Settler Swahili
| Settler Swahili | |
|---|---|
| Settla | |
| Kisetla | |
| Region | Zambia, Kenya |
Native speakers | None |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
sta |
| Glottolog |
sett1235[1] |
G40C[2] | |
Settla (Kisetla), or Settler Swahili, is a Swahili pidgin mainly spoken in large European settlements in Kenya and Zambia. It is used mainly by native English speaking European colonists for communication with the native Swahili speakers.
Origins
Due to British colonization in the region, there has been a complex relationship between English and the native languages of the countries. See History of Kenya and History of Zambia for more details.
Phonology
Vowels
Settla appears to have a similar vowel system as compared to standard Swahili.[3]
Consonants
Settla contains a different and more reduced set of consonants than standard Swahili.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar / palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ny /ɲ/ | ng /ŋ/ | |||
| Stop | Plosive | b /b/ | d /d/ | j /j/ | g /g/ | ||
| Tenuis | p /p/ | t /t/ | ch /tʃ/ | k /k/ | |||
| Aspirated | (p /pʰ/) | (t /tʰ/) | (ch /tʃʰ/) | (k /kʰ/) | |||
| Fricative | Voiced | v /v/ | dh /ð/ | z /z/ | |||
| Voiceless | f /f/ | th /θ/ | s /s/ | sh /ʃ/ | h /h/ | ||
| Flap | r /ɾ/ | ||||||
| Approximant | l /l/ | y /j/ | w /w/ | ||||
Notes:
- Voiceless stops p, t, and k are often more aspirated in Settla when compared to standard Swahili. This is particularly true when these stops are in word-initial position or require more articulation.
- For some /k/ in standard Swahili, Settla uses /g/. example: piga hit pika cook in standard and piga hit, cook in Settla.
- Settla lacks the implosive variants b /ɓ/, d /ɗ/, j /ʄ/, and g /ɠ/.
- /f/ and /v/ in Settla feature a different allophonic distribution than in standard Swahili. For example, in standard Swahili ndovu(elephant), nguvu(strength), and mbovu(rotten) must feature v, whereas in Settla, both words for elephant and strength can freely use either f or v: ndovu/ndofu, nguvu/ngufu. However rotten mbovu must always use a /v/ in Settla.
- Some dialects of Swahili feature dh /ð/, th /θ/, gh /ɣ/, and kh /x/, however these do not occur in Settla. th /θ/, dh /ð/ are usually merged into s and z respectively, while gh /ɣ/ is always merged into g. kh /x/ will always merge into either k or h, with there seeming to be a preference towards the corresponding English form. Since gh /ɣ/ and kh /x/ are changed, typical Arabic loanwords that feature those segments are practically never used in Settla.
- The nasal velar /ŋ/ does not occur by itself in Settla as it does in standard Swahili. /ŋ/ alternates between a stop g, and a nasal ŋ plus stop g.
Morphology
A thorough investigation into the morphology of Settla has not occurred, but there are some general patterns that hold true.
Noun Classes
Settla features a noun class system that differs from standard Swahili, which like most Bantu languages contains a rich noun class system. Since most Settla speakers are native speakers of English, which lacks a complex noun class system, Settla appears to also have a less complex noun class system than standard Swahili. Although there needs to be more research on the specifics, it can be concluded that the speakers of Settla do not disregard this system, but their patterns do most certainly differ from standard Swahili.
In Settla:
- n- nouns are identical.
- m-/mi- and ji-/ma- classes only occur in the plural form.
- ki-/vi- and m-/wa- classes tend to occur in singular form.
- nouns that feature an initial nasal followed by a stop undergo epenthesis of a vowel.
Concordial Agreement
Numeral adjectives and certain adverbial forms do not always feature concordial agreement like in standard Swahili.
Affixes
Swahili is an agglutinative language, which gives rise to a complex structure for verbs in the form of affixes. Unlike standard Swahili, Settla verbs do not feature any negative, subject marking, relative pronoun marking, or object marking affixes. However, Settla can still convey these aspects by using other words and not verb-bound affixes.
For example, if one looks at personal pronoun subject marking in standard Swahili, one would find that these subject affixes are required for the verb. In Settla, in a form that perhaps mimics English, these affixes are absent and replaced by outside personal pronoun nouns, which only rarely occurs in standard Swahili. Given the personal pronouns of Settla:
| Singular | Plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | First Person | Second Person | Third Person | First Person | Second Person | Third Person | |
| English | I | you | he, she | it, that | we | you (y'all) | they |
| Settla | mimi ~ mi | wewe ~ we | yeye ~ ye | ile | sisi | (ninyi) | (wao) |
We can see that in standard Swahili, the definite time marker attaches closer to the verb stem as opposed to the subject prefix, and that the 3pl marking affix is also present in the verb. In Settla, the 3pl affix is removed, forcing the definite time affix to only attach to the verb directly, and the pronoun used is yeye (he / she), since wao (they) appears to be fairly absent in Settla.
Standard Swahili:
wao wa- -na- kaa They 3pl DEF. TIME sit - 'They are sitting'
Settla:
yeye na- kaa They (He/She) DEF. TIME sit - 'They are sitting'
- Affixes marking an object that are featured in standard Swahili are also replaced by separate words in Settla.
- As opposed to direct objects, indirect objects in standard Swahili are given precedence to be marked. This indirect object must also feature a dative case suffix. In Settla, the dative suffix is omitted, and the syntactic structure mimics English again, like in the example above.
- Standard Swahili features many ways of negativizing verbs (including marking a verb with an affix), whereas Settla uses the word hapana (commonly meaning 'no' in standard Swahili) in a more free manner (generally mimicking English syntax)to negativize the verb that follows.
- As noted above, Settla lacks verb constructions that generally feature a complement affix in standard Swahili. However the one large exception occurs where standard Swahili would feature a subjunctive, the Settla form of the verb would take on the infinitive prefix ku- (to in English). One brief exception to this exception though, is that the preposition kwa is sometimes used to indicate purpose, and therefore appears to form a restriction between kwa and ku- co-occuring.
- Many other affixes within a standard swahili verb are replaced within Settla.
- iko, a locative verb in standard Swahili is expanded in Settla. It is used more generally as a locative, ignoring other more specific affixes that would occur in standard. Iko may also be used in Settla as a copula alternating with ni or null.
- Tense in Settla is heavily reduced to only 3 forms (Standard has 11). na-, the present tense affix often can mean future tense as well. The tense of a phrase is generally determined contextually.
Lexicon
Settla's lexicon is considered to be on a continuum between the two official languages of Kenya: standard Swahili and English. The lexicon is also heavily influenced by geographical, social, and emotional factors. Although geography factors into the lexicon, it is unknown if Settla features different dialects between geographical areas.
It is not uncommon for parts of Settla speech to be in a bantuized version of English, and in fact sometimes whole sentences can come out in English. Due to the rise of English education in Kenya, it is possible for communication to feature more and more English words and phrases.
Usage In Popular Culture
Settla can be seen spoken in Ernest Hemingway's nonfiction work Green Hills of Africa.
References
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Settla". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ↑ Vitale, Anthony (1980). "Kisetla: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Aspects of a Pidgin Swahili of Kenya". Anthropological Linguistics 22 (2): 47–65.