1990 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Research on the Variations of Oral Literature and Dialects of the Swahili Language on the East African Coast
| Project/Area Number |
63450064
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
その他の外国語・外国文学
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| Research Institution | Osaka University of Foreign Studies |
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Principal Investigator |
MIYAMOTO Masaoki Osaka University of Foreign Studies, Department of Arabic and African Languages, Professor, 外国語学部 (60066701)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1988 – 1990
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| Keywords | East Africa / Swahili region / Swahili language / Swahili literature / Islam / Oral literature / African literature / Dialectology |
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| Research Abstract |
This project intends to clarify the innate characteristics of the so-called unique amalgam of the African and the Islamic factors in order to grasp the cultural and linguistic identities of the Swahilis, i.e. the East African coastal peoples. The investigator has endeavored to bring the variations of the Swahili dialects to the light and analyze them using the oral materials and classical written poems from the linguistic point of view. The ultimate purpose is to redefine the cultural and linguistic identities of the two distinguished traditions, i.e. the African and the Islamic.
During the term of project, the investigator has published five books on this theme, i.e. Essays on Swahili Literature (1989), Africa seen from Literature (1989), Swahili Manuscripts of Shaaban Robert (1990), Language, Literature and African World (1991), Folktales of Tanzania (1991) and articles such as 'Writings and Civilization' (1990), 'Traditions and Innovations of Swahili Literature' (1991) and others.
The investigator believes that some specific remarks against the wider African background could be drawn on the Swahili cultural and linguistic features from these books and articles. However, the present status of our knowledge still lacks comprehensive and systematic first hand information for the more strict analysis of the dialects and oral texts of this language. It should be also added that the dichotomous approach of the traditional African and the Islamic is something which might leads to misconceptions. Each component has already contained a lot of sub-cultural-linguistic features, both synchronically and diachronically.
It seems an urgent need to carry out an extensive field research on Swahili dialects to break through the present deadlock of our pursuit of the final results.
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