian Ocean world. From 1000 to 1400 CE, small rural communities developed within fertile soil zones in response to local social demands for grain and other agricultural products. The abandonment of rural inland villages following the end of occupations at the elite center of Tumbatu to the north likely reflects a return to coastal subsistence in the fourteenth or early fifteenth century, in parallel with other systemic changes across the East African coast during this time. Newcomers to these same rural areas resumed the production of agricultural surpluses in the late colonial period (1830–1964) during the development of the plantation system on the island. Settlement patterns, ceramic analyses, and architectural patterns attest to the significant entrainment of these rural spaces within emergent global economic networks. Though power accumulated in towns and urban centers, rural agricultural landscapes on the island were places where elites mobilized and converted social dependency and slavery into both social prestige and commodified, economic wealth multiple times over the last millennium. As venues for agricultural production, specific rural landscapes helped produce the transformations that altered social dynamics in East Africa, the Indian Ocean, and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The House of Wonders (or Beit al-Ajaib), one of the iconic buildings of Zanzibar's waterfront, partially collapsed on 25th December 2020. This catastrophic incident, which included the famous clocktower, killed two people who had been inside the building and injured several others. The House of Wonders has prompted fascination and admiration since its construction as part of a redevelopment of Zanzibar's waterfront by Sultan Barghash in 1883. Its collapse attracted worldwide media attention. This article explores the dynamics of history and heritage in Zanzibar, using the collapse of the House of Wonders as the catalyst for analysing the ways that Zanzibaris feel about the presentation of the past. The research involved a series of interviews with residents of Stone Town in which participants discussed the collapse of the House of Wonders and themes of history, identity and tourism. Our project reveals the layered associations with the House of Wonders, one which acknowledges the building's Omani origins and colonial use but simultaneously its centrality as an icon of Zanzibar. The article also discusses what these findings about the House of Wonders reveal about the complex relationship between perceptions of Zanzibari cultural heritage and the role of tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how Swahili emerged as Kenya's national language. Although the language initially spread from the East African coast to the interior of the country, its nationalization was a result of colonial policies that enhanced its spread and nationalist interventions that cemented its status. This paper demonstrates this linguistic history and uses it to highlight the nation-building process in Kenya from its colonial period to its post-colonial period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]