Talk:Swahili language/Archive 2

message: Couldn't this stat be added to the table on the right? Ninuor 17:15, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of speakers 

message: Could someone here expand on the stub article on Swahili time. I tried to write more but found myself ranting. I couldn't figure out how to explain swahili time without making it sound like a joke. Also, maybe there is a better name for it than Swahili time.--Ezeu 00:50, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "In antiquity, the counting of hours started with sunrise. So, sunrise is always exactly at the beginning of the 1st hour, noon at the end of the 6th hour, and sunset exactly at the end of the 12th hour." — Hour. I don't see why we need a separate Swahili time article. — Matt Crypto 01:13, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Swahili time is interesting enough to have articles written about it. In antiquity? I'm talking about today. I don't see why there shouldn’t be a separate article for Swahili time.--Ezeu 01:27, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm just saying we already have an article discussing different schemes of how hours are numbered. Is Swahili time ever going to be more than a 1- or 2- sentence article? Wouldn't it be better just to add a sentence to the hour article? — Matt Crypto 01:38, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

text: I will expand on it. If I cannot make it more than 2 sentances, I will redirect it myself. People travelling to East Africa my be interested in this.--Ezeu 01:46, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sure. And it might well be that other contemporary cultures number their hours starting at dawn, too -- it would be interesting to find out others (if any) that are. — Matt Crypto 01:54, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Swahili time might be better of as a section of Swahili language. If we would treat it more extensively, it'd probably be something for Wikibooks. — mark ✎ 08:11, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've expanded it a little though. You guys might know more about regional variation than I do, so that might be another thing to add. — mark ✎ 08:26, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good on you Mark. Thanks for expanding on that article. Thing is, what we are calling Swahili time here is used in other east African vanacular as well. In Uganda we sometimes call it village time (with a little hint of scorn). I wish I could find more Internet resources on this subject - or maybe I'll have to do the unthinkable and go to a library. It would also be nice to know if this is a typically east African thing .. maybe it is yet another African phenominon that no one has bothered to research.--Ezeu 09:41, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, you meant that time. No, that's not confined to the African continent, since it's quite natural to divide the periods demarcated by sunrise and sunset into segments. The Chinese seem to have had twelve segments between sunrise and sunset. The Babylonians had a similar system, as had the Egyptians. Check out Matthew 20:5 for another example: "He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing." — around the time Matthew was written, they counted from sunrise on. See also our own article hour. — mark ✎ 10:12, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Oh, and by all means do the unthinkable :P — our articles tend to get better that way. There must be some cultural anthropologists who have researched this; I believe Lévi-Strauss  has a book called Telling Time which I'm not sure what it is about exactly but it sounds like a probable source. — mark ✎ 10:25, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Swahili time]] 

message: I've added a map illustrating swahili speaking areas. I subsequently changed the map caption to "Areas where swahili speakers are found", so as not to give the impression that swahili is a major language in regions such as nothern uganda and westeren DrCongo (although my relatives in nothern uganda are fluent in Swahili). I am working on a better map with shades that will better illustrate the concentration of Swahili in kenya and Tanzania. Bear with me and let the map stay. Ezeu 03:46, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the map. — mark ✎ 14:08, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map of swahili speaking areas 

message: *http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90497 
*iso 639-3 swc,swh 
Tobias Conradi (Talk) 07:40, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This article is primarily about swh. — mark ✎ 08:35, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: two swahilis

message: Shouldn't we mention the Swahili Council Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa in the table under "Regulated by". At least in Tanzania, where most speakers live, it has official status through a law from 1967 (look here). Marcoscramer 14:06, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Regulation

message: Is swahili syllable-timed or stress-timed? It needs to be in the article.--ikiroid 19:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language Timing 

message: I'm almost certain it isn't, but I'm not a linguist, so would someone be able to confirm whether or not kihehe is a dialect of Swahili, as we currently assert in this article? Thanks! — Matt Crypto 12:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's absolutely not. Both are Bantu language of Guthrie's 'G' zone, but Kihehe is a member of the Bena-Kinga cluster, whereas Swahili is grouped with some other languages, including Makwe of Mozambique (and even Makwe isn't normally considered a dialect of Swahili). Furthermore, Kihehe is tonal, Swahili isn't. — mark ✎ 16:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks, I thought not! — Matt Crypto 17:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Kihehe

message: "The origin of Swahili is in Zanzibar, an island off the eastern coast of Africa"
Zanzibar is in fact two islands - Unguja and Pemba. Is this referring to one or the other or both? The sentence as it stands is incorrect. Woodwardmw 19:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Zanzibar" has several meanings, depending on context: "Zanzibar is often used to refer to Unguja island and is also the name of the capital". So it's not necessarily incorrect, just ambiguous. I don't know which is which, but I suspect it refers to Unguja. — Matt Crypto 19:56, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, it's Unguja. On a sidenote, it is slightly misleading to state that the origin of Swahili lies there; Kiunguja just happens to be the variety that was, for various historical reasons, chosen as the standard variety. — mark ✎ 20:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've deleted that sentence because I think it's at best very misleading — the source I've got says that the earliest Swahili speakers likely settled in Northern Kenya. We could also do with expanding that section and explaining the Zanzibari influence. — Matt Crypto 10:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zanzibar 

message: re. The most recent changes by IP 71.195.203.207, are you sure?  Your source cited looks OK, but try , and .  I haven't reverted your edit, but this is worth a discussion, I think. --David.Mestel 18:40, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit on number of Speakers 

message: Hi, I asked at Amharic, but Kiswahili would be nice too. Wikibooks:Wikijunior_Languages is the current collaboration. In order to round it out and reduce systemic bias, it would be nice to cover at least one common African language. Can someone go there and add an entry for kiswahili? It would take probably 10 minutes, as it is meant as an overview for children. Sound samples would be icing on the cake. Thanks a lot. - Taxman Talk 01:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikijunior Wikibook languages 

message: In the article it is said:
The name is sometimes written as kiSwahili, which de-emphasizes the prefix.
Is it true??? I do speak swahili, and I've never ever before this seen this spelling... Ant sources, please? --81.38.175.67 16:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm only learning Swahili, but I've also not seen this. I've added a  request. — Matt Crypto 18:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I've also never seen it, except in some linguistic publications which want to stress the morpheme boundary between ki- and -Swahili. It doesn't feel as de-emphasizing the prefix to me. — mark ✎ 19:59, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  KiSwahili???????