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(Arabic) Loanwords in Swahili | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5953 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 1 of 3 26 July 2010 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been studying Swahili for several months now, and I'm reaching a level of about low intermediate. As I learn new vocabulary, I'm constantly confronted with a plethora of loanwords from Arabic in the language, including the name of the language itself. Does anyone know approximately what percent of the vocabulary is of Arabic origin?
I also know that there are many loanwords of other origin--for example English, Persian, Hindi, Portuguese, German, and Turkish. What percent of the language is made up of these loanwords? Finally, this is a question to any that have studied both Swahili and Arabic (preferably in the order of Swahili first and then Arabic, but the other way is okay too): With a knowledge of the vocabulary of one language, how easy was it to begin learning the next? I'm asking because in the near future I'd like to start studying Arabic and I was hoping that these words of Arabic origin might help with that, at least a little. I know that they've probably been simplified in terms of pronunciation when they entered into Swahili, but I think it's probably easier going from kitabu to كتاب (kitaab) than directly from 'book' to كتاب, right? Edited by ellasevia on 26 July 2010 at 4:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6040 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 3 08 September 2011 at 10:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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The answer is likely here in this publication:
Baldi, Sergio 2009. Swahili. In "Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics" (vol.4), ed. by Kees Versteegh. Boston, Leiden: Brill. 381-7 Sadly, I don't have access to it so I can't give you more than just the reference. This is from wikipedia: ( but you probably already know this info ) Good luck! The Bantu language Swahili has a significant number of Arabic loanwords, such as safari, kitabu, haraka and adabu. The arabic influx conceivable has even lead some people to believe that Swahili is an Arabic based creole language. The borrowing of Arabic words has introduced some new sounds to the phonetic system, such as the velar fricatives kh/gh and the dental fricatives th/dh. Although Arabic loanwords have been adjusted to the syllable structure common to Swahili, they retain some peculiarities, such as not changing the wordfinal consonant in the negationform of the verb. Most words are said to have entered Swahili from the Omani variety of Arabic, but usually the arabic loan-form and -meaning can easily be correlated to its counterpart in the standard variety of Arabic. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4984 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 3 16 September 2011 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
If I remember correctly, about 30% of Swahili words have Arabic origins. Anyways, how's the Swahili coming along? Natumaini kwamba hujasahau chochote. Edited by strikingstar on 16 September 2011 at 9:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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