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Swahili (kiSwahili) Swahili is a Bantu language spoken by about 35 million people in Tanzania, Burundi, Congo (Kinshasa) Kenya, Mayotte, Mozambique, Oman, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Uganda, UAE and the USA. Swahili is an official language of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya and is used as a lingua franca throughout East Africa. The name Swahili comes from the Arabic word sawāhil (coasts) and the language contains a lot of vocabulary from Arabic, Persian, Malagasy, English, German and Portuguese. The earliest known manuscript in Swahili, a poetic epic, was written in the ARABIC script and dates from 1728. During the the 19th century Swahili was used as the main language of administration by the European colonial powers in East Africa and under their influence the LATIN alphabet was increasingly used to write it. The first Swahili newspaper, Habari ya Mwezi, was published by missionaries in 1895. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/swahili.htm

So you just said exactly what I have been saying?

What is your point?

Are you my buddy now or what?

As I have said from the outset, SWAHILI neve ever never ever never had a WRITTEN form of language until (first) Arabs taught Swahili speakers to write out Swahili in Arabic (alphabet) and then (second) Europeans taught Swahili speakers to spell out Swhaili in English (Indo-European alphabet).

Is it that you are now agreement with me?? Why did you decide to post exactly what I have said from the outset?

I studied all of this in school. Swahili was a big part of our debate on African language and why most all African languages never had a writen form, they were ONLY SPOKEN languages.

It wasn’t until the Arabs and Europeans arrived that African languages were written out in other languages PHONETCIALLY - the way that they sound.

There are a few exceptions to the African rule of no written languages. One is of course Egypt.

Most universities teach that the language in Egypt was not phonetic (it’s just pictures). But when I (lucas) was in University the professor agrued that we don’t know for sure if the Egyptian language (it’s pictures) was actually void of phonetic sounds that might be made up by a group of pictures.

We had a long week debate about it.

In any case, it’s clear now that not you nor Great Kim / Mik Tearg are very familiar with much of African language. Your online copy and pastes are telltale signs of this.

I can talk for day on the subject.

Again, I’m not sure why you chose to agree with me.

Thank you though.

Respectfully,
Lucas Smith.