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By -Patel,R B. Etymologcal and Phonetic Changes among Foreign Words in Kiswahal. Pub Date Mar 67 Note -6p. Available from-Institute of Swahili Research,PO.Box 9184, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Journal Co -Swahili:Journal of the Institute of Swahili Research; v37 n1 MAR 1967 EDRS Price MF 4025 HC 4040 Descriptors -*Diachronic Linguistics,*Etymology, Phonetics,*Swahili The author considers the etymological sources and phonetic changes which have occurred lh such words as bang," butu: 1

March, 1967 Vol. 37/1

SWAHILI

JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF SWAHILI RESEARCH University College Dar es Salaam

Jarida Chuo Uchunguzi waLugha Kiswahill

Editor: W. H. WHITELEY

U.S. DEPARTMENT Of HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE

OFFICE Of EDUCATION

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STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OfEDUCATION

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Slis.12/50 ,

aD .0 CD NE\ fl Publishe.4 by the Institute of Swahili Research, P.O. Box 9184,Dar es Salaam C) and Printed by Printpak Tanzania Ltd. P.O.Box 9033, Dar es Salaam. laCI t- AL 001 367 -..

NOTE ON CONTRIBUTIONS in March andSeptember. Contributions This Journal ispublished twice a year written in should not in generalexceed 15,000words, may be for any issue, which and should besubmitted not laterthan 15th Swahili, English,French or German, November or 15th Mayin any year, andshould be addressed to: The Editor, Institute of SwahiliResearch, University College, P.O. Box 9184, . Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

SUBSCRIPTIONS . insure that their grateful if subscriberswould do their utmost to We should be months of anycalendar year directly subscriptions are paiddurinll the first three through tboffice of the Institute. Subscriptions should be sentto : The Secretary, Institute of SwahiliResearch, P.O. Box 9184, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. ETYMOLOGICAL AND PHONETICCHANGES AMONG FOREIGN WORDS IN KISWAHILI by R. B. Patel

Change is considered to be thespice of life.This maxim is equally true for language. Look at alanguage, its sentences, phrases andwords, their etymological at once an absorbing and phonetic structure.These and various other topics create interest for a linguistespeciallywords, and their journey from theknown to the unknown and vice versa. Etymology may be defined as the scienceof tracing accounts of theorigin, growth and development of words, whereasphonetics deals with sounds.The study of this dual topic is both challenging as well asfascinating. Swahili has never hesitated to adopt andadapt words from both Eastand West, and scholars and research workersfrom the West have spared nopains to trace and establish the origin and growth of numerouswords. The Standard SwahiliDic- tionaries (Swahili/English and English/Swahili) arethe products of the hard,laborious work undertaken by the compilers. Theyhave endeavoured to establishthe etymology of numerous foreign words whichhave found their way intoKiswahili. The reader of the StandardSwahili-English Dictionary willfind several words with a question mark, indicating thatthe derivation of thesewords has not been conclusively determined, or rather thatthe source of those wordsstated to be from Arabic, Persian or other foreign languagehas been doubted. Thestudy of these words of unspecified and doubtful origin orderivation provides a challenge toprobe deeper into this subject. point of It has been my earnest endeavour tostudy the language from a historical view. Let us consider words such as : found a (i) Bangi, (Butu, (iii) Kalua, (iv) Mrututu and(v) Zambarau, which have place in Swahili and whose sourcehas been doubted or could notbe established by the compilers of the Dictionary. Let us alsoconsider the growth anddevelopment of these words and their journey from onelanguage to another*

Bangi: It appears that this wordhas.travelled from the East to other partsof the world. It is an established fact that theEnglish language has alsoborrowed this word from Hindustani and is spelt Bhang or Bang. . Similarly Swahili has also adoptedthis word. The StandardSwahili English Dictionary states its derivation to be fromPersian. It might be that thePersian word found its way into Swahili, but it is alsointeresting to note that Persianis a sister be language of . The labio-dental consonantBH (voiced aspirate) appears to absent in both the Persian and Arabic.The following examples willsuffice to show how the "bh" in Sanskrit corresponds to"b" in Persian: Sanskrit Persian Bhumi Bum (old PersianBumi AvestanBumi (Earth) ) Bhru Abru (Eye brow) Bhratra Biradar (Brother)

The following Dictionaries have beenreferred to in basing these discussions: 1. A Standard SwahiliEnglishDictionary (Oxford University Press, 1951edition) 2. Saarth Gujarati Jodnikosh(Gujarat Vidyapceth 4th Edition 1949) 3. Pramanik Hindi Kosh (2nd Edition Hindi Sahitya Kutir, Banaras) 4. Hindustani Gujarati Kosh (Gujarat VidyapeethAhemedabad 2nd Revised Edition 1945). See Table I.

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It seems correct to surmisethat the Swahili word Bangihas not only its root in Persian "Bang", but also in Bhang! The fact is that the originalword has been assimilated in Swahiliwith the final occurring. It is apparentthat the final vowel found in Swahiliis absent both in Persian and in Indian languages. Butu: If "Butu" is derived from thePortuguese word "Boto" itwould be interesting to find out how "o" haschanged to "u" in Swahili. Apropos of this there is a word Butthuin Gujarati, having the samemeaning as Butu of Swahili. In Indianlanguages such as Gujarati andHindi, there are two U vowelsshort and long. The latter,when transliterated in the Romanscript is re- presented by "oo". Butthu consists of five phonemes(B +U +T +TH +U). Themiddle phonemes t and th are retroflex plosives. When acomparison is made of twoWords, viz. Bow and Butthu in view of the derivationof the Swahili Butu, the followingchanges may have taken place: Portuguese to Swahili: Boto> Butu Gujarati to Swahili: Butthu > Butu In the former, the vowel "0" ischanged to U. Whereas in the latter,Butthu has dropped its retroflex consonant th(plosive-aspirate), before it finallybecame Butu in Swahili. As regards the meaningof Butu or Butthu, there has been nodifference. Secondly, in some of the Gujaratidialects, especially spoken in EastAfrica, there is a tendency to pronounce 'heavy' tinstead of th. TABLE I Page Swahili Page Gujarati Page Pramanik No. English No. Jodnikosh No. Hindikosh 28. Bangi(n) Bhang, Indian857Bhang(n) An intoxi- 961Bhang(n) meaning as hemp often chewed or cant (from Sanskrit: contained in the first smolced and used in Bhangi) two. (from Sanskrit various sweet prepara- Bhrungi) tions, a strong intoxi- cant. 43. Butu (adj) Blunt 823Butthu (adj) Blunt. . (fr.? PortBoto-- Blunt) 168 Kalua (n) The name 311Kharvo (n) a sailor Hindustani, Gujarati given to a sect ofIndian a seaman.(fr. Sansk- Kash 95 Kharva (n) . fishermen, also in some rit Kshar +vah) a sailor. placestoboatboys ( T Hindi) 300 Mrututu (n) sulphate 935Morthuthu (n) Blue Morthuthia (n) Blue of copper. Bluestone, vitriol, sulphate of vitriol blue vitriol often used copper. (Sanskrit as a causticfor sores. Mayur tuttha) In some places cooked with gruel and eaten as a meolicine for yaws. (? Arabic blue medici- nal stone)

62 :01.4.1 afro 41,1116.

538 Zambarau (n) a small478Jambu (n) Fruit of 441Jambu or Jamum(n) Not in fruit somewhat resem- the jambudo tree i.. meaning as in Guja- bling a damson or sloe rose apple. rati (Sanskrit-Jambu 71final used as adjective of (2) AdjectiveJambu- oth in colour i.e. purple du or jamudo (i.e. purple) (Sanskrit Jambu) Kalua: -csting Without any hesitation, it can be said that theIndian "kharva" has become "kalua" in Swahili. The original Sanskrit wordKshar+vah (literally it means the ng as carrier of salt) gives us an idea that it relates tosomethingconnected with salt. Before !No U it became Kharvo (singular) and Kharva (plural)in Gujarati the original word must is re- have undergone phonetic changes. Both in Gujarati and Hindi, unlike Swahili,the nouns are classified according :nies t to genders, and the word inquestion is spelt as : .)and ,have KharvoSingular Masculine Kharva or Kharvao Plural Masculine KharvanSingular Feminine KharvanoPlural Feminine changed, since the original Sanskrit .uhas Similarly the meaning appears to have been word has been finally absorbed in Gujaratiand Swahili. As this is a topic to be dis- '.tir in dilate on this here. However, one his- -:nce. cussed under semantics, it is not necessary to cis a torical fact should be remembered thatGujarati, the maritime province of Western India, was connected with the East AfricanCoast from time imemorial. The fact is that while the Indian wordKharvo or Kharva is used by seamen generally it appears that in Swahili themeaning has been restricted. There maybe reasons for this. The early Gujarati seamen were amongthe first batches of Indians who werein touch with the East African Coast. -g as Now let us turn to the phonetic changes.In Swahili "Kh" is usually replaced by : first "H" where borrowed Arabic words areinvolved. In this case the consonant Khfalls tnt- in the category of velar-voicelessaspirate, and it has been changed to K(unvoiced explosive velar) in Swahili. Similarly "r"is replaced by "1". As is known these two liquid alviolar consonants r and 1 areinterchangeable. Hence the principle laiddown by Tucker & Ashton in their invaluable"Swahili Phonetics" at pages 99/100 is ap- plicable to change r to 1. The Indian semi vowel"V" has changed to U. Thus we got Kharva > Kalua, in Swahili. Mrututu: In the Standard Swahili-English Dictionary,the derivation of the word from Arabic (a blue medicinal stone) has beendoubted. There are various points involved regarding the etymalcgy of this word. As far asthe meaning in its strict sence is concerned, (both in Swahili and Gujarat° it conveysthe same meaning. There is no doubt that Swahili has borrowed this word from aforeign tongue, and Gujarati as well as Hindi haveborrowed it from their mother tongue, viz.Sanskrit (Mayurtuttha). In Indian languages this has a deep meaning.The first part of the word Mayur means a peacock. Because of theresemblance of colour of the article it is calledMayurtuttha. , Mpyur has changed to Mor for peacock inGujarati and other Indian languages. Thus Sanskrit Mayurtuttha changed to GujaratiMorthuthu. There is another point to be remembered.The Arabs were not ignorant of India. During the Mogul Rule of India the Yunani systemof medicine contributed to the general welfare of India. The Arabs werealso aware of the Hindu system ofmedicine, Ayurveda. It might be, therefore, that the Arabs mayhave borrowed the word from Indian languages.

63. t

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From phonetic analysis, it does notsound proper that the final consonantchanged in Swahili, because Arabichasth,which appears to be absent inthe wo,-d. to"t" Similarly the Swahili The Gujarati dental consonantthis plosivevoiceless aspirated. plausible that"th" dentaltconsonant is also explosiveaspirated. It therefore seems has changed to "t". Thus makingMorthuthu> Mortutu > Mrututu.There is another remarkable change i.e.Mor >Mru,which when pronounced, soundssomewhat Moru. In view of all these, it is safe tosurmise that Swahili has adopted theword from Gujarati. Zambarau: The derivation of this word in theStandard Swahili Dictionary is notshown, although it is indicated that theword is not of Bantu origin andtherefore it becomes necessary to try toestablish its etymology. TheDictionary gives the meaning as "a small fruit somewhat resembling adamson or sloe". This does not make the mean- ing very clear. It must beremembered that this fruit is the productof the tropical countries. If the word has any root inArabic or Persian, the learned compilerswould have surely noticed this. In the absenceof this let us look at some other avenuesto trace its source of origin. Thisdemands a look at Indian languages.There are then two languages viz. Gujarati and Hindifrom which Swahili has borrowedseveral words. This, at once, brings before us theJambudo tree and its fruit Jambu. It appears that this fruit is the one aboutwhich the origin of the word Zambarauhas to be discussed. The fruit comesunder the category of neuter gender.The following table will show how it changes its formin plural: Singular Plural Jambu Jambudan Sometimes lambu' is also used todenote the colleetive sense of plural. Whenit is used as an adjective, the wordbecomes Jambudo, Jambudio etc.The meaning it conveys is the purplecolour. Interestingly Zambarau whenused as an aljective in Swahili conveys the same meaning. Now let us turn to the phonetic aspectof these words : Jambudan > Zambarau. .The soft palatal J (unaspirateplosive) is alveolarized to Z (fricativevoiced) retroflex. The vowel U is replacedby A. The consonant D (unaspirateplosive) has been changed to r. The conjunct consonant'an' represented by the Sanskrit term , is changed to inSwahili. The study and consideration ofthese various words very clearlyindicates that those foreign words in Swahili whosederivation has not teen clearly established may have their origin somewhere elsethan in East Africa. It thereforebecomes necessary and of the utmost importance forthe furtherance of Swahilistudies to compile various dictionaries of other languageswhich have had connections with thislingua franca of East Africa. To mention afew, the compilation of Arabic/Swahili,Swahili/ Arabic, Persian/Swahili,Swahili/Persian; Gujarati-Hindi/Swahili;Swahili/Gujarati Hindi dictionaries would contribute greatly tothis field and certainly inspire students of African languages and literature to carryout their researches with even greater chance of success.

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