Talk:Swahili language

I am not sure how to correct something here. Perhaps someone can help. The first two footnotes are in reverse order (#2 precedes #1). Additionally, there is an error in the citation. The entry for footnote #2 reads "L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier". In fact, the book is dated 2006. Also the author's full name is Lutz Marten.

Could someone correct this please? Thank you.

-- David A. Victor, Ph.D. Eastern Michigan University

• Archive 1 (up to Feb 2005)
• Archive 2 (up to May 2006)

OVERVIEW

"As in English, the proportion of loan words changes as the speaker is communicating at a "lower" or "higher class" situation. In English, a discussion of say, body functions, sounds much nicer if you use Latin-derived words with occasional French terms rather than Germanic-derived words (so-called four-letter words); an educated Swahili speaker will likewise use many more Arabic-derived words with English terms in polite circumstances, though the same phrase could usually be said in Swahili using only words of Bantu origin."

This is definitely a biased absurd generalization and should be removed. Considering the fact that English is a Germanic language makes this statement completely ridiculous.

Not at all… The fact that English is a Germanic language illustrates it perfectly. It’s poorly written, but it’s a good analogy to explain register vis-à-vis Arabic-derived words vs. Bantu words.

Unless, of course, the situation in Swahili doesn’t work like that. —Wiki Wikardo 05:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Somalia?

i am baffled as to why somalia is included in the list. to my knowledge no body speaks it there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.80.150.125 (talk) 23:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Most widely spoken language in Africa?

The Article states that Swahili is the most widely spoken langauge in Africa with 50 million speakers. That is wrong, there at least twice as many native speakers of Arabic. I also suspect that there are also more speakers of French in West Africa. Somebody should fix that statement.

In most of the second half of the last century, the most widely spoken indigenous language in non-Arabic Africa is Hausa, with over 25 million native speakers and a few million more second language speakers. But the combined population of Kenya and Tanzania is over 70 million, and the population of Uganda is about 26 million. Swahili is an official language in the first two and it was made a required grade school subject in Uganda within the last ten years. Not nearly everyone in Kenya and Tanzania speaks it; but in 20 years, if even 25 percent of those two countries speak it, and if the Ugandan mandate is observed, then Swahili will be head and shoulders beyond Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba. But it still will be spoken by just five to eight percent of non-Arabic Africans. Hurmata 07:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Number of speakers?

"It is spoken by over 50 million people[1], of whom there are approximately five million first-language speakers and thirty to fifty million second-language speakers[citation needed]" Huh?

Native speakers: 800,000, not five million. Since 1960, a mystique has grown up around this one language. Hurmata 07:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The statistics from Tanzania quoted by SIL which I think is what Lutz is quoting are based on census data. These data assume that a person's stated ethnic origin is synonomous with the related language being the person's first language. The Tanzanian census data do not capture "first language". My own experience in Tanzania is that increasing numbers of children have Swahili as their first language even if this is not their "Mother" tongue as such. Therefore Lutz's estimate of the number of first language Swahili speakers is probably an underestimate rather than an overestimate. Peter.edelsten 17:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

What sort of mystique? Why? —Wiki Wikardo 05:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Diphthongs

In the -vowels- sections it was said that in Swahili there are no vowels. What is it then, the -wa- in Swahili???

I've arranged it talking about semivowels. Please, someone with a better knowledge than me, look at it and improve it, specially the IPA symbols that I've copied form another page but that I cannot see at all. --81.38.172.141 11:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I know nothing about Swahili, but with a good Phonetics background I'd say the part about no diphthongs in Swahili should be deleted and that it should perhaps say that diphthongs are only formed with the approximants /j/ and /w/ or something like that.--Coyne025 04:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• The article says Swahili has no diphthongs and then about three lines later Swahili has also two semivowels ... used to make diphthongs. Diphthong can have subtlely different meanings, but consistency would be good! Peter Grey 19:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I take swahili in college and sometimes we separate the two vowels, as in chui like the example, but other times, such as the different pronouns for "their" (zao, chao, yao, wao) it's a dipthong. another example is chai (coffee) (sorry i don't want to deal with the IPA right now. --Jimmy (talk) 22:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Ki-

I think that we should move the article to 'Kiswahili' not only for preserving the language's native name, but for consistency. We keep the ki- on both Kinyarwanda and Kirundi. Why not here? --Ionius Mundus 01:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a matter of habit. Kiswahili is the name in Swahili or Kiswahili if you prefer. Some linguist prefer it to Swahili as to differentiate between Swahili (the people) and Kiswahili (the language), although this is useful I don't think this is necessary. Should we have Français and langue française? I think appending the term language is more than enough, and would be redundant if we had the ki- prefix. As for consistency with Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, it's irrelevant. Many bantu languages have a ki- prefix but many don't or have another prefix. Should we have kingala, kitetela, kiluba, kizulu or isiZulu, etc. I personally prefer the usage without language specific prefixes, but I cannot generalize this. --moyogo 08:22, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

We've been gone through this many times before (see above, and the archived talk). Basically, the argument for keeping it at Swahili language is that the MoS prescribes use of the most common terms in article names; and arguably in English, Swahili is more common than Kiswahili. Additionally, the MoS registers a preference for English terms (where available) above terms in other languages, and Swahili is the English term for what in Swahili is called Kiswahili (are you with me?). Those two points also account for things like Yoruba being located at Yoruba language and not at Yorùbá language and Zulu being located at Zulu language and not isiZulu. This applies to some of Moyogo's examples too. Lingala, of which the li- part is usually analyzed as the li- noun class prefix, is located at Lingala language simply because Lingala is the most common name in the English literature. — mark ✎ 11:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a long article explaining why the word is "Swahili" when speaking in English at this page on the Internet Living Swahili Dictionary. Lakini ukisoma Wikipedia kwa Kiswahili, jina la makala kuhusu lugha ya Waswahili ni "Kiswahili," na makala kuhusu lugha kutoka Uingereza ni "Kiingereza," siyo "English." Malangali 11:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

On second thought, I do think that it is redundant to say 'Kiswahili language', but I still prefer 'Kiswahili'. But it seems that this has already been throughly discussed and opposed. --Ionius Mundus 15:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that Swahili and other Bantu language names are best anglicized by dropping the noun class prefix. The same standard should also be applied to the 'dialect' names listed in this article; e.g. "Unguja (Kiunguja)" instead of "Kiunguja". Zahir Mgeni 14:57, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Swahili literature and poetry

(Crossposted from the Africa-related regional noticeboard) I just discovered that we have practically nothing on Swahili literature and poetry. Babbage alerted me to his creation of Utendi wa Tambuka, one of the earliest known literary works in Swahili (1728), and upon expanding it a little I noticed that we didn't even have categories like Category:Swahili poetry and Category:Swahili literature (I have since created the first). Is there anyone else who feels like creating at least some stubs on Swahili literature? As a small start, I wrote utenzi. Asante sana! — mark ✎ 12:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

On a sidenote, Knappert (1982) describes four genres: the tale (ngano), the song (wimbo), the epic (utenzi), and the proverb (mathali). — mark ✎ 13:22, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Swahili and Sanskrit

The Swahili word for "Lion" is "Simba",

the word for "Lion" in ancient Sanskrit is "Simha".

Interesting!

Are there any older sources (books, oral records) for Swahili that can be compared with Sanskrit?

You might want to check out false cognate. — mark ✎ 22:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I just did...but that doesn't apply here since the Swahili language is described on this page as having influences from India.

It does, since an Indian origin is effectively ruled out by the fact that cognates are found throughout the Bantu language family (see Bantu Lexical Reconstructions I-III). — mark ✎ 20:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

kiSwahili in the African Union

Is it possible to provide some clarification and reference for the status of kiSwahili in the African Union? In Languages of the African Union it is mentioned as an official language, separately from the other African languages. It seems that there was an effort to promote the language in the "OAU 1st Conference of African Ministers of Culture 1986, Port-Lous Mauritius. (...) This conference adopted two important documents: (...) Resolution N° 16 on the adoption of Kiswahili as an OAU working language. (...) Unfortunately: * the resolution on the use of kiswahili has never been implemented by the OAU, nor by any other African intergovernmental organization;" [1]. Probably, we have to distinguish between what is going on in paper and in practice. In paper, all African languages (kiSwahili included) and Arabic, English, French and Portuguese are working languages. In practice, only Arabic, English, French and Portuguese are working languages - see for example the languages available in the official site of the AU. So, it seems there was an effort to do the same for Kiswahili, but in vain. How can we have a straightforward account of this subject? --Michkalas 22:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

does BAKITA regulate Swahili?

Is it really correct to say that BAKITA is in charge of "regulating" the Swahili language? I've always thought the council was formed to promote and try to standardize the language, but not to act as some sort of arbitrating body that regulates what is and isn't Kiswahili Sanifu. Malangali 20:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Appropriate illustrations

I've changed the caption to the picture of the Lord's Prayer that was added to this article, and also moved it from the section on noun classes (!). However, I think it should be replaced with an image that is both clearer and more relevant. It would be nice, for example, to show an old Swahili text in Arabic script. Zahir Mgeni 20:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Revisions of January 2006

This article needs a thorough rewrite. Linguistically, it has numerous false statements. Some of its sources are popular encyclopedias that "haven't done their homework". It seems to have quoted liberally from several university Web sites without attribution (e.g., the Language Resource Center at Columbia University), and they too seem not to have done their homework, with their talk of the "Sabaki subgroup" and other remarks. The article's tone is consistently boosterish, naively enthusiastic.

One deleted passage ran, approximately, "Swahili is NOT largely a blend of non-Bantu languages. In fact, the proportion of loanwords in Swahili is only about as high as the proportion of Latin, French, Greek, etc. in English". This writer clearly didn't realize that the combined percentage of Latin, French, and Greek loanwords in English is at least 65 percent!

There needs to be an entire section added on the history of how the British colonialists created the widespread use of the language of a tribe constituting not quite one percent of the combined population of Kenya and Tanzania. Hurmata 07:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

"Poopie sticks"

In the OVERVIEW section lies: Overview

"Swahilian, poopie sticks, spoken natively by a tiny, politically insignificant ethnicity". Is this at all necessary? --Apathy 21:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Population

I've taken what I'm sure will be an unpopular step of deleting the population figures in the info box. But we've gone years without getting a credible figure; maybe this will motivate someone to do the necessary research. 40M native speakers is completely unrealistic; that's the entire population of Tanzania, and there are still people there who can hardly hold a conversation in the language. But 700k as in Ethnologue is also difficult to believe. Anyone actually know? kwami 05:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

language request tagging

To add a Swahili language request to an article, put {{Arabic|Swahili=yes}} on the talk page. Chris 19:16, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Swahili in the D.R. of Congo (Kinshasa) and more

The map showing the areas where Swahili is spoken is rather wrong. First, Swahili is spoken and understood by a wide range of people all over the eastern part of Congo, i.e. the whole eastern part of the Orientale province (The provincial capital Kisangani being on the borderline between two lingua franca's of Congo, Lingala -Western Congo's lingua franca- and Swahili), the provinces of North-Kivu, South-Kivu, Maniema and Katanga all have a popultation fluent in Swahili (as a second or third language). In all these provinces you can communicate with people in Swahili, even in very rural areas. Second, in the Republics of Rwanda and Burundi the language is less important. The exception being the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura, on the shores of lake Tanganyika, where the common language used every where and by all is Swahili, but once you go in rural areas the language people speak and understand is Kirundi (which is NOT very similar to Swahili). In Rwanda the use of Swahili is even less important and not at all official. (Kinyarawanda, the mother tongue of all Rwandese is nearly the exact same as Kirundi. people of both language communicate with each other without any problem). Of course, in both republics you'll have less trouble finding someone who speaks Swahili than French or English. Third, quiet the same thing could be said for Uganda, where you'll easely find someone to communicate with in Swahili rather than Englsh (in rural areas) but where Swahili is much less implemented than in Kenya, Tanzania or Eastern Congo.

Swahili in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. With these three countries being members of the East African Community they have taken it upon themselves to spread the use of Swahili and in fact Burundi introduced Swahili as a language to be taught in school as a cdompulsory subject. Thus while for now the language may not be widely spoken it would be wrong to say it does not hold any importance in those countries.

Swahili in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. I was recently in Uganda. Swahili is not common all over the nation. In the regions along lake Victoria and in the South West people speak their local languages next to English, i.e. Lusoga, Luganda, Kinyankole, and others ... Certainly in Buganda and Busoga the use of Swahili is not always appreciated, and you better start speaking English on a Kampala market than Swahili (I was really surprised about that, in the 70's everybody spoke Swahili on a market in Kampala...) although the younger generations, influenced by music comming from Tanmzania and DRC tend to know some Swahili. Once you are in the East, past the town of Jinja, the use of Swahili becomes more and more common. In the town of Mbale everybody could communicate in Swahili. In the north Swahili is the common communication lamguage. Along the borders with the DRC many people know some Swahili. But once again, when you're in Jinja, Kampala or Mbarara you are better of speaking English. (Older) People tend to associate Swahili with the terrible regime of Idi Amin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.165.144.7 (talk) 11:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Swahili spoken in the Middle East. I would like to add onto the main page that Swahili is spoken in Oman by a third of the population as well as in the UAE and the Yemen. Is it possible to update this information to include the numbers of people that speak the language in the Middle East. Also considering that the Indian Ocean trade occurred with the E.A. Coast and the Middle East I would imagine that a high amount of people from those countries speak the language. Especially in Oman which was once united with Zanzibar and the EA Coast under one ruler. Thanairobian 11:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Oman and Yemen yes but the UAE has a very insignificant number of Swahili speakers.

Pidgin-Swahili Pidgin-Swahili is a very wide spoken language, as far as in southern Sudan, Zambia, Malawi, northern Mozambique, Somalia, poeple speak it. Kiswahili is a trade language al over the eastern part of Africa, in which people learn enough to exchange greetings, bargain in markets and ask for directions, when they don't speak a common native language.

Kiswahili in the Central African Republic

I have it from a good source (a central African Citizen) that swahili is widely spoken and understood in this state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theburningspear (talk • contribs) 18:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Atlantic Congo?

In the descent from Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo looks wrong. Lycurgus 09:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Wrong how? Other than the fact that not everyone is going to agree with all the details of the Ethnologue classification, that is. kwami 09:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that was it. I suppose would be nice if the template had an ability to refer to alternate classifications. Lycurgus 10:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Ethnologue leaves a lot to be desired, but I imagine we might get into a lot of arguments over classification otherwise, and if we go individually it could require a huge number of edits every time we change some detail of a classification, unless there's some way of automating it from a master list. kwami 16:29, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, the Ethnologue classification for Khoisan was so bad that we abandoned it entirely. But this is a discussion for Niger-Congo languages, not here. kwami 18:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

hakuna matata

In article hakuna matata, meaning is said as "no worries". I thought it meant "forget past". Which is correct? can anybody help? Lara_bran 08:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Hakuna matata is Kenyan Swahili for "no problem". Matata means "trouble", or "fix" as in to get into a fix. kwami 09:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, kwami! Lara_bran 10:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hakuna is the negation of kuna, which is "there is/are" Jimmy (talk) 12:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Noun classes

The list of noun class examples should include classes 15, 16, 17 and 18 which are referred to in the introduction but not listed in the examples. Also, the class 11 example "uani" is derived from "ua" with the locative suffix -ni which shifts it from class 11 into class 16. As a result you get for example "Ua wangu" (my backyard) but "Uani kwangu" (in my back yard). Peter.edelsten 17:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

incorrect map

Why keep the map that is labeled 'incorrect map'? 83.88.204.203 13:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Better than nothing. I haven't had time to correct it, and have been hoping having it under people's noses would spur someone else to do it. kwami 20:14, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Didn't work. It's been replaced with another map with the same errors. kwami (talk) 07:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, the new map, with different green colors, is rather correct, although for Uganda it isn't really like that, just in the eastern part bordering Kenya and the whole northern half of the country uses Swahili as a communication language. In the rest of the country it'd be better colored light green. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.165.144.7 (talk) 11:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for making the map. Another thing is that there are plenty of native Swahili speakers in regions outside of that narrow band along the coast. For example in many areas in mainland Tanzania people speak Swahili as a first language. Maybe that band could be relabeled as the region where the language originally developed.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Triple333 (talk • contribs) 21:30, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Uganda is med. green cuz it's official, but I made a comment about Baganda. Changed 'native' to 'indigenous' for dk. green. kwami (talk) 22:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Imzadi in Star Trek?

In the "In non-African popular culture" section it says "Also, the word Imzadi used in Star Trek: The Next Generation is derived from Swahili. It means "beloved"."

Beloved is "mpenzi", isn't it? and Imzadi comes form mpenzi????? --81.38.182.40 (talk) 17:20, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Swahili time

Under the section for Swahili time, it has the phrase “East African.” Does this imply that the same is true for other East African languages? Or that Swahili speakers outside of East Africa don’t follow this convention? Someone please clarify. —Wiki Wikardo 05:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
It is certainly the case for other East African languages that I have come across, particularly in Uganda, eg Luganda, Runyankole (both Bantu), ngaKarimojong, aTeso and Luo dialects (all Nilotic). I'm pretty sure members of African diaspora who speak Swahili maintain this way of referring to time. Apalomita (talk) 07:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "marten" :
  • L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier
  • L Marten, "Swahili", Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier

DumZiBoT (talk) 05:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Semantics for noun classes

The article has a large section about how in Swahili the noun classes are more semantically motivated than in Indo-european languages. I don't think that this is the concensus amongst Bantuists. For other Bantu languages Demuth has argued IIRC that children pay only a limited amount of attention to semantics when they are learning the noun class system, and in most Bantu languages (including Swahili) semantics plays a very limited role in determining what noun class a noun should be in.In my opinion the semantic motivation outlined in the article is not in heads of native speakers of Swahili. Also, I doubt some of the extensions mentioned (such as frog being a not fully a land animal and thererore being only marginal an animal.

There are a few cases where there is a clear semantic component in determining what noun class a word is. For instance, languages all belong to noun class 7. But the same is true for Indo-European languages. In my native language Dutch all languages are Neuter. And if we would use these extentions we might find that the genders in Indo-European languages are equally semantically driven. --Merijn2 (talk) 13:42, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Swahili in Somalia

We're getting into an edit war over the Swahili in Somalia, because (of all things) the CIA World Fact Book doesn't mention them. A couple sources:

Ethnologue says, "The Mwini live in Baraawe (Brava), Lower Shabeelle, and were scattered in cities and towns of southern Somalia. Most have fled to Kenya because of the civil war. The Bajun live in Kismaayo District and the neighboring coast."

Swahili place names between Barawa and Mogadishu, including the old town of Mogadishu itself, though only Barawa is still Swahili speaking.[2] See also [3][4][5] If Derek Nurse said in 2007 that Swahili is spoken in Somalia, you're going to need a very good ref. to show he's wrong. kwami (talk) 04:45, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree. (Taivo (talk) 05:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC))

You have got to be kidding. First of all, the first source above is from 1985 -- twenty three years ago -- and all it says is that "except for the small Miini-speaking population in Barawa, none of this population is Swahili speaking today". The second link shows a map for the Swahili diaspora, not Swahili city-states, and it references the past, not the present. Does the fact that a Nigerian diaspora exists in Britain make native Briton's 'Nigerian'? I beg to differ. The third source is from 1961 and mentions that some of the Bantu riverine tribes in Somaliland at the time (the source is so old it still refers to southern Somalia as 'Somaliland'!) adopted it. Wow. That's a truly contemporary Swahili society right there. The fourth link is from fifteen years ago, right after the Somali civil war broke out, just like the Ethnologue entry you reference from 1992. As such, these sources have no bearing whatsoever on the current linguistic situation in Somalia especially since the handful of Bajunis that spoke Kibajuni have long since fled from the country. On the other hand, the CIA's profile on Somalia -- that you predictably call a 'joke' simply because it doesn't identify the Bantu Swahili language as being spoken in Somalia and certainly not by Somalis -- is from this very year. I therefore strongly suggest you unlock the Swahili page and fast because you are quite blatantly violating Wikipedia's policy on administrator abuse:

"Conflict of interest/non-neutrality/content dispute — Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist. With few specific exceptions where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools."

Since you are the other party involved in the dispute, you cannot abuse your administrator privileges as you've just done. Either you unlock the page this instant and stop abusing your administrator priviliges, or I promise you I'll take this to AN/I. Middayexpress (talk) 05:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a serious distinction between linguistic sources and non-linguistic sources. The CIA handbook is not a linguistic source. Derek Nurse is. If Derek Nurse said in 2007 that there were Swahili speakers in Somalia, then that should close the matter. He is the worldwide acknowledged expert in the languages and linguistic situation in East Africa. He is the voice of authority on the issue, not some spook in the CIA. (Taivo (talk) 05:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC))

lol One doesn't need to be a 'linguistic authority' to know whether or not Kibajuni is spoken in Somalia in 2008. One just needs to survey the country, which the CIA, like it or not, is more than qualified to do. Middayexpress (talk) 06:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

And the Nurse source is from 1985, not 2007. Middayexpress (talk) 06:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The CIA doesn't conduct linguistic surveys. Should we rely on a Texaco road map for targeting nuclear weapons? (Taivo (talk) 06:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC))

That's absurd. The CIA conducts surveys on an entire country's makeup: its people, politics, religion, language, etc. All of it, and up-to-date. It also obviously hires people qualified to do so. Sorry if this bothers you. Middayexpress (talk) 06:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the CIA does not conduct linguistic surveys. It extrapolates data and simply relies on government sources for information of that nature. The CIA does not hire people qualified to conduct linguistic surveys since that is an extremely minor part of the survey material. Look at the Somali pages. There are exactly five words associated with the label "languages": Somali (official), Arabic, Italian, English. It is not a survey. It completely ignores the Oromo dialects, Boni, Swahili, and Mushungulu. A true linguistic appraisal of the country would include population figures, etc. The CIA does not hire linguistic surveyors. It hires experts in government and economics. The rest it gets from other sources. And the last Nurse source Kwami lists is from 1993 (Swahili and Sabaki), not 1985. Here are some other references to Swahili in Somalia: David Appleyard, 1994, "The languages of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Jibuti," Atlas of the World's Languages, Ed. Christopher Moseley & R.E. Asher, Routledge, pg. 274, map 77. The Nurse and Atlas references are the most recent references because it has been impossible to conduct proper linguistic surveys in Somalia since the late 1980s. The CIA does not conduct linguistic surveys. (Taivo (talk) 07:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC))

Your word that the CIA does or does not conduct enough research to know whether or not a given language is spoken in a country is of zero interest to me, and in no way invalidates the CIA World Fact book's claim to being a modern, reliable source. The David Nurse source Kwamikagami quotes above is from 1985; it says so right there when one clicks on the "more »" link. And even if it were from 1993 as you incorrectly claim (no longer 2007, I see), it would still be fifteen years old, a ninth grader's entire life. The Appleyard source from 1994 likewise also dates from the early days of the Somali civil war, and in no way reflects the current linguistic situation in Somalia on the eve of 2009 regardless of what it states. By contrast, the CIA -- which is a US government institution -- does have the ability to conduct entire, up-to-date country surveys in even the most precarious of circumstances, including the lay task of finding out which languages are spoken in a given country. Your attempt to make it seem like only a seasoned linguist can figure out what languages are spoken in a given country are laughable, to put it mildly. Middayexpress (talk) 07:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Check other countries, and you'll find that half of their languages aren't mentioned. Japanese is the only language mentioned for Japan, for example. That hardly means the rest of the world's languages don't exist. Now, it's entirely possible that the entire Swahili-speaking population of Somalia has fled, but if so you should be able to provide a reference. Your assumption that this is so is OR and inappropriate in an encyclopedia.

Orwin at SOAS, writing in 2006 for the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed., p. 10,012) remarks of the Bantu languages in Somalia that, "to what extent these languages are still represented in these areas is not known given the displacement of persecuted populations in Somalia and the small numbers of speakers." However, your CIA ref give Bantu at 15% of the population at the same time it fails to mention any Bantu languages, so it is obviously either incomplete or dated or both. kwami (talk) 09:23, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

No, what's POV is your refusal to accept that Swahili is no longer spoken in Somalia (a country I'd bet my last dollar you know absolutely nothing about). And that when it was, it was only spoken by a handful of Bantu/Bajuni minorities despite my having supplied a governmental source from this year which doesn't include Swahili among the languages spoken in Somalia. The Bantu minorities in Somalia principally speak the Maay-Maay dialect of Somali; the rest speak Standard Somali. A tiny minority speak Bantu languages (typically Kizigua, not Swahili), but because Bantus live in the south where the violence is based, are non-Somali visible minorities, and are classfied as priorities by the US government and UN alike for resettlement, that tiny minority has left the country. Furthermore, the CIA does not give a 15% figure for Bantus. It gives a 15% figure for all non-Somali minority groups, be they Arab, Bantu, Indian, etc. combined. And like the Somali majority, almost all of these various minority groups speak the Somali language. Middayexpress (talk) 10:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That could all very well be true, and I'll be happy to accept it all as soon as you supply reasonable evidence that it is so. Since we've supplied references that Swahili is spoken in Somalia, it's up to you to supply evidence that they're wrong. Come on, this is common sense. We can't just take your word for it, and negative evidence is not acceptable.

Also, Ethnologue states that "Most of the Arabic and all of the people from India and Italy have left", so that 15% must be primarily Bantu. And yet the CIA still lists Italian as a language spoken in Somalia. Not even Ethnologue lists Italian. kwami (talk) 10:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

lol You've supplied evidence that dialects of Swahili used to be spoken 15+ years ago by a handful of non-Somali minorities in a few towns in southern Somalia, and all dating from before or around the time of the start of Somali civil war. I've supplied direct proof via the authoritative CIA World Fact Book that Swahili is not among the languages spoken in Somalia in the here and now in 2008. Again, I know it's a challenge, but learn to deal with it. Middayexpress (talk) 10:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

You're also very choosy with what you quote from Ethnologue. You don't, for example, mention the fact that it states (referencing its ancient 1992 source) that it's the tiny Mwini/Bajuni community in Somalia that spoke Swahili but that, at the time of writing way back in 1992, most had "fled to Kenya because of the civil war." What do you think happened in the sixteen violent years since then? And Bantus do not and have never represented 15% of Somalia's population. They were at most a miniscule 1-2% way back when; one can only imagine now. It's also not hard to believe that minorities represent 15% of modern Somalia's population (including Arabs, Indians, and Italians) when one considers the fact that many among the Somali majority have also fled! Middayexpress (talk) 10:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Are you joking, or do you really not understand what "proof" means? As for Ethnologue, there were 40,000 in 1992, and "most" have fled because of the war. "Most" does not mean all. If "most" had fled prior to 1992 (Ethnologue is silent about the relative timing), then 40,000 would be what's left. However, they could have meant that most fled after the population estimate of 40,000, which would also suggest that some Swahili are left. QED. Either way, we have no evidence that the population has been eliminated.

You write, "Bantus do not and have never represented 15% of Somalia's population." However, that's the figure from your "authoritative" CIA source, which according to your own argument constitutes "proof" that the Bantu are 15% of the population of Somalia as of 2008. You can't eat your cake and still have it: either the CIA is reliable, in which case 15% of the population is Bantu, or it is not reliable, in which case there's no point trying to read anything into the lack of mention of the Swahili. kwami (talk) 11:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, either you have serious trouble reading or you're completely unacquainted with telling the truth. Again, the CIA World Fact Book profile on Somalia from 2008 states that minority ethnic groups combined make up 15% of the total population of modern Somalia. I already explained this to you when I wrote above that "it gives a 15% figure for all non-Somali minority groups, be they Arab, Bantu, Indian, etc. combined". Please do not pursue this matter any further because you'll only succeed in making yourself look worse. Moreover, this UNHCR report on Kibajuni from 2005 -- almost four years ago and before the rise to prominence of the Islamic Courts Union and the subsequent re-emergence of all out war in 2006 -- already indicates that by that time, Bajunis had "moved or are moving to northeastern Kenya". I don't see your point in continuing to insist that Swahili is spoken in Somalia when it it so obviously is not. Middayexpress (talk) 11:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

And if that wasn't enough, Ethnologue also indicates that the Mwini and Bajuni are "reported to have come centuries ago from Zanzibar." In other words, they aren't even native to Somalia, but immigrated there recently from the actual Swahili-speaking portions of East Africa i.e. the Bilad al Zanj. Middayexpress (talk) 12:47, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

To quote your trademark patronizing response: Lol! I haven't actually laughed out loud until now. We all know Swahili is a recent language over much of its territory. Or all its territory, for that matter. So what? I suppose we shouldn't list English as spoken in the United States, or Arabic in Egypt, because they're not native. As for your earlier points, once again, I think it's very possible you're correct. But you have yet to provide evidence for more than it's a possibility. I'd be happy to add a citation that numbers have decreased and the current status of Swahili in Somalia in not clear, but not to remove it unless you demonstrate this is true. kwami (talk) 13:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

This is truly pathetic. I quote for you an official, current, governmental source from the CIA indicating that Swahili is not spoken in Somalia at the present time in 2008, and you complain. I explain to you that the few non-Somali Swahili speakers that lived in the country have long since left due to being visible minorities in a civil war environment, and you insist that all I have to do is provide proof of this and all is peachy keen. And when I do just that and supply a source from the UNHCR indicating that the Bajuni have indeed left Somalia and another from Ethnologue pointing out that they're not even native to Somalia but recent arrivals there, you still find something to gripe about! It's beyond clear at this point that this is a very personal issue for you. For whatever reason, you need (or need others) to believe that Swahili is spoken in Somalia despite all evidence to the contrary. The fact that you'll even put your administrator privileges and reputation on the line for this is most telling. But don't you worry; fate has a lovely way of dealing with those who don't know the meaning of fair play. Especially the ones in positions of authority that think the rules don't apply to them. Middayexpress (talk) 14:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Middayexpress, your tone is inappropriate for Wikipedia. You started this discussion being insulting and rude. Linguistic surveys are not something that CIA operatives know anything about. They are trained to count military vehicles, estimate oil flow, etc., not to ask people what language they speak. They stand in the markets and hear Arabic or Somali spoken around them, but they don't go into every village along the coast and survey the population as to what language they speak when they are not selling bananas in the market to all the Somali speakers. The CIA doesn't really care about such things because the languages of minorities in a given country is not relevant to their mission. That's why no linguistic survey has been conducted in Somalia since the late 1980s. There just isn't a single drop of accurate information available to us for language usage in Somalia. This being the case then we must rely on the last accurate information and date it as such. I am with Kwami, we can add a statement that the number of speakers of Swahili in Somalia may be lower, but until you supply an actual linguistic reference that states that Swahili is gone, then your claims are unreferenced. Here's the level of linguistic accuracy found in the CIA fact book: "English 82.1%, Spanish 10.7%, other Indo-European 3.8%, Asian and Pacific island 2.7%, other 0.7% (2000 census), note: Hawaiian is an official language in the state of Hawaii ". That's the entry for the U.S. Wow, what about all the Native American languages? Sure there are not many speakers, but "other"? And notice their source of information--a 2000 census. This is the 2008 edition of the CIA Factbook, but their linguistic information is not derived from "CIA sources", but from governmental sources--the 2000 census--and it's eight years old. That shows you the level of "accuracy" for the linguistic information in the CIA Factbook. Here's another one: "Nepali 47.8%, Maithali 12.1%, Bhojpuri 7.4%, Tharu (Dagaura/Rana) 5.8%, Tamang 5.1%, Newar 3.6%, Magar 3.3%, Awadhi 2.4%, other 10%, unspecified 2.5% (2001 census)" for Nepal. Notice the source of information--a 2001 census. The CIA is not conducting linguistic surveys, but relying on local government information. Those entries seem fairly accurate, but here's the information for a country that is of major strategic importance to the U.S.: "Portuguese (official and most widely spoken language); note - less common languages include Spanish (border areas and schools), German, Italian, Japanese, English, and a large number of minor Amerindian languages"--Brazil. Notice that this is not accurate information (no percentages based on actual censuses), but just an impressionistic list of names. The CIA Handbook is not a tool for linguistic reference. It gets its information from various sources (including Ethnologue in the absence of official surveys) and does not really evaluate the quality or accuracy of those sources. Linguistic accuracy is not the mission of the CIA. Find a linguistic survey and reference for your assertions. The only problem is that linguistic surveys are generally luxuries in a country and are most often done by missionary organizations like SIL. Getting food and medical care to a country like Somalia take priority and even this is not being done because of the inherent danger to foreigners (not to mention the danger to locals) in that war-torn land. (Taivo (talk) 14:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC))

I just read your UN source (which you had not listed before) and it states: "According to the professor of Linguistics, two varieties of Swahili, including "(Ci) Mwiini" or "(Ci) Miini" and Bajuni are, or were, spoken in Somalia by approximately 15,000 natives of the town of Barawa or Brava (3 Nov. 2005). In the case of Bajuni, it is a "cross-border" language spoken in both Somalia and Kenya (Professor of Linguistics 4 Nov. 2005). He also explained that, in the past, the Bajuni used to live "on the coast and offshore islands of [southeastern] Somalia and [northeastern] Kenya" while today, Somali Bajuni have moved or are moving to northeastern Kenya (ibid. 3 Nov. 2005). According to the SPRAKAB business manager, Kibajuni is spoken "on the islands outside Somalia and on the coast of Southern Somalia" as well as on "the coast of Kenya around the river Tana up to the Somali border...by a small number of people," while Swahili is spoken in many East African countries (7 Nov. 2005)." Not a single one of these people say that Swahili is completely gone from Somalia. This reference actually completely contradicts your statement that Swahili is gone and contradicts the "holy CIA" that you keep citing. (Taivo (talk) 14:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC))

One more place where you are wrong, Middayexpress, is that Kwami has two references to Nurse, not just one. The first is to his 1980s book, "The Swahili"; the second is to his 1993 book, "Swahili and Sabaki". So the 1993 reference to Nurse is correct. (Taivo (talk) 15:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC))

I could've sworn I already told you that I have no interest in your word that the CIA does or does not conduct enough research to know whether or not a given language is spoken in a country. It's funny how above you profess an interest in sources yet have no qualms whatsoever about not producing any to back up your own claims. I've said it before and I'll say it again, your opinion on this issue (because that is what it is, an opinion) in no way invalidates the CIA World Fact book's claim to being a modern, reliable source. The David Nurse source Kwamikagami quotes above still dates from 1985; it still says so right there when one clicks on the "more »" link. But you're right; his second book is from 1993 (not 2007 here too) as I believe I already mentioned in my very first post in this absurd 'discussion'. And it's still of course fifteen years old, a ninth grader's entire life. Like it or not, the Appleyard source from 1994 still likewise also dates from the early days of the Somali civil war, and still in no way reflects the current linguistic situation in Somalia on the eve of 2009 regardless of what it states. By contrast, the CIA -- which still is a US government institution -- still has the ability to conduct entire, up-to-date country surveys in even the most precarious of circumstances, including the lay task of finding out which languages are spoken in a given country. Your attempt to make it seem like only a seasoned linguist can figure out what languages are spoken in a given country is still as preposterous and unsourced as when you first put it forth. You also insinuate that the CIA's entry on languages in Somalia dates from 2000/eight years ago, although it doesn't state that anywhere in the country profile. To support your opinion, you mention the fact that the CIA doesn't list the myriad of languages spoken in the 50 US States or among Native Americans and even in Nepal. The problem with this (and you'd already know this if you were actually familiar with Somalia) is that aside from the Somali language which just about everyone in the nation at least understands if not speaks, there are only handful of minority languages spoken in there. Furthermore, that you should complain about anything being "inappropriate" is also beyond ironic given your conspicuous and lingering silence in the face of Kwamikagami's confirmed administrator abuse. Four separate administrators that got wind of the case all noticed it right away. I wonder why not you Taivo? You also write that the UNHCR source I reference somehow "completely contradicts [my] statement that Swahili is gone and contradicts the "holy CIA" that [I] keep citing". lol Besides sounding suspiciously like sarcasm (which would kind of make your opening gripe to the effect that my "tone is inappropriate" something approaching hypocrisy), it's also a classic example of fuzzy logic since you state triumphantly (?) that "not a single one of these people say that Swahili is completely gone from Somalia", all the while ignoring the fact that what the paper does state in no uncertain terms (and way back in 2005, almost four years ago and before the rise to prominence of the Islamic Courts Union and the subsequent re-emergence of all out war in 2006) is that the non-Somali minorities in Somalia that actually do speak a dialect of Swahili, the Bajuni, have fled to Kenya! But of course, this testimony from an actual linguist that has actually lived in East Africa 'contradicts' a statement by one unusually authoritative 'business manager' from a private company in next-door Scandinavia (so much for the all-important linguist) who mentions that it's spoken by people "on the islands outside Somalia and on the coast of Southern Somalia" as well as on "the coast of Kenya around the river Tana up to the Somali border" -- reciting the stock answer of where the Bajuni used to live prior to their displacement. Yep; the CIA source indeed is as relevant as the year it was published. Middayexpress (talk) 19:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

You continue have a serious problem understanding basic discussion. First, my comment about the CIA information is that the CIA's information for the US is from 2000 (eight years old), the CIA's information about Nepal is from 2001 (seven years old), neither is from CIA research but are both copied from local government censuses, the information from Brazil isn't even properly referenced as to its origin and is therefore just impressionistic. The Somali CIA information is equivalent to the impressionistic Brazilian comment--no citation as to source or date of information and no level of detail. Show me the evidence that the CIA actually conducts linguistic surveys. You can't because they don't. The CIA's language information is always from secondary sources. You also did not read the UN document because 1) the linguist says that the tribe was moving, but he made no comment that it was a complete move; and 2) the other source still states that they are in Somalia. You still have presented absolutely no reliable linguistic source to indicate that there are zero Swahili speakers in Somalia. You have presented evidence that at least part, perhaps even most, of the Swahili-speaking population has left, but no conclusive evidence that it has completely left. (Taivo (talk) 20:19, 17 December 2008 (UTC))

Taivo, we're wasting our time. M sounds like Bush: he "proves" his point by asserting it's true, and if you disagree you're either recalcitrant or stupid. There's no reasoning with such an attitude. kwami (talk) 01:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I added a couple of our refs both for Somalia and the uncertainty over who remains. We don't go into that much detail for other countries, but eventually we should, so this is a good start. Also, I don't know if the Swahili in southern Arabia are recent immigrants, or if communities remain from the Arab trade era. (There's still a strong feeling of ethnic kinship between Zanzibar and Oman.) Do you know? kwami (talk) 02:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I just read your addition to the article and it is right on target. There are other linguistic links between Kenya/Tanzania and Oman. Ethnologue puts Omani Arabic in Kenya and Tanzania as well as in Oman. The Kenya/Tanzania coast, of course, was the main trading port for ivory all the way back at least into Roman times, so with the collapse of European trade through the Red Sea after the fall of the Roman Empire, then the next natural trading partner for ivory was Persia and the Arabic world through the Persian Gulf. Oman would be the first Arabic landfall by ships leaving Zanzibar and cutting across the Arabian Sea and vice versa. (Taivo (talk) 05:19, 18 December 2008 (UTC))