Work

Morphosyntactic variation in Old Swahili

Year: 2024

Type: book-chapter

Abstract: The comparative and historical study of Bantu and other African languages is often based on contemporary, synchronic data since many African languages do nothave a long-written record. In contrast, for Swahili such a record exists in the formof an extensive tradition of written poetic texts. This study presents a comparison of the language used in these texts with present-day Standard Swahili, focusing on morphosyntactic variation. Harnessing the morphosyntactic parameters ofGuérois et al. (2017), we show that present-day Swahili differs from Old Swahili interms of loss of variability and loss of morphosyntactic forms, with only limitedcases of innovation. We also show that compared to a sample of 18 neighbouring East African Bantu languages, Standard Swahili shows less similarity to theseneighbouring languages than Old Swahili. We propose that these differences arerelated to the sociolinguistic development of Swahili as a language of wider communication, and the processes of standardisation and regularisation this involved.

Source: SOAS Research Online (SOAS University of London)

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10663784

Authors: Marten, Lutz, Gibson, Hannah, Guérois, Rozenn, Jerro, Kyle

Institutions: SOAS University of London, University of Essex, Langage, langues et cultures d'Afrique

Language: English

Topic: Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

Subfield: Language and Linguistics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: Leverhulme Trust, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai International Studies University

Award: G5673460844