The Incorporation of the Kiswahili Names of Cereals and Tubers in the Non-Bantu Languages in Tanzania

Abstract

Abstract I articulate the mechanisms for the incorporation of Kiswahili names of the New World cereals and tubers in the Afro-asiatic, Khoisan and Nilo-Saharan languages spoken in Tanzania. The penetration of pastoral-terms from non-Bantu societies into Bantu communities is extensively documented. But research on the impact of Kiswahili on non-Bantu languages has not been given prominence except in a few studies. Thus, specific investigation of the names of cereals and tubers into non-Bantu languages is incomplete. With regard to transference of the nomenclature of the farm-related products, I show that the major donor languages in this study include Iraqw and Kiswahili. This result illuminates the fact that agro-pastoral communities (e.g. Iraqw) influence the lexicon of languages spoken by pastoralists (e.g. Datooga) and foraging communities (e.g. Hadza). I show that Kiswahili is the main agent of names of agriculture in non-Bantu communities. Moreover, I highlight that the names of crops are integrated through assignment of gender-number markers primarily in Hadza, Iraqw and Maasai. In Datooga, I show that the number suffixes dominate as the strategy to incorporate Kiswahili words in the language.