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Notes 1
TOPIC 1 - KUONGEZA MSAMIATI WA KISWAHILI
TOPIC 2 - UENEAJI WA KISWAHILI ENZI ZA WAINGEREZA NA BAADA YA UHURU
TOPIC 3 - UHAKIKI WA KAZI ZA FASIHI ANDISHI
TOPIC 4 - KUTUNGA KAZI ZA FASIHI ANDISHI
2. KUKUA NA KUENEA KWA KISWAHILI ENZI YA WAINGEREZA NA BAADA YA UHURU
3. UHAKIKI WA KAZI ZA FASIHI ANDISHI
THE SWAHILI CULTURE
Bantu And Swahili Culture
Swahili culture is the culture of the Swahili people inhabiting
the Swahili Coast, encompassing today’s Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and
Mozambique, as well as the adjacent islands of Zanzibar and Comoros and some parts
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Malawi. They speak Swahili as their
native language, which belongs to the Niger-Congo family. Swahili culture is
the product of the history of the coastal part of the African Great Lakes
region.
As with the Swahili language, Swahili culture has a Bantu core
and has also borrowed from foreign influences. Around 3,000 years ago, speakers
of the proto-Bantu language group began a millennia-long series of
migrations eastward from their homeland between West Africa and Central
Africa, at the border of eastern Nigeria and Cameroon. This Bantu
expansion first introduced Bantu peoples to central, southern, and
southeastern Africa, regions they had previously been absent from. The Swahili
people are mainly united under the mother tongue of Kiswahili, a Bantu
language. This also extends to Arab, Persian, and other migrants who
reached the coast around the 7th and 8th centuries, providing considerable
cultural infusion and numerous loan words from Arabic and Persian.
However, archaeologist Felix Chami notes the presence of
Bantu settlements straddling the Southeast African coast as early as the
beginning of the 1st millennium. They evolved gradually from the 6th century
onward to accommodate for an increase in trade (mainly with
Arab merchants), population growth, and further centralized urbanization,
developing into what would later become known as the Swahili city-states.
Swahili City-States
Around the 8th
century, the Swahili people began trading with the Arab, Persian, Indian,
Chinese, and Southeast Asian peoples—a process known as the Indian Ocean trade.
As a consequence of
long-distance trading routes crossing the Indian Ocean, the Swahili were
influenced by Arabic, Persian, Indian, and Chinese cultures. During the 10th
century, several city-states flourished along the Swahili Coast and adjacent
islands, including Kilwa, Malindi, Gedi, Pate, Comoros, and Zanzibar. These
early Swahili city-states were Muslim, cosmopolitan, and politically
independent of one another.
They grew in wealth as
the Bantu Swahili people served as intermediaries and facilitators to
local, Arab, Persian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Indian, and Chinese merchants.
They all competed against one another for the best of the Great Lakes region’s
trade business, and their chief exports were salt, ebony, gold, ivory, and
sandalwood. They were also involved in the slave trade. These city-states began
to decline towards the 16th century, mainly as a consequence of the Portuguese
advent. Eventually, Swahili trading centers went out of business, and commerce
between Africa and Asia on the Indian Ocean collapsed.
ECONOMY
Swahili economy today, as in the past, is intricately linked to
the Indian Ocean. For approximately 2,000 years, Swahili merchants have acted
as middlemen between eastern and central Africa and the outside world. They
played a significant role in the trade of ivory and enslaved peoples which
climaxed during the 19th centuries. Trade routes extended across Tanzania into
modern day Democratic Republic of the Congo, along which goods were brought to
the coasts and were sold to Arab, Indian, and Portuguese traders. Many slaves
sold in Zanzibar ended up in Brazil, which was then a Portuguese colony.
Swahili fishermen still rely on the ocean to supply their primary source of
income. Fish is sold to their inland neighbors in exchange for products of the
interior.
HOW
TO LEARN A LANGUAGE FAST – PART 4
9. Concentrate on one
language island at a time
If you’ve ever felt
stuck in your language learning journey, you’re not alone. Many learners
experience what’s known as the language
plateau, where they feel like they can’t progress
further than they already have. To overcome this hurdle, Richards suggests
focusing on a single “language island.” Instead of jumping between unrelated
topics like World War II, gardening, and Harry Potter, which introduce a vast
range of vocabulary, he suggests focusing on interconnected subjects. For
instance, delving into the histories of World War I, World War II, the Vietnam
War, and the Korean War would be considered one language island. The advantage?
“You’ll be learning lots of military terms, seeing those same words come up
over and over again in different contexts,” Richards says. The beauty of this
approach lies in its simplicity. By immersing yourself in a specific language
island, you encounter repeated vocabulary, which helps you learn faster.
Richards shares a personal example to illustrate this: “I’ve been watching
videos in Cantonese about making videos on YouTube. So, when I move on to the
next video, I see the same vocabulary coming up all the time, which means I
learn it faster.”
10. Know Your Motivation
for Learning a New Language
It’s silly to even have
to say this, but knowing why you’re learning a foreign language is key to
mastering it. Many people start learning a language with no idea of what
they’ll use it for. And, sure enough, they fail. You can know all the tips and
tricks there are to learning a language, but if you don’t know
the why behind it all, how it’s going to enrich your life, chances
are you’re going to lose motivation and the learning will fizzle out like an
engine sputtering out of gas. Are you looking to start a new life in a different
country? Are you learning a foreign language because
you’re fascinated by the culture and want to dive in at the deep end? Are you
planning a trip to a foreign land and simply wanting to be able to order street
food and tell the taxi driver where you’re going in the local language?
11. Create clear goals
In order to understand your progress, you’ll need to give yourself tangible goals. This simultaneously pushes you to keep learning, while also giving you opportunities to celebrate particular milestones. Lingoda classes are based on CEFR levels, making it easy to understand how your language skills have progressed. You’re also not required to take classes at the same CEFR level. So for example, if you’re really great in grammar but struggle with speaking, you might take higher level grammar classes, but lower level speaking classes. This method ensures that all areas of the language are covered and you know which ones need more improvement.
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