Kiswahili Past Present and Future Horizons

The articles in this book were written in 1989. Two of them, namely "Lingua Franca" and "In Praise" were entered for the first African Languages and Linguistics Conference held in Nairobi in July 1991. Ever since 1989, Kiswahili has made a lot of strides in many areas. For instance, the language has gained a lot of novel lexical items over those years. This has made it cope with fast-changing global requirements. Most of the new words in Kiswahili have been borrowed from languages whose native speakers are leading in the all-encompassing modern day information technology. However, quite a good percentage of words entering Kiswahili today are coinages by Swahili scholars and artists. There is also a significant percentage of vocabulary items from other African languages within the Swahili speaking region which have forced their way into Kiswahili proper. In Kenya for example, some Kikuyu words such as irio and gigheri are known to, and used by, every speaker of Kiswahili when speaking this language. Coinages by Kiswahili scholars and writers include such words as ukimwi (AIDS), upili (secondary), runinga (television) zutafindaki/ndaki (University//varsity), tarakilishi (computer), mangala (microscope), uka (ray), ukamramba (x-ray) and ningala (telescope) among many others. It should be noted that a lot of the new coinages are labels of electronics and other items in the domain of science. In this regard, it is quite clear that Kiswahili is not, in any way, being left behind in this dynamic, sophisticated area.