First Published in 2004. The following essay is a tentative study of a little explored area of the delicate syntactic properties of transitivity for the language, Swahili. In eastern Africa the role of Swahili is a complicated one: it is spoken as a first language by a relatively small number of people, perhaps a million, living mainly along the East African littoral and on the off-shore islands of Pemba, Zanzibar and Mafia. It is spoken as a second language by a much larger number of people, in excess of ten million, in up-country Tanzania and Kenya, most of whom speak as a first language, a Bantu language more or less closely related to it. It is spoken as a third language by an indeterminate but probably quite large number of people (certainly in excess of a million) in Uganda, the Congo (Kinshasa) Republic and the Nilotic-speaking areas of Kenya.

About the Author
W.H. Whiteley Professor of Bantu Languages in the University of London


Book Information
ISBN 9780901877796
Author W. H. Whiteley
Format Paperback
Page Count 124
Imprint RoutledgeCurzon
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 181g