Swahili Origins

Author : J. de V. Allen
Publisher : Ohio University Press
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015029298935

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Swahili Origins by J. de V. Allen Pdf

Kiswahili has become the lingua franca of eastern Africa. Yet there can be few historic peoples whose identity is as elusive as that of the Swahili. Some have described themselves as Arabs, as Persians or even, in one place, as Portuguese. It is doubtful whether, even today, most of the people about whom this book is written would unhesitatingly and in all contexts accept the name Swahili. This book was central to the thought and lifework of the late James de Vere Allen. It is his major study of the origin of the Swahili and of their cultural identity. He focuses on how the African element in their cultural patrimony was first modified by Islam and later changed until many Swahili themselves lost sight of it. They share a language and they share a culture. Their territory stretches from the coast of southern Somalia to the Lamu archipelago in Kenya, to the Rovuma River in modern Mozambique and out into the islands of the Indian Ocean. But they lack a shared historical experience. James de Vere Allen, in this study of contentious originality, set out to give modern Swahili evidence of their shared history during a period of eight centuries.

Author : David Phineas Bhukanda Massamba
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 130 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Bantu languages
ISBN : STANFORD:36105132894564

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Kiswahili Origins and the Bantu Divergence-convergence Theory by David Phineas Bhukanda Massamba Pdf

Author : Derek Nurse,Thomas Spear
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 148 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 1985
Category : History
ISBN : 081221207X

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The Swahili by Derek Nurse,Thomas Spear Pdf

"As an introduction to how the history of an African society can be reconstructed from largely nonliterate sources, and to the Swahili in particular, . . . a model work."—International Journal of African Historical Studies

Author : Stephanie Wynne-Jones,Adria LaViolette
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 672 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2017-10-16
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781317430162

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The Swahili World by Stephanie Wynne-Jones,Adria LaViolette Pdf

The Swahili World presents the fascinating story of a major world civilization, exploring the archaeology, history, linguistics, and anthropology of the Indian Ocean coast of Africa. It covers a 1,500-year sweep of history, from the first settlement of the coast to the complex urban tradition found there today. Swahili towns contain monumental palaces, tombs, and mosques, set among more humble houses; they were home to fishers, farmers, traders, and specialists of many kinds. The towns have been Muslim since perhaps the eighth century CE, participating in international networks connecting people around the Indian Ocean rim and beyond. Successive colonial regimes have helped shape modern Swahili society, which has incorporated such influences into the region’s long-standing cosmopolitan tradition. This is the first volume to explore the Swahili in chronological perspective. Each chapter offers a unique wealth of detail on an aspect of the region’s past, written by the leading scholars on the subject. The result is a book that allows both specialist and non-specialist readers to explore the diversity of the Swahili tradition, how Swahili society has changed over time, as well as how our understandings of the region have shifted since Swahili studies first began. Scholars of the African continent will find the most nuanced and detailed consideration of Swahili culture, language and history ever produced. For readers unfamiliar with the region or the people involved, the chapters here provide an ideal introduction to a new and wonderful geography, at the interface of Africa and the Indian Ocean world, and among a people whose culture remains one of Africa’s most distinctive achievements.

Author : John M. Mugane
Publisher : Ohio University Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2015-07-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9780896804890

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The Story of Swahili by John M. Mugane Pdf

Swahili was once an obscure dialect of an East African Bantu language. Today more than one hundred million people use it: Swahili is to eastern and central Africa what English is to the world. From its embrace in the 1960s by the black freedom movement in the United States to its adoption in 2004 as the African Union’s official language, Swahili has become a truly international language. How this came about and why, of all African languages, it happened only to Swahili is the story that John M. Mugane sets out to explore. The remarkable adaptability of Swahili has allowed Africans and others to tailor the language to their needs, extending its influence far beyond its place of origin. Its symbolic as well as its practical power has evolved from its status as a language of contact among diverse cultures, even as it embodies the history of communities in eastern and central Africa and throughout the Indian Ocean world. The Story of Swahili calls for a reevaluation of the widespread assumption that cultural superiority, military conquest, and economic dominance determine a language’s prosperity. This sweeping history gives a vibrant, living language its due, highlighting its nimbleness from its beginnings to its place today in the fast-changing world of global communication.

Author : Derek Nurse,Thomas Spear
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 145 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2017-06-10
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781512821666

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The Swahili by Derek Nurse,Thomas Spear Pdf

"As an introduction to how the history of an African society can be reconstructed from largely nonliterate sources, and to the Swahili in particular, . . . a model work."—International Journal of African Historical Studies

Author : Beatrice Nicolini
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 207 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2004-06-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9789047413295

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Makran, Oman and Zanzibar by Beatrice Nicolini Pdf

This unique contribution to the growing field of western Indian Ocean studies brings new light and new perspective on the early 19th century expansion of both Omani Sultan and the British. The important role played by the Baluch in East Africa is here discussed thanks to little known archive documents integrated with field work.

Author : Toyin Falola,Aribidesi Adisa Usman
Publisher : University Rochester Press
Page : 334 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781580462969

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Movements, Borders, and Identities in Africa by Toyin Falola,Aribidesi Adisa Usman Pdf

A groundbreaking interrogation of the myriad causes and effects of African migration, from the pre-colonial to the modern era.

Author : John Middleton
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 554 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 1992-01-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0300060807

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The World of the Swahili by John Middleton Pdf

The Swahili of East Africa have a long and distinctive history as a literate, Muslim, urban, and mercantile society. This book presents an anthropological account of the Swahili and offers an original analysis of their little-understood and unusual culture.

Author : Sarah K. Croucher
Publisher : Springer
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2014-10-29
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781441984715

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Capitalism and Cloves by Sarah K. Croucher Pdf

This study of nineteenth-century clove plantations on Zanzibar provides an important contribution to debates in global historical archaeology. Broadening plantation archaeology beyond the Atlantic World, this work addresses plantations run by Omani Arab colonial rulers of Zanzibar. Drawing on archaeological and historical data, this book argues for the need to examine non-Western contexts of colonialism and capitalism as coeval with those in the North Atlantic World. This work explores themes of capitalism, colonialism, plantation landscapes, African Diaspora communities, gender and sexuality, locally produced and imported goods in historic contexts, and Islamic historical archaeology.

Author : Peter Mitchell,Paul Lane
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 1080 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2013-07-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780191626142

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The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology by Peter Mitchell,Paul Lane Pdf

Africa has the longest and arguably the most diverse archaeological record of any of the continents. It is where the human lineage first evolved and from where Homo sapiens spread across the rest of the world. Later, it witnessed novel experiments in food-production and unique trajectories to urbanism and the organisation of large communities that were not always structured along strictly hierarchical lines. Millennia of engagement with societies in other parts of the world confirm Africa's active participation in the construction of the modern world, while the richness of its history, ethnography, and linguistics provide unusually powerful opportunities for constructing interdisciplinary narratives of Africa's past. This Handbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis of African archaeology, covering the entirety of the continent's past from the beginnings of human evolution to the archaeological legacy of European colonialism. As well as covering almost all periods and regions of the continent, it includes a mixture of key methodological and theoretical issues and debates, and situates the subject's contemporary practice within the discipline's history and the infrastructural challenges now facing its practitioners. Bringing together essays on all these themes from over seventy contributors, many of them living and working in Africa, it offers a highly accessible, contemporary account of the subject for use by scholars and students of not only archaeology, but also history, anthropology, and other disciplines.

Author : Julius O. Adekunle,Hettie V. Williams
Publisher : University Press of America
Page : 518 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2010-02-24
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780761850922

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Color Struck by Julius O. Adekunle,Hettie V. Williams Pdf

Color Struck: Essays of Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective is a compilation of expositions on race and ethnicity, written from multiple disciplinary approaches including history, sociology, women's studies, and anthropology. This book is organized around a topical, chronological framework and is divided into three sections, beginning with the earliest times to the contemporary world. The term 'race' has nearly become synonymous with the word 'ethnicity,' given the most recent findings in the study of human genetics that have led to the mapping of human DNA. Color Struck attempts to answer questions and provide scholarly insight into issues related to race and ethnicity.

Author : Timothy Insoll
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 492 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2003-07-03
Category : History
ISBN : 0521657024

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The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa by Timothy Insoll Pdf

Table of contents

Author : Molefi Kete Asante,Ama Mazama
Publisher : SAGE Publications
Page : 920 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2008-11-26
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781506317861

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Encyclopedia of African Religion by Molefi Kete Asante,Ama Mazama Pdf

"Numerous titles focusing on particular beliefs in Africa exist, including Marcel Griaule's Conversations with Ogotemmeli, but this one presents an unparallelled exploration of a multitude of cultures and experiences. It is both a gateway to deeper exploration and a penetrating resource on its own. This is bound to become the definitive scholarly resource on African religions." — Library Journal, Starred Review "Overall, because of its singular focus, reliability, and scope, this encyclopedia will prove invaluable where there is considerable interest in Africa or in different religious traditions." –Library Journal As the first comprehensive work to assemble ideas, concepts, discourses, and extensive essays in this vital area, the Encyclopedia of African Religion explores such topics as deities and divinities, the nature of humanity, the end of life, the conquest of fear, and the quest for attainment of harmony with nature and other humans. Editors Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama include nearly 500 entries that seek to rediscover the original beauty and majesty of African religion. Features · Offers the best representation to date of the African response to the sacred · Helps readers grasp the enormity of Africa's contribution to religious ideas by presenting richly textured concepts of spirituality, ritual, and initiation while simultaneously advancing new theological categories, cosmological narratives, and ways to conceptualize ethical behavior · Provides readers with new metaphors, figures of speech, modes of reasoning, etymologies, analogies, and cosmogonies · Reveals the complexity, texture, and rhythms of the African religious tradition to provide scholars with a baseline for future works The Encyclopedia of African Religion is intended for undergraduate and graduate students in fields such as Religion, Africana Studies, Sociology, and Philosophy.

Author : Musa W. Dube,R. S. Wafula
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2017-07-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781498295154

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Postcoloniality, Translation, and the Bible in Africa by Musa W. Dube,R. S. Wafula Pdf

This book is critically important for Bible translation theorists, postcolonial scholars, church leaders, and the general public interested in the history, politics, and nature of Bible translation work in Africa. It is also useful to students of gender studies, political science, biblical studies, and history-of-colonization studies. The book catalogs the major work that has been undertaken by African scholars. This work critiques and contests colonial Bible translation narratives by privileging the importance African oral vitality in rewriting the meaning of biblical texts in the African sociopolitical, political, and cultural contexts.