University Press of America
Pages: 462
•
Trim: 6⅛ x 9
978-0-7618-6381-6 • Paperback • September 2014 • $64.99 • (£50.00)
978-0-7618-6382-3 • eBook • September 2014 • $61.50 • (£47.00)
Oswald Almasi was born in Tanzania and educated at the University of Dar-es-Salaam. He has been an educator for more than 40 years, in the last 17 years as a professor of Swahili at the University of Toronto and also at York University since 2005.
Michael David Fallon graduated from the University of Toronto as an African Studies Specialist. While at the University of Toronto he studied several languages including Portuguese, Arabic, and also Swahili under the tutelage of Oswald Almasi. He has also lived and spent time in East Africa.
Nazish Pardhan Wared was born in Tanzania and educated at Aga Khan Mzizima Secondary School in Dar-es-Salaam. She has also studied advanced Swahili under Oswald Almasi.
Foreword
Acknowledgments and Dedication
1. About the Swahili Language
2. The Alphabet, Pronunciation, and Common Mistakes
3. Personal Subject Prefixes, Personal Pronouns and
Their Negations
4. Swahili Greetings
5. Present and Future Tenses and Their Negations
6. Simple Past and Past Perfect Tenses and Their Negations
7. The Swahili Noun Class System: M-/WA- and M-/MI-
8. Swahili Noun Classes: JI-/MA- Class and KI-/VI- Class
9. Swahili Noun Classes: N- and U- 81
10. Swahili Noun Classes: PA- and KU- and Noun Class Agreement
11. Object Infixes
12. Possessives
13. Adjectives
14. Demonstratives
15. Comparatives and Superlatives
16. Question Words, Phrases and Statements
17. The Verbs ‘To Be,’ ‘To Have’ and ‘To Be in a Place’
18. Numbers
19. More About Swahili Numbers
20. Telling the Time in Swahili
21. Days, Months, and Dates in Swahili
22. Adverbs
23. Passive Form of the Verb
24. Stative Form of the Verb
25. Causative Form of the Verb
26. Prepositional Form of the Verb
27. Reciprocal Form of the Verb
28. Relatives—The amba- Relative, Relative Infixes
and General Relative
29. Relatives—Manner, Time and Place
30. Imperatives Verbs and Their Negations
31. -KA- Tense and Negation
32. Conditional Tenses: -nge-, -ngali- and -ki- Tenses and Their Negations
33. Additional Tenses and Their Negations
34. Prepositions and Conjunctions
35. Common Swahili Questions and Answers
36. Interjections, Idiomatic Expressions and Impersonal Subjects
37. Subjunctives
38. Diminutive, Augmentative and Collective Nouns
39. Direct and Reported Speech
40. Swahili Proverbs
41. Appendix: Important Charts
42. Swahili Vocabulary Dictionary
About the Authors
This book is the most detailed and comprehensive volume on Swahili grammar currently available. It is a welcome addition to the growing texts on Swahili language and a valuable collection for Swahili scholars worldwide. The writers . . . have collectively presented an in-depth survey of every aspect of Swahili grammar. It is intended for university students or language scholars whose objective is to gain mastery of Swahili grammar from the introductory to intermediate levels. . . .It is ideal . . . for the independent student who is studying on his/her own, or as a resource for the graduate student specializing in linguistic analysis, and also for the avid Swahili language teacher. Users will appreciate what is being said because everything is translated into English. It will be an invaluable addition to any library that desires to expand its collection on foreign languages. . . .[The book is] a well-written and comprehensive Swahili grammar book.
— African Studies Quarterly