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HANDBOOK A OF TH LANGUAGE AHILl : A HANDBOOK OF THE SWAHILI LANGUAGE AS SPOKEN AT ZANZIBAR EDITED FOR THE UNIVERSITIES' MISSION TO CENTRAL AFRICA BY The late EDWARD STEERE, LL.D. MISSIONARY BISHOP FOR CENTRALAFRICA REVISED AND ENLARGED BY A. C. MADAN, M.A SENIOR STUDENT AND FORMERLY TUTOR OFCH. CH. OXTORD LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE 1919 : SWAHILI. COMMON PRAYER. Revised Edition (Zanzibar). Fcap.8vo. Clothbds.,is. 6d.net. MISCELLANEOUS STORIES AND TRANSLATIONS. (Visa na Hadithi.) Revised edition. Fcap, 8vo. Cloth, is. net. A HANDBOOK OF THE SWAHILI LANGUAGE, as spoken at Zanzibar. Edited by the late Bishop Steere. Third Edition,byA.C.Madan,M.A. Crown8vo. Clothboards, 2s. 6d. net. SWAHILI GRAMMAR AND VOCA- BULARY. Drawn up by Mrs. F. Burt. Crown 8vo. Clothboards, is. Sd. net. SWAHILI EXERCISES. Compiledforthe Universities Mission to Central Africa. By the late Bishop Steere, LL.D. Crown 8vo. " Cloth boards, 2s. net. STORIES FROM JESOP. Cloth, 6d. net. THE LANGUAGE FAMILIES OF AFRICA. By A. Werner. Crown 8vo. Cloth boards, 3^. 6d. net. LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE Firstpublished{thirdedition) by S.P.C.K. 1884. Numberreprintedsince{to February, 1919) 14,000copies. ST^CK a»1.•...'rrVV PKEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. There is probablynoAfricanlanguage sowidelyknown as the Swahili. It is tmderstood along the coasts of Madagascarand Arabia, it is spoken by the Seedees in India, and is the trade language ofa very large part of Central or Intertropical Africa. Zanzibar traders pene- trate sometimes even to the western side of the conti- nent, and theyare in the constant habit of traversing more than half of it with their supplies of Indian and European goods. Throughout this immense district any one really familiar with the Swahili language will generally be able to find some one who can understand him, and serve as an interpreter. This consideration makes it a point of the greatest importance to our Central African Mission thatSwahili should be thoroughlyexamined and well learnt. For if the members of the Mission can go forth from Zan- zibar, or, still better, can leave England already well acquainted with this language, and provided with books and translations adapted to their wants, they will carry with them a key that can unlock the secrets of an immense variety of strange dialects, whose very names are as yet unknown to us. For they will not a 2 vl PSEFAOE. Ihad begun to print the conjugation ofthe verh,Iwas unable to continue my visits, and completed the "Col- lections" from Dr. Krapf, with the help of the vocabulary collected by the late Baron von der Decken and Dr. Kersten, and of that collected by the Eev. Thomas Wakefield of the United Methodist Free Churches' Mission, both of which I was kindly allowed to copy. After Mohammed's partial recovery I continued my visits to him, andwent through the verbs,making first a list of useful English verbs from a dictionary, and entering all the words contained in the collections of which I had copies. Ithus checked and supplemented what others had alreadydone, and obtained a tolerably complete insight into that branch of the vocabulary. Before I could get much beyond this, Mohammed was BO far recovered as to be able to sail for Bombay. I have always much pleasure in acknowledging how much I owe to him. Meanwhile I had begun my collection <rf short tales in Swahili, the first ofwhichwere printed in Zanzibar with an interlinear version, under the title of "Speci- mens of Swahili," in March 1866, and reprinted in an early number of " Mission Life." I also began to use my Swahili to a practical purpose by making the collections for a handbook of the Shambala language, the first draft of which was completed in May 1866. These collectionswere made with a view to the mission since commenced in that country by the Eev. C. A. Alington; they were revised by the help of another teacher, and printed in Zanzibar in the year 1867. PBEFACE. Ttt Finding the Swahili tales most valuable as well to myself as to those who were studying with me, I pro- ceeded to print a further collection, with the title "Madithiza Kiunguja" in Swahili only. For the tales then printed I was mainly indebted to Hamis waKayi, a very intelligent young Swahili, who always compre- hended better what a foreigner wanted to know, and explained more clearly what wasdifficult,than any one else I met with while in Zanzibar. At the same period I had begun and carried on from time to time the investigation of the Yao or Achowa language, one peculiarly interesting to us, as that of nearly all the released slaves underBishop Mackenzie's charge, and as having now supplanted the Mang'anja in the countrywhere ourMission wasoriginallysettled. From this study I j&rst gained a definite notion of the wonderful effect the letter n has in African languages, and so came to understand the origin of several appa- rent irregularities in Swahili. I had begun even beforeMohammed bin Khamis left Zanzibar to make someessays in translation,thebestof which are embodied in a pamphletprinted in Zanzibar, with the title "Translations in Swahili:" it was completed in January 1867. I was then getting help from many quarters, and on explaining to some of our native friends our wish to make a complete translation of the Bible into their language, one of them, Sheikh 'Abd al 'Aziz, kindly volunteered to translate for me the Arabic Psalter into the best and purest Swahili. I found, before long,that not onlydidhis numerous avocationspreverlt anyrapid iii PREFACE. progress, but that his language was toolearned to suit exactly our purpose in making the version; it did not therefore proceed further than the Sixteenth Psalm. 1 printed these as at once a memorial of his kindness and a specimen of what one of the most learned men in Zanzibar considers the most classical form of his language, I cannot but mention at the same time the name of Sheikh Mohammed bin Ali, a man of the greatest research, to whose kindness I was indebted for a copy, made by his own hand, of some very famous Swahili poetry, with an interlinear Arabic version; he also revised for me a paraphrase of it in modem language, for which I was chiefly indebted (as for much other help) to Hassan bin Yusuf, whose interest in our doc- trines and teachings has always been most marked. The verses and translation are both printed in the "Swahili Tales." At the end of 1867 I printed a translation ofBishop Forbes' little primary catechism, chosen as being the shortest and clearest I could find to begin upon. Though very imperfect, I am glad to think that it has been found ofuse. WhenIhad completed the Yao collections,Iwent on to the Nyamwezi language, asbeing that ofthe largest and mostcentraltribe with whichthere is constantand tolerably safe communication. In November1867 I lost, by the sadly suddendeaths ofthe Kev. G. E. Drayton and his wife, most useful helpers, who were beginning to be able togive mesub- stantial assistance. Their places were, however, well