Gudrun Miehe, Die Sprache der älteren Swahili Dichtung (Phonologie und Morphologie).

For the students of Swahili poetry that predates the twentieth century (e.g. Muyaka, Alinkishafi, Mwana Kupona, Hamzivva and others) there has always been a dire need for a book which could aid in the understanding of this poetry. This need is made acute by two main reasons: Firstly, classical Swahi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Musau, John M.
Other Authors: Kenyatta University, Department of Kiswahili and African Languages
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa-95401
http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa-95401
http://www.qucosa.de/fileadmin/data/qucosa/documents/9540/2_16_3_review_Musau.pdf
Description
Summary:For the students of Swahili poetry that predates the twentieth century (e.g. Muyaka, Alinkishafi, Mwana Kupona, Hamzivva and others) there has always been a dire need for a book which could aid in the understanding of this poetry. This need is made acute by two main reasons: Firstly, classical Swahili poetry is written partly in what is known as Kingozi, an archaic form of language believed by many to be some kind of proto-Swahili. Secondly, the language of old Swahili poetry also incorprates a lot of features from the northern dialects of Swahili (e.g. Kiarnu, Kip ate, Kisiu etc) This combination of archaic Swahili and features from the northern dialects of the language renders both the understanding and the explication of the pre-twentieth Swahili poetry rather difficult for many readers.