75-556: Kagera Region ( Mkoa wa Kagera in Swahili ) is one of Tanzania 's 31 administrative regions . The region covers an area of 35,686 km (13,778 sq mi). The region is comparable in size to the land area of the Netherlands . Kagera Region is bordered to the east by Lake Victoria , Mwanza Region and Mara Region . The region is bordered to the south by Geita Region and Kigoma Region . Lastly, Kagera borders Rwanda to
150-565: A 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish in English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford,
225-766: A Monkey ;" " Mwalimu Goso, " "Goso the Teacher," a cumulative tale ; and " Sungura na Simba, " "The Hare and the Lion," a story about the trickster hare . Here are some of the proverbs that Steere recorded in Swahili: Here are some of the riddles that Steere recorded in Swahili: Biharamulo Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include
300-475: A cash crop. Bananas were a staple food in the region. Although there was a gender-based division of labour in the traditional Bahaya society, women of the time were not thought to be inferior to men. In fact women commanded special respect in all traditional rituals. For example, upon the death of a head of a family (Nyin'enju), during the following inheritance rituals, the "Main Inheritor" (Omusika) had to have
375-495: A female counterpart selected from among his sisters to share his authority. Similarly, upon the death of a reigning king, during the crowning of the next king, there had to be a "sister to the nation" ( Kinyany'engoma ) who was also selected from among his sisters. The kings lived in elaborate palaces and were respected as the direct link to gods of their kingdoms. The authority of the nine kingdoms (Kihanja, Karagwe, Kiziba, Misenye, Bugabo, Kyamtwara, Ihangiro, Bukara and Biharamulo )
450-467: A fraction of that. According to other sources, around 40% of the Swahili vocabulary comes from Arabic. What also remained unconsidered was that a good number of the borrowed terms had Bantu equivalents. The preferred use of Arabic loan words is prevalent along the coast, where local people, in a cultural show of proximity to, or descent from Arab culture, would rather use loan words, whereas the people in
525-736: A historical process in which /l/ became elided between the second last and last vowels of a word (for example, kondoo , "sheep" was originally kondolo , which survives in certain dialects ). As a consequence, long vowels are not considered phonemic . A similar process exists in Zulu . Where not shown, the orthography is the same as IPA. Some dialects of Swahili may also have the aspirated phonemes /pʰ tʰ tʃʰ kʰ bʱ dʱ dʒʱ ɡʱ/ though they are unmarked in Swahili's orthography. Multiple studies favour classifying prenasalization as consonant clusters, not as separate phonemes. Historically, nasalization has been lost before voiceless consonants, and subsequently
600-451: A large amount of grammar, vocabulary, and sounds inherited from the Sabaki language . In fact, while taking account of daily vocabulary, using lists of one hundred words, 72–91% were inherited from the Sabaki language (which is reported as a parent language) whereas 4–17% were loan words from other African languages. Only 2–8% were from non-African languages, and Arabic loan words constituted
675-573: A major role in spreading both Christianity and Islam in East Africa . From their arrival in East Africa, Arabs brought Islam and set up madrasas , where they used Swahili to teach Islam to the natives. As the Arab presence grew, more and more natives converted to Islam and were taught using the Swahili language. From the arrival of Europeans in East Africa, Christianity was introduced to
750-578: A means of national integration in Tanzania. Key activities mandated for the organisation include creating a healthy atmosphere for the development of Swahili, encouraging use of the language in government and business functions, coordinating activities of other organisations involved with Swahili, standardising the language. BAKITA vision are: "1.To efficiently manage and coordinate the development and use of Kiswahili in Tanzania 2.To participate fully and effectively in promoting Swahili in East Africa, Africa and
825-652: A pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades ", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura ( ki-ura ) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore is marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt
SECTION 10
#1732773247622900-433: A prenasalized consonant, they are pronounced as [e] , [ɪ] , [o] , and [ʊ] . E is also commonly pronounced as mid-position after w . Polomé claims that /ɑ/ is pronounced as such only after w and is pronounced as [a] in other situations, especially after /j/ ( y ). A can be pronounced as [ə] in word-final position. Long vowels in Swahili are written as doubled vowels (for example, kondoo , "sheep") due to
975-468: A second language spoken by tens of millions of people in the five African Great Lakes countries ( Kenya , DRC , Rwanda , Uganda , and Tanzania ), where it is an official or national language. It is also the first language for many people in Tanzania, especially in the coastal regions of Tanga, Pwani, Dar es Salaam, Mtwara and Lindi. In the inner regions of Tanzania, Swahili is spoken with an accent influenced by other local languages and dialects. There, it
1050-626: A subject in schools or have developed plans to do so. Shikomor (or Comorian ), an official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte ( Shimaore ), is closely related to Swahili and is sometimes considered a dialect of Swahili, although other authorities consider it a distinct language. In 2022, based on Swahili's growth as a prominent international language, the United Nations declared Swahili Language Day as 7 July to commemorate
1125-462: A substitute for k in advertisements. There are also several digraphs for Arabic sounds, which many speakers outside of ethnic Swahili areas have trouble differentiating. The language used to be primarily written in the Ajami script , which is an Arabic script. Much literature was produced in this script. With the introduction of Latin, the use of Ajami script has been diminished significantly. However,
1200-516: A system of concord but, if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1–2 regardless of their noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu) , based on the dialect spoken in Zanzibar, the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili
1275-695: A variety of gender-concord prefixes. This list is based on Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history . Modern standard Swahili, written in Latin, is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar City . Swahili literature and poetry, traditionally written in Swahili Ajami , is based on Kiamu , the dialect of Lamu on the Kenyan Coast. But there are numerous other dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, such as
1350-666: Is a compulsory subject in all Kenyan primary and secondary schools. Swahili is recognized as a national language in the Democratic Republic of The Congo and is widely spoken in the eastern regions. The local dialects of Swahili in Congo are known as Congo Swahili and differ considerably from Standard Swahili. In order to strengthen political ties with other East African Community nations, both Kiswahili and English have been taught in Burundian elementary schools since
1425-550: Is a first language for most of the people who are born in the cities, whilst being spoken as a second language in rural areas. Swahili and closely related languages are spoken by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi , Comoros , Malawi , Mozambique , Zambia and Rwanda . The language was still understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea in the 20th century. The East African Community created an institution called
1500-550: Is a last chief in Misenye (currently Missenyi District ). Other chiefs include Rumanyika of Karagwe, Ruhinda, Kahigi and other inferior chiefs. Kahigi is among the chiefs who waived their territories by collaborating with German colonialists. Cultural tours are available for tourists visiting Kagera and can be accessed from the region's capital of Bukoba . These tours include visits to the region's national parks/nature reserves etc. During German rule Dr. M. Zupitza, then serving as
1575-434: Is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Animals exceptional in some way and so not easily fitting in
SECTION 20
#17327732476221650-552: Is divided into eight districts , each administered by a council: In 2016 the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics report there were 2,789,577 people in the region, from 2,458,023 in 2012. Swahili language Swahili , also known by its local name Kiswahili , is a Bantu language originally spoken by the Swahili people , who are found primarily in Tanzania , Kenya , and Mozambique (along
1725-597: Is generally only spoken by Somali nationals who have resided in Kenya and subsequently returned to Somalia. Lastly, a closely related language Mushunguli (also known as Zigula, Zigua, or Chizigua) is spoken by some of the Somali Bantu ethnic minority mostly living in the Jubba Valley . It is classified as a Northeast Coast Bantu language as Swahili is and has some intelligibility with Swahili. Swahili played
1800-569: Is home to Biharamulo Forest Reserve , Burigi-Chato National Park , Ibanda-Kyerwa National Park , Rumanyika-Karagwe National Park , Rubondo Island National Park and Saanane Island National Park . In 2019, Burigi , Biharamulo game reserve, and Lakes Burigi and Kimis were upgraded to become a national park with the Burigi-Chato National Park . Rumanyika-Karagwe National Park was gazetted as Rumanyika-Karagwe National Park and Ibanda-Kyerwa National Park . Kagera Region
1875-575: Is not a native language, such as in Nairobi. In non-native Swahili, concord reflects only animacy: human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-, wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger i-, zi- . Infinitives vary between standard ku- and reduced i-. ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za. ) In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, and non-human subjects and objects trigger
1950-430: Is one of the early developers. The applications include a spelling checker , part-of-speech tagging , a language learning software , an analysed Swahili text corpus of 25 million words, an electronic dictionary , and machine translation between Swahili and English. The development of language technology also strengthens the position of Swahili as a modern medium of communication. Furthermore, Swahili Misplaced Pages
2025-556: Is one of the few Wikipedias in an African language that features a substantial number of contributors and articles. The widespread use of Swahili as a national language in Tanzania came after Tanganyika gained independence in 1961 and the government decided that it would be used as a language to unify the new nation. This saw the use of Swahili in all levels of government, trade, art as well as schools in which primary school children are taught in Swahili, before switching to English (medium of instruction) in secondary schools (although Swahili
2100-602: Is one of three official languages (the others being English and French) of the East African Community (EAC) countries, namely Burundi , Democratic Republic of the Congo , Kenya , Rwanda , Somalia , South Sudan , Tanzania , and Uganda . It is the lingua franca of other areas in the African Great Lakes region and East and Southern Africa . Swahili is also one of the working languages of
2175-668: Is seen in the many churches in the region. The attempted annexation of Kagera by Uganda in 1979 triggered the Uganda–Tanzania War . Agriculture is the main economic activity in the region, with the primary crops farmed in the region being pulses . Cereals were the most often planted crop, with 153,993 hectares (42.8% of the total area planted with annuals), followed by root and tubers with 64,261 ha (17.8%), oil seeds with 10,416 ha (2.9%), cash crops with 7,737 ha (2.1%), and fruits and vegetables with 3,558 ha (1.0%). The majority of annual cash crops were cotton. Cereal crop output in
2250-960: Is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru " rhinoceros ", kingugwa " spotted hyena ", and kiboko " hippopotamus " (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs"). Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example. However, it seems to cover vital entities neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts ( moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive/cannon'. From
2325-567: Is spoken along the Benadir coast by the Bravanese people . Another Swahili dialect known as Kibajuni also serves as the mother tongue of the Bajuni minority ethnic group, which lives in the tiny Bajuni Islands as well as the southern Kismayo region. In Oman , there are an estimated 52,000 people who speak Swahili as of 2020. Most are descendants of those repatriated after the fall of
Kagera Region - Misplaced Pages Continue
2400-582: Is still taught as an independent subject). After Tanganyika and Zanzibar unification in 1964, Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili (TUKI, Institute of Swahili Research) was created from the Interterritorial Language Committee. In 1970 TUKI was merged with the University of Dar es Salaam , while Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa (BAKITA) was formed. BAKITA is an organisation dedicated to the development and advocacy of Swahili as
2475-855: The African Union and of the Southern African Development Community . The East African Community created an institution called the East African Kiswahili Commission (EAKC) which began operations in 2015. The institution currently serves as the leading body for promoting the language in the East African region , as well as for coordinating its development and usage for regional integration and sustainable development. In recent years South Africa , Botswana , Namibia , Ethiopia , and South Sudan have begun offering Swahili as
2550-495: The East African coast and adjacent littoral islands). Estimates of the number of Swahili speakers, including both native and second-language speakers, vary widely. They generally range from 60 million to 150 million; with most of its native speakers residing in Tanzania. Swahili has a significant number of loanwords from other languages, mainly Arabic , as well as from Portuguese , English and German . Around 40% of Swahili vocabulary consists of Arabic loanwords, including
2625-679: The Kagera River . Kagera is Tanzania's fifteenth-largest region and accounts for approximately 3.3 percent of Tanzania's land area of 885,800 square kilometres (342,000 sq mi). The regional capital Bukoba is about 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) from Dar es Salaam . With an average annual rainfall of 500 to 2000 mms, the Kagera Region has a bi-modal rainfall pattern from March to May and from October to November. Rainfall varies from 2000 mm per year in Bukoba to 500 mm in
2700-532: The Sultanate of Zanzibar . There are Swahili-based slangs, pidgins and creoles: In 1870, Edward Steere published Swahili Tales as Told by Natives of Zanzibar , a collection of 23 Swahili tales with facing-text English translation, along with a selection of proverbs and riddles. Some of the tales included are: " Kisa cha Punda wa Dobi, " "The Story of the Washerman's Donkey," also known as " The Heart of
2775-526: The Tanganyika African National Union used Swahili as a language of mass organisation and political movement. This included publishing pamphlets and radio broadcasts to rally the people to fight for independence. After gaining independence, Swahili was adopted as the national language. To this day, Tanzanians carry a sense of pride when it comes to Swahili, especially when it is used to unite over 120 tribes across Tanzania. Swahili
2850-473: The Arabic script (an unmodified version as opposed to proposals such as that of Mwalimu Sikujua) was relatively high. There were also differences in orthographic conventions between cities and authors and over the centuries, some quite precise but others different enough to cause difficulties with intelligibility. Thus despite a lack of official governmental backing, attempts at standardization and Swahilization of
2925-482: The Arabic script continued into the 20th century. Swahili nouns are separable into classes , which are roughly analogous to genders in other languages. In Swahili, prefixes mark groups of similar objects: ⟨m-⟩ marks single human beings ( mtoto 'child'), ⟨wa-⟩ marks multiple humans ( watoto 'children'), ⟨u-⟩ marks abstract nouns ( utoto 'childhood'), and so on. And just as adjectives and pronouns must agree with
3000-569: The East African Kiswahili Commission (EAKC) which began operations in 2015. The institution currently serves as the leading body for promoting the language in the East African region , as well as for coordinating its development and usage for regional integration and sustainable development. Swahili is among the first languages in Africa for which language technology applications have been developed. Arvi Hurskainen
3075-543: The West Lake Region. Following the Kagera War in 1979, the West Lake Region was renamed the Kagera Region. For a period of about five centuries, Kagera was home to nine different kingdoms with highly hierarchical societies. Before European colonialism, coffee was a traditional crop in the area, used for its stimulant properties and in local cultural rituals. During colonial times, coffee was transformed into
Kagera Region - Misplaced Pages Continue
3150-465: The academic year 2005/2006. Kiswahili is now used widely in Burundi but is not recognised as an official language; only French, Kirundi, and English have this distinction. Since 2013, Swahili has been included in the all Burundian education system. Uganda adopted Kiswahili as one of its official languages (alongside English ) in 2022, and also made it compulsory across primary and secondary schools in
3225-611: The alphabet system from Arabic to Latin. After the First World War, Britain took over German East Africa, where they found Swahili rooted in most areas, not just the coastal regions. The British decided to formalise it as the language to be used across the East African region (although in British East Africa [Kenya and Uganda] most areas used English and various Nilotic and other Bantu languages while Swahili
3300-439: The area is dominated by maize, evidenced by 302,529 households in the region raising maize during the brief wet season. This made up about 93.8% of all households that raised crops during that time. Food crop sales accounted for 54.0% of smallholder households' total cash income in the Kagera Region, with cash crop sales (18.9%), other sporadic income (8.7%), fishing (4.3%), and wages/salaries (4.3%) following. Petty businesses were
3375-459: The central idea of tree , which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono
3450-515: The coast of East Africa played a role in the growth and spread of Swahili. With the arrival of the Arabs in East Africa, they used Swahili as a language of trade as well as for teaching Islam to the local Bantu peoples . This resulted in Swahili first being written in the Arabic script. The later contact with the Portuguese resulted in the increase of vocabulary of the Swahili language. The language
3525-468: The country. The Swahili language is not widespread in Somalia and has no official status nationally or regionally. Dialects of Swahili are spoken by some ethnic minorities on the Bajuni islands in the form of Kibajuni on the southern tip of the country and in the town of Brava in the form of Chimwiini ; both contain a significant amount of Somali and Italian loanwords. Standard Swahili
3600-523: The date that Julius Nyerere adopted Swahili as a unifying language for African independence struggles. Swahili is a Bantu language of the Sabaki branch . In Guthrie's geographic classification , Swahili is in Bantu zone G, whereas the other Sabaki languages are in zone E70, commonly under the name Nyika. Historical linguists consider the Arabic influence on Swahili to be significant, since it takes around 15% of its vocabulary directly from Arabic , and
3675-467: The east. The Kagera River forms the region's border with Rwanda. The region lies in the middle of 30°25' and 32°40' east, and 1°00' and 2°45' south. The total area is 35,686 square kilometres (13,778 sq mi), of which 25,513 square kilometres (9,851 sq mi) is land and 27 percent, and 10,173 square kilometres (3,928 sq mi) is water. Much of the water is that of the great lake, Victoria , as well as lakes Ikimba, Burigi , Ngono and
3750-481: The entire world over". Although other bodies and agencies can propose new vocabularies, BAKITA is the only organisation that can approve its usage in the Swahili language. Tanzanians are highly credited for shaping the language to appear the way it is now. In Kenya, Kiswahili has been the national language since 1964 and is official since 2010. Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa (CHAKITA) was established in 1998 to research and promote Kiswahili language in Kenya. Kiswahili
3825-508: The following: Maho (2009) considers these to be distinct languages: The rest of the dialects are divided by him into two groups: Maho includes the various Comorian dialects as a third group. Most other authorities consider Comorian to be a Sabaki language, distinct from Swahili. In Somalia , where the Afroasiatic Somali language predominates, a variant of Swahili referred to as Chimwiini (also known as Chimbalazi)
SECTION 50
#17327732476223900-442: The former are kisu "knife", kiti "chair" (from mti "tree, wood"), chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo ). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba ( ki-umba ) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to diminutives in many languages is approximation and resemblance (having
3975-482: The gender of nouns in some languages with grammatical gender, so in Swahili adjectives, pronouns and even verbs must agree with nouns. This is a characteristic feature of all the Bantu languages . The ki-/vi- class historically consisted of two separate genders, artefacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils and hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12/13), which were conflated at a stage ancestral to Swahili. Examples of
4050-583: The interior tend to use the Bantu equivalents. It was originally written in Arabic script . The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa , Tanzania , in 1711 in the Arabic script that were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India . Various colonial powers that ruled on
4125-463: The language continues to have a tradition of being written in Arabic script. Starting from the later half of the 19th century, continuing into the 20th century, and going on in the 21st century, a process of "Swahilization" of the Arabic Script has been underway by Swahili scribes and scholars. The first of such attempts was done by Mwalimu Sikujua , a scholar and poet from Mombasa . However,
4200-702: The local medical officer, encountered the plague outbreak in Kiziba (1897–1898). In cooperation with Dr. Robert Koch , he confirmed that the cause was the same bacteria as the outbreak in Bombay . When authority was transferred to the British who supplanted the Germans, Kagera was open to Lutheran missionary activity. Other Christian denominations including the Roman Catholic church later arrived. Their legacy
4275-402: The name of the language ( سَوَاحِلي sawāḥilī , a plural adjectival form of an Arabic word meaning 'of the coasts'). The loanwords date from the era of contact between Arab traders and the Bantu inhabitants of the east coast of Africa, which was also the time period when Swahili emerged as a lingua franca in the region. Due to concerted efforts by the government of Tanzania , Swahili
4350-405: The original emphatic consonants /dˤ, sˤ, tˤ, ðˤ/ and the uvular /q/ , or lengthening a vowel, where aspiration would be used in inherited Bantu words. Swahili is now written in the Latin alphabet. There are a few digraphs for native sounds, ch , sh , ng ' and ny ; q and x are not used, c is not used apart from the digraph ch , unassimilated English loans and, occasionally, as
4425-626: The other classes may be placed in this class. The other classes have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive. In short, Borrowings may or may not be given a prefix corresponding to the semantic class they fall in. For example, Arabic دود dūd ("bug, insect") was borrowed as mdudu , plural wadudu , with the class 1/2 prefixes m- and wa- , but Arabic فلوس fulūs ("fish scales", plural of فلس fals ) and English sloth were borrowed as simply fulusi (" mahi-mahi " fish) and slothi (" sloth "), with no prefix associated with animals (whether those of class 9/10 or 1/2). In
4500-588: The other coffee-producing areas in the area, with Bukoba Rural having the highest area (14,704 ha, 39%). (Map 3.33). However, Ngara (1.23 ha) had the greatest average amount of land planted with coffee per household, followed by Karagwe(0.32 ha), Biharamulo (0.22 ha), Muleba (0.21 ha), Bukoba Rural (0.21 ha), and Bukoba Urban (0.21 ha) (0.18 ha). The Kagera Region has abundant wildlife, including baboons, giraffe, elands, crocodiles, hippopotamus, warthog. Birdlife includes African fish eagles , hammerkops , marabou stork , cormorants . kingfishers , and herons . Kagera
4575-409: The primary source of income for only 3.4% of smallholder households, followed by the sale of livestock (2.5%), cash remittances (2.0%), sales of forest products (0.7%), and sales of animal products (0.6%). Kagera is also one of the largest coffee producers in the country. Muleba (9,968 ha, 26%), Karagwe (8,660 ha, 23%), Ngara (3,600 ha, 10%), Biharamulo (454 ha, 1%), and Bukoba Urban (373 ha, 1%) were
SECTION 60
#17327732476224650-521: The process of naturalization of borrowings within Swahili, loanwords are often reinterpreted, or reanalysed, as if they already contain a Swahili class prefix. In such cases the interpreted prefix is changed with the usual rules. Consider the following loanwords from Arabic: Similarly, English wire and Arabic وقت waqt ("time") were interpreted as having the class 11 prevocalic prefix w- , and became waya and wakati with plural nyaya and nyakati respectively. Swahili phrases agree with nouns in
4725-565: The region had a total population of 2,033,888, with an average growth rate of 3.1%. 6.0% of all Tanzanians living on the mainland were found in the region. During colonization the region was a district called West Lake, that was a part of the Lake Province, that included the Geita , Mwanza , Shinyanga , Tabora , Simiyu , and Mara , regions. After independence Lake Province was broken up into regions, with Kagera and part of Geita becoming
4800-491: The region was struck by a 5.9 magnitude earthquake in which 17 people died, and at least 250 others were injured. Kagera is known for its agriculture, lush landscapes, and wildlife. It has reasonably fertile old soils but climate change has led to soil exhaustion and a need to use fertiliser . One of the top five most populous regions in the nation is the Kagera region. According to the population and housing Census of 2002,
4875-407: The region. While the Arabs were mostly based in the coastal areas, European missionaries went further inland spreading Christianity. As the first missionary posts in East Africa were in the coastal areas, missionaries picked up Swahili and used it to spread Christianity, since it contained many similarities with other indigenous languages in the region. During the struggle for Tanganyika independence,
4950-421: The specifics, it has been historically purported that around 16–20% of the Swahili vocabulary is derived from loan words, the vast majority Arabic , but also other contributing languages, including Persian , Hindustani , Portuguese , and Malay . Omani Arabic is the source of most Arabic loanwords in Swahili. In the text "Early Swahili History Reconsidered". However, Thomas Spear noted that Swahili retains
5025-549: The spread of a standardized indigenous variation of Arabic script for Swahili was hampered by the colonial takeover of East Africa by the United Kingdom and Germany . The usage of Arabic script was suppressed in German East Africa and to a lesser extent in British East Africa . Nevertheless, well into the 1930s and 1940s, rural literacy rate in Arabic script as well as a local preference to write Swahili in
5100-401: The voiced consonants have devoiced, though they are still written mb, nd etc. The /r/ phoneme is realised as either a short trill [ r ] or more commonly as a single tap [ ɾ ] by most speakers. [x] exists in free variation with h, and is only distinguished by some speakers. In some Arabic loans (nouns, verbs, adjectives), emphasis or intensity is expressed by reproducing
5175-474: The west, Uganda to the north and Burundi to the south west. The regional capital city is Bukoba . According to the 2022 national census, the region had a population of 2,989,299, an increase from 2,458,023 recorded in 2012. The region derives its name from the Kagera River . Kagera borders Uganda to the north, Rwanda and Burundi to the west, and the Tanzanian regions Kigoma to the south and Geita to
5250-611: The west, with rainfall being higher along Lake Victoria's coasts and decreasing inland and away from the lake as well as with height. The temperature ranges from 20 degrees Celsius to 28 degrees Celsius. The area is made up of a number of hills that run parallel to the lake's edge and north to south. Lying on the Kivu Rift , the western of the two branches of the East African Rift which transverses Tanzania, Kagera experiences significant seismic activity. On 10 September 2016,
5325-559: Was diminished when Germans colonised Tanzania in 1885 and supported the Haya , the ethnic group of Bukoba and Muleba Districts over the other districts. However, the local kings held on to power. The demise of these kingdoms came after Tanzania gained its independence and president Nyerere considered them detrimental to national unity. There was a chief called Omukama (the word meant a king or chief) who could be born with that authority. Some prominent chiefs in Kagera include Kyamukuma, who
5400-480: Was formalised in an institutional level when the Germans took over after the Berlin conference . After seeing there was already a widespread language, the Germans formalised it as the official language to be used in schools. Thus schools in Swahili are called Shule (from German Schule ) in government, trade and the court system. With the Germans controlling the major Swahili-speaking region in East Africa, they changed
5475-495: Was initially spread by Arab slave traders along the East African coast. The word `Swahili' comes from an Arabic name for the area, meaning "coasts": The core of the Swahili language originates in Bantu languages of the coast of East Africa. Much of Swahili's Bantu vocabulary has cognates in the Unguja , Pemba , and Mijikenda languages and, to a lesser extent, other East African Bantu languages . While opinions vary on
5550-586: Was mostly restricted to the coast). In June 1928, an inter-territorial conference attended by representatives of Kenya , Tanganyika , Uganda , and Zanzibar took place in Mombasa . The Zanzibar dialect was chosen as standard Swahili for those areas, and the standard orthography for Swahili was adopted. Estimates of the total number of first- and second-language Swahili speakers vary widely, from as low as 50 million to as high as 200 million, but generally range from 60 million to 150 million. Swahili has become
5625-514: Was used to strengthen solidarity within the nation, and remains to be a key identity of the Tanzanian people. Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes : /ɑ/ , /ɛ/ , /i/ , /ɔ/ , and /u/ . According to Ellen Contini-Morava , vowels are never reduced , regardless of stress . However, according to Edgar Polomé , these five phonemes can vary in pronunciation. Polomé claims that /ɛ/ , /i/ , /ɔ/ , and /u/ are pronounced as such only in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, as well as before
#621378