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INTRODUCTION
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INTRODUCTION Africa has more languages than any other continent. Swahili is one of these languages. It belongs to a group called “Bantu”. One of the characteristics of the Bantu languages is lack of articles and gender (masculine, feminine, neuter). The nouns in these tongues are grouped into “classes”by means of their nominal prefixes, e.g. m, wa, ki, and vi, as will become clearer in the course of this study. The name “Swahili” is derived from the Arabic word sawahel, which means “coasts”. Swahili is therefore the language of the people of the coast of East Africa. Although it contains a number of loan words, mostly from Arabic, Swahili is essentially an African language. In the nineteenth century, Bishop Steere of Zanzibar regarded Swahili as a key to the understanding of the culture of East Africa. X SWAHILI MADE EASY His remark was very much to the point, for by learning Swahili one learns at the same time the cultural values of the Swahilispeaking people. Until now most of the books that are used by adult foreign students of Swahili were written in Europe or America by non-Swahilispeakers .Valuableasthesebooksmaybe,theytendtobeprofessional and too detailed,so much so that they discourage new learners.The author became aware of this fact when he was teaching“Swahili for Beginners”in the then West Germany ( 1970 - 73) and inTanzania (1974 - to date). This book is, therefore, a result of many years of teaching experience. The author has, with the help of his students (from all walks of life, and from different countries) written this book to meet a real need, the need of a foreign student who is coming in contact with Swahili for the first time. While avoiding unnecessary details and linguistic technicalities, the book covers all the essential parts of speech of the Swahili language.The exercises have been carefully prepared and tested in class with various groups of students. They are designed to help the students learn correct Swahili by easy and rapid stages. The book is in two parts. The first part consists of progressive lessons with test exercises. The second part is in form of a story about everyday events in the life of a Swahili family. At the end of each lesson there are comprehension and conversation exercises. It is taken for granted that the student is well prepared to follow Swahili as it is spoken. A certain amount of vocabulary is given [107.23.85.179] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 07:32 GMT) INTRODUCTION XI at the beginning of each lesson. This, however, is not meant by any means, to be exhaustive. In case one does not understand the meaning of a word used in the text, reference should be made to the vocabulary and the translation provided at the end of the book. Useful phrases are another feature of the second part. They are provided for reference, and should be studied leisurely. Nouns and verbs are listed in the appendix. The nouns are arranged according to their nominal prefixes, and the verbs are listed alphabetically by their stem forms. It is the sincere hope of the author and all those who helped him in this task that enough guidelines and exercises have been given to enable foreign students not only to acquire knowledge of written Swahili but also to develop a habit of speaking it fluently. Remember: “Practice makes perfect.” Attention is drawn to the fact that the Swahili-English and English-Swahili vocabulary contains only words used in the exercises. It follows therefore, that words in the lists of useful phrases should be learnt where and when they appear.The EnglishSwahili word list is very short due to the fact that exercises in English are few. The experience of the present writer and that of many who have taught Swahili to foreign students confirms the statement that: “Swahili is an easy language, its use is widespread, and it may be that there is no language easier to learn.There are no real difficulties of pronunciation, and none of spelling”. The writer, therefore, assures the foreign student of success once he/she begins seriously to learn this beautiful and useful African XII SWAHILI MADE EASY Language. Although this manual has been especially prepared for use by foreign students, it will no doubt, be found useful also by Swahili-speaking students. General teaching experience proves that what is framed for a special group (in this case, the foreign student) is...