THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME 'SWAHILI'
Marina Tolrizacheva
With thenational consciousnessrising in the young East African states, a question
of etlznic roots and cultural identity causes vivid discussion on the origins of 'Swahili'
as the leading ethnonym of the coastal area. For the Waswahili, this word has become
not only a symbol of national unity but also a means of reiterating the 'Africanness7
of their civilization and proving it to the outside world. It seems, however, that in the
heat of argument, the important distinctio~lsbetween national and ethnic, cultural
and linguistic in the background of the Swahili are sometimes overlook@. Ibrahim
Noor Shariff writes wit11 ironic suprise:
'
"Despite the wealth of Swahili literature that is being produced
by the Swahili people (or more properly, Waswahili) and despite the
fact that Europeans came in contact with the Waswahili and their
languages before the seventeenth century, it seems few Westerners are
sure just who the Waswahili are."l
.
This statement seems to take it for granted that all those who contribute to
Swahili-language literature belong to the Waswahili. But confusion on this issue
exists not solely in the Western miadz, and different attitudes appear to depend strongly
on interpretation of 'Swahili' as a term, and on the definition of its scope and roots.
Two contrasting statements summarize the 'traditional' and 'unconformist' views on
the latter: (1) 'It is generally accepted that its name (Swahili) is a modified form of
the Arabic sawahil, plural of sahil coast';3 (2) 'We cannot say authentically that
'Swahili' and many of the loaned words are of non-Bantu origin.'4
This rather unexpected declaration forms part of a wider argument:
"There is a possibility that (the word 'Swahili') does not originate from
the Arabic language. In fact nobody has done a systematic study of
Kiswahili etymology and all tlze words from Kiswahili which seemed
similar in both sound and meaning t o the words from the languages
of people who had traded with or colonized the 'Waswahili' were taken
a t once by the compilers of the (Standard Swahili-English) Dictionary
to be 'loan-words',"5
So much importance is being attached to this single word that the oizly way of
putting such and similar doubts to rest would be in going back to the early sources and
tracing the history of this term on both the Arab and Swahili side. This is not an easy
task, since the evidence, especially for the latter, is by far not adequate. Although the
Swahili language, as apparently has been conclusively substantiated, originated before
the tenth century,6 no records exist which could prove the use of the name 'Swahili'
by the native population of the coast before the Arabs brought it into circulation.
I
1. Ibrahim Noor Shariff, 'Waswahili and their Language,' Kiswahili, Vol. 4312, (September 1973),
p. 67.
2. See for example Carol Eastman, 'Who are the Waswahili,' Africa, Vol. XLI, No. 3 (July 1971)
and F.F. Madoshi, 'The Meaning of the word Mswahili,' Kiswalzili, Vol. 4111 (March 1971).
3. Rajmund Ohly, 'Dating of Swahili Language,' Kislvahili, Vol. 42124311 (September 1972March 1973), p. 16.
4. Madoshi, p. 90.
5. Ibid., p, 89.
6. Ohly, p. 23.
The only availnble information in Swahili sources comes from comparatively late
recordings of llistorical tradition and court chronicles. One has to rely on the tendency
of such documet~tsto be conservative about both the contents and vocabulary in
order that any deductions may be inade concerning the original word usage.
Thc Arabic language provides an unlimited number of cases illustrating the
application of the word sdil both in the singular and plural. However, very rarely
docs it seen1 to be en~ployedas a definite term and still less frequently demonstrafes
specific geograpllical connotation. I shall therefore attempt below to determine the
scope of meanings pecular to tlie forms sohil and sawallil in their use in geographic
context and wit6 particular reference to East Africa. I shall then proceed to analyze
the relevant. Swahili material to establish their range of application in the indigenous
vocabulary.
Despite the well-meant arguments like tlie one above belonging to F.F. Maposhi,
the fact remains that the amount of A~abicloan-words in Swahili is adrnittedlyhigh:
it is, indeed, one of the aspects which make Swaldi so distinct from the other Bantu
languages. Therefore, the majority of Swahili students accept in good faith the thesis
that this appellativum for the coast divellers and their tongue is derived from Arabic.
In remarking on the use of the toponym SalieZ outside Africa, Shariff unwittingly
settles the doubts as to its Arabic authenticity:
"The word 'Swahili' has been assumed to have originated from the
Arabic Sahil, which means coast, the plural of which is Sawahil. Assuming that that is true, one should remember that in Arabic this term
is not confined to the east coast of Africa only. The Trucial States
bordering the western side of Oman, for instance, are always referred to
as Sal~ilOmaiz, meaning the coast of Oman, because they geographically
form its coast towards the Arabian Gulf. One often hears the term SahiI
being used all along the coast of the Arabic speaking word.";'
The coast of Eastern Arabic produced also the toponym Slti?zr with identical
meaning 'coast' and basically of the same provenance. On the African continent we
fmd at least two instances of similar use of the word salzel where it can be definitely
classified as a term. They are the Atlas Sahel at the uorthern confines of the Sahara
desert and the Sudan Sahel forming its southern boundary.
ow ever, it may benoticed that all these examplesusethe singular while the name
'Swahili' i s based on the plural. As I have pointed out earIier,s if an originating term
for some reason is derived from a plural instead of singular, the fact cannot be easily
explained by the suggestion of a simple transfer of the word 'coast/coasts' from one
language into another. The case of the Saharan. Sahels proved rather convin~ingly
that if such were the story, the form used in East Africa, too, would have most probably been the singular. Even if we were to suppose that the foreign word only
displaced'some local name already in use, i.e. a Swahili or Bantu term translated into.
Arabic and later wiped out (and we have no evidence of this), the problem of the
number chosen would not be solved.
An attempt to approach this question from a different standpoint has been made
by R. OMy who suggested that 'Swahili' did not develop directly from sahil 'coast'
but is a modified for of the Arabic salvaltila 'coastal dwellers'.g But this view, quite
sound in itself, is not supported by the sources which register not a single instance of
I
7. SharS, p. 68.
8. M.A. Tolmacheva, 'East African coast in Arabic geographic literature, 'Strany i 11arody Yosfok~,
Vol. IX (1969, in Russian), p. 280.
9. Rajmund Ohly, Lungages of Africa (Warsaw, 1973), p. 48 cited in OMy, p. 16.
sonobilo being applied to the East African population in the course of the early
Middle Ages when the name was being implanted on the coast.
. If we are unable at present to establish when the name did appear, it is at least
possible to ascertain when the sourkes first recorded it. Tlle earliest geographic works
in Arabic do not sliow their awareness of such a term having been created, and employ
botli the singular and the plural of sahil without attaching to them any specific ethnic
or regional content. If the plural happens 'to be used, it is to underline the number
of plots discussed or to indicate a coast-line of considerable length.
This also holds true for descriptions of East ~ f r i o aTlie
. first example is found in
the account of Pemba and Zanzibar provided by al-Jaliiz (d. 869) : 'Indeed, you have
never seen Zanj who are the real kind. What you saw was merely captives from the
coasts (saw)ahil)of Qanbalo (Pemba). You have never seen yet a single inhabitant
of Lanjuya (Uunguja), eitlierfrom tlie coast (sa~~ahil)
or from the people of interior.'lo
..
The word Zanj is used here as a generic term for the Negroid population of
East Africa. In other instances it may'play the role of n toponyln and apply to the
part ofthe African continent settled by tllepeople so called. Tliemost common division
of the African shore of theIndian Ocean in Arab geography is into three large sections :
the land of Barbara (Somali coast-line), Zanj (including roughly the cost between
Malindi and Kilwa), and Sofala-the somewhat mysterious land south of Kilwa.11
Describing the south-western part of the Indian Ocea~z,Egyptian encyclopaedisi.
al-Nuwairi (d. 1332) uses the singular of salzil in the accepted meaning: 'This part
(of the Indian Sea) borders upon the section called the Sea of the Zanj and upon the
Sea of Barbara; its coast (salzil) is named al-Zanjabar.'l2
Speaking of the same territory, Yaqut (d. 1229) choses the plural: 'Sea of the
Zanj. . from their coasts (sawalzil) ambergris is collected: it is not found except on
their coast (sewalzil).'~3
.
There is another group of sources which refer io a certain area called 'Sawahil'.
These are represented by accounts of travellers or men who frequented the coast i n
their professional capacity. Whiteley carefully stated that Ibn Battuta (fourteenth
century) 'is one of the earliest to refer specifically to 'Swahili'.l4 Two aspects of this
thesis require comment: at the present level of source study Ibn Battuta is the first
Arab author who definitely uses 'Sawahil' as a toponym. Such a reliable writer as
al-Mas'udi (d. 956) who visited Pembaia 916 andprovides precious information on the
Zmj, never mentions the name. Nor do the later sources well into the fourteenth
century, and the rigid scheme of the coast-line (above) never allows this name into the
vocabulary of classical Arab geograplzy.
Further, it seems to me wrong to use the modern 'Africanized' form 'Swahili' in
referring to an Arabic account of the fourteenth century even though Whiteley warns
us to avoid misunderstanding, 'there is no evidence to support a view that he uses the
term in other than its geographical sense.'Is Ibn Battuta's text, translated literally,
reads :
-
10. G. van Vloten. Tria ouuscltla aucfore Abrr Orl~rtrmzAnn. ibtr Bahr al-Dja~izBarse~ui(Lugduni
Batavorum, 1903), p. 67.
11. For summary of description and source review see ~olrnacl;eva,pp. 269-272, 287-289.
12, Shihab-al-Din Ahrnad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab al-Nuwairi, Nilraj~ata!-Arabfifirntr~~
al-adab (Misr,
s.a.), Vol. I, p. 242.
13. Jacrtr 'sgeograplrisches Worrerbuch,hrsg. von F. Wustenfeld (Leipu'g, 1866-1873), Vol. I, p. 501.
14. Wilfred Whiteley, S~valiili:The Rise of a Aratiortal Ln~tg~~uge
(London, 1969), ch. 2, note 10.
15. Ibid.
''Then I sailed from the city of Mogadisho heading for the country
of al-Sawahil . . . We arrived to the island of Mombasa. It is a large
island at the distance of two days by sea from the land of al-Sawahil. . .
The inhabitants of the island have no grain and it is imported to them
from al-Sawahil."16
Since there is no indication to the direction in which the two days' sail was to be
counted off, we are left to uncertain conclusions at this point. While H. A. R. Gibb
suggested two days sailing time to the southward, 17 W. Whiteley offered the following
choices :
"It is not clear from this account where the Swahili were located,
it is presumably somewhere between Mombasa and Kilwa, or even
bet ween Mombasa and Mogadishu, but i t is clearly solnewhere within
tlze 'country of the Zenjs'. Indeed, in view of Pemba's later reputation
as a granary, i t would not be unreasonable to locate i t there.. . "I8
Indeed, it would. Pemba is the very first place in the area t o become famous
among t he Arabs under a nat ive naine :Qanbalu (Qanbalo, Qan bala) from Mkumbuu/
Mkumbulu, a port merit ioned last by Yaqut who describes t h e island under its Arab
name of Jazirat al-Khadra'.lg Ganbalu figures in the early accounts more frequently
than any other toponym on tlze coast, and its insular location is never forgotten :
as a rule, only t o an area on the mainland (which, however, may include adjacent
islands) would the Arabs apply the words bilad 'country' and ard 'land'.
Trying to reconstruct possible ways of Ibn Battuta's reasoning, one may imagine
that the route of his own voyage could have conditioned the order of narration.
In fact he does put the account of Mogadisho before Mombasa, and follows the latter
by report of ISilwa in observance with the south-bound itinerary. Moreover, in a late
fifteenth-century source I found a definite indication that the Sawahil were (the name
continues to be treated as the plural) located north of Mombasa: "With the monsoon
the going-in sets off for al-Sawahil and enters them with Tir (Sirius). / Behind them
appears the estuary, and Mombasa shows to their south."20
This is a sailing instruction in verse composed (or related) by a famous navigator,
'Lion of the Sea' Ahmad ibn Majid. The exactitude of his statements, required by his
profession, prompts us that not onlyis Mombasa simply situated south of the Sawahil
but it maypossiblyrepresent the southernlimit of the region. I turn to other fragments
of this manual looking for indicatioiis of the northern boundary of the Sawahil, and
find it :
This urjuza (poem in rajaz meter) is titled Sofaliya. Its purpose
is to acquaint with the currents and (astronomic) measureinents from
Malaybar, Kabalan, Guzerat, Sind and Atwah to the Long Beach and
from it to the areas of al-Sawahil, al-Zanj, the land of Sofala and Q~unr
with its islands (Madagascar and the Comoros)."2l
"
C. Defremery et B.R. Sangpinetti, Voyagesd'lblt Bafoz~tah,(Paris, 1877), Vol. II, p. 191.
H.A.R. Gibb, The Travels of l b ~Battuta
t
(Cambridge, 1962), Vol. II,, p. 379, note 56.
Wlziteley, P. 35.
I accept the usually somewhat skeptically treated identscation of W.H. Ingrams, Za~zzibar.
Its History a~tdits People, (London, 1931), p. 81. See also Jacut, Vol. 11, p. 75.
20. T.A. Shumovskiy, Tri ~reizvesf~tye
lotsii Abnada ibn MadzIzida (Moscow-Leningrad, 1957,
in Russian and Arabic), p. 25.
21. Ibid., p. 13.
16.
17.
18.
19.
This enumeration of areas facing the Indian Ocean so obviously follows a sailing
route that we would be amply justified in locating the Sawahil between the Zanj
(more precisely, Mombasa) and the 'Long Beach', Sif (Saif) Tawil, occupying part
of the Somali coast approximately between 30 and 5 0 N.
It appears that since Ibn Battuta's visit on the coast the southern boundary of
the Sawahil had shifted towards Mombasa. If we are to follow his instructions, two
days' voyage north, at the usually accepted rate of 100 mi1es.a day, for day-and-night
sailing, would take us to the area between the mouth of the Juba river and Lamu
archipelago (Bajun islands). The territory between it and the Sif Tawil bears now the
name of Benadir (sometimes in modern usage Benadir also covers the stretch of
Sif Tawil).
Immediately a curious observation can be made :as if it were following the pattern
of derivation noted in the toponym Sawahil, this name is also based on the plural.
It is an Arabic plural of the Persian baizdar 'harbour, port'. The coincidence, in fact,
is threefold: grammatical (both names use the plural), geographic (both refer to
approximately the same area), and semantic, for salzil may mean, besides 'coast',
aport or coastal settlement.22 It is this latter meaning, as I have suggested elsewhere23
which gave rise to a new term and necessitated the use of plural. It was almost guessed
by Whiteley when he wrote: 'It is certainly true that the early history of Swahili, as
we know it, belongs to the coast, the word itself being derived from the Arabic word
for 'coasts' or perhaps 'port-towd.24
But without realizing the full weight of this possibility, he went on to translate
'Sawahil' in Ibn Battuta's account by the usual 'coast/coastlines'.2~ Gibb's translation
of Ibn Battuta's 'Travels' also has 'Coastlands' despite a perceptive comment: 'Sahil,
literally 'coastland', meant in maritime usage a port serving as an entrepot for the
goods of its hinterland.'26
The same group of sources which supplied examples for the more usual
application of salzil reveals that the word could be concurrently used in a different
sense. For example, in al-Jahiz: 'Qanbalo is the name of a place where your ships
throw anchor in the harbour.'27
Ibn al-Mujawir (thirteenth century) provides a becoming example of both sahil
and bandar being used in one phrase: 'On the sides of the island (Socotora) there are
many harbours (sawalzil), for example Bandar-Musa (literally, Port Moses).'28
Al-Nuwairi uses sahil 'port' side by side with still third term for 'harbour, port'
furda:
"Approaching al-Mandab (the Red Sea) follows along the northern side
passi~gGalafiqa and al-Ahwab, and these two are the harbours (salzila)
of Zabid.. .from al-Qulzum it turns southwards and goes by alQusayr- and this is the port Cfurda) of Qus-then follows on to Aydhaby
22. For example, in R. Dozy, Supplement aux dic?;&naires Arabes, (Leyde, 1881) or E. Lane,
ArabioEngl~shLexicon, (New York, 1956).
23. Tolmacheva, p. 282.
24. Whiteley, p. 2.
25. Ibid., ch. 2, note 10.
26. Gibb, p. 379, note 56.
27. Vloten, p. 67.
28. 0. Lofgren, Descriptio Arabiae Meridioilalis. Ibn al-Mugaivir (Leiden, 1951-1954), Val. 11,
p. 268.
..
the entrepot (fu~da)of the Beja country, stretches towards Zayla which
serves as emporiuln (sal~il)for Abyssinia, and reaches Berbera.""
Physical conditions explain why the name of such meaning could not be attached
to any part of the eastern Somali coast further north:
"Le premier ha~v-e,au sud de Khafou~t,est celui de Ouarcheikh, et, d'apris
la configlo.ation actuelle de la cste, l~ousne pensonspas qu'il ait pu, en
auczmtnnps, en1 exister d'autreplus au nord. Mais, dpartir de Ouarcheikh
j~isqridr, Djoub, se troulant plusieurs petits havres naturels. .
Professional treatment of 'Sawahil' by the sailors in several different areas shows
that even when it is used for the Red Sea coasts of Africa (Sawalzil al-Sudan), the
primary connotation is still that of 'entrepots' rather than 'coasts' (as translated by
Tibbers) for the same group of sources has Zayali (the plural of Zayla), al-Barabir
(plural for Berbera), and al-Dahalik 'the Dahlaks',31 all following the same pattern
of the Arabic plural as Sawahil.
Why did the Arabs not call 'Sawahil' some part of the southern Zanj littoral?
Apparently, because they knew of no similar clusters of harbours there, or maybe
because they knew too well the few large ones. Some Arab geographies list one East
African city after the other, but when it comes to indentification, the number of reliable
names includes only: Malindi, Mombasa, Kilwa and Mulbayuni (Mozambique)
on the mainland and such vast islands as Pelnba, Zanzibar with Tumbatu, and Mafia?
Thus it becomes apparent that the northern part of Zanj and the southern Somali
coast-line offered especially favourable conditions for the development of several
important towns supplemented by innumerable small harbours. Moreover, here the
traders from India and the Near East first came into contact with their African
customers and counter-agents after a long sail across the sea and along the inhospitable
and barren Somali coast. Here was also an important stop for those who, due t o
unfavourable winds and currents, had to sail past Socotora, and for those who made
route from Madaga~car.~3Each side participating in commercial and cultural
exchange acquired a name for it: both 'Sawaliil' and 'Banadir' occur in Swahili
sources as well. Wlzat can these sources add to their history?
Althoughno Swahili narrative was proven to have originated before the sixteenth
century, the data recorded in them may be used as an instrument for tentatively
dating the vocabulary.
The Lamu Chronicle attaches the name 'Swahili' to the mainland littoral when
recalling the seventh-century migrants from the Caliphate: "Awali ya watu wa Larnu
29. al-Nuwairi, Vol. I, p. 243.
30. Guillain, Docrtnwnts sur I'l~istoire,la geographic et le cominerce de Z'Afriqrte orientale (Paris,
1856), Vol. I, p. 98.
31. G.R. Tibbets, Arab Navigatio~ziiz tJle Iildiair Ocealz before tlze conri~?gof tlze Portrrguese (London,
1971), p. 421.
32. M.A. Tolmacheva, East Afiica iiz Medieval Arab accounts: an ethno-geographic strmy, unpublished Ph. D. dissertation (Leningrad: USSR Academy of Sciences Institute of Ethnography,
1970), Ch. 111.
33. Ibn al-Mujawir calls Kilwa and Mogadisho main stops en route from Madagascar to Aden.
See Lofg-ren, Vol. I p. 117.
A. Werner indicated that Waswaliili regard as their historical fatherland the small
part of the coast from Pate to Malindi with adjacent island.35 In the early nineteenth
century H. Salt recourited his contact with the people 'who call themselves Sowauli':
'Tliis tribe dwells on the Eastern Coast of Africa, extending from Mugdasho. . .to the
neigltbourhood of Mombasa.'3G
The Cllronicleof Larnu, speaking of the events of tliefourteentli century, stretches
'Sawahili' over a considerable length of coast, reacliil~gto Icilwa. At this stage it
seems to refer not so much to tlie territory (various towns are listed) as to the population :
"Akapata 71guvusafzaakapijajuiizla yn ~tzijiyasa~taltili:Uzilvarza Malindi
na Kilvayu na Kitau 17aMiya na finizina Mhtainu hatta nlcafilca Kirimba.
Mijiyote akai~ailzalakifnnguPate Ifatt a J<i~.iinba kzrlla nz uji akn~vekarntu
wake ili ku?zuku~nu,rzdiyo asli ya hao nzdjui~zbetvaliyoko katilca nzirit~za
zote.
..
"37
The same chronicle applies the word Banadiiaito a limited area on the Somali
coast, although the meaning of 'harbours' is distinctly felt, and tlie name has not yet
become a toponym:
"Na janibu ya hulcu akatanzalaki hatfa 7VarcIzehi Icwa vita alikuwaizza
kupija faizgu kirvayu 17aTzrla na Trtliw7a na Shtc~zgairyarza Bailadiidizofe
Barawa Maraka Muknisl1tr. Hnpo Mukdisltu akalvelca ZulvnZi huki~?rryci
Banadiri zote zikawa Mukdishu, aka'islti na nti hizo zote zi lcatika ta'a
yake ila Ui7guja lzakutal4)ala."38
It can be seen that the ~wahili'use of the name 'Sawal~il',initially talcing over its
contents from the Arabs, later shows gradual deviations. This change in the meaning
of 'Sawahil' in the historical context at different stages shows how the term becomes
separated from its Arabic background and starts its independent development. This
is the crucial stage in the transfer of 'Sawahil' onto African soil which makes possible
all the consequent 'Swahilization' of the word involving the rise of a whole group of
new conceptslistedbyShatiff:
"The word 'Swahili', even if its origins go back to the Arabic, has
now been considerably Swahilized by adding the usual Kiswahili suffixes
(the equivalentsof which are commonin many other 'Bantu' languages),
so that we now get from it Mswahili (a Swahili person), Waswahili
(people), Kiswahili (Swahili language), Uswahili (Swahili culture) and
Uswahili (land of the Waswahili). Assuming that the root word 'Sahil'
is from Arabic, we now find that from this, new words with new dimensions not found in Arabic have been derived."39
This independent growth of 'Sawahil' from an Arabic geographic name into
a Swahili ethnicname may be thereason why today we have 'Banadir', a second name
df sihlilar, if not identical meaning and provenance, holding the ground where some
34. W.Hichens, 'Habari Lamu,' Bantu S t d e s , VoI. XII, No. 1 (1938),p. 8.
35. Alice Werner, 'Mombasa' in E/rcjfclopacdiaof Tslam (Lciden, 1932), Vol. m.
36. H. Salt, A Voyage lo Abyssinia and Travels (London, 1814), App..I.
37. M. Heepe, 'Suaheli-Cluonik von Pate,' Mitilteilrrngen des Scntiitars fur or*ie?tlalis/reSpraclren
3. Abt.,VoI. XXXT, (1928),p. 151.
38. Ibid.
39. Shariff, p. 68.
time before 'Sawahil' had started on its way southwards. If I may put it so, the geographical scope of the Arabic 'Sawahil' is much closer to 'Banadit' as a toponym
accepted for Swahili and international use, than to 'Sawahi17 of the Swahili ethnic
and cultural vocabulary. To remain where the Arabs first applied it, 'Sawahil' had
to be accepted by both major groups participating in exchange activities, and with the
same meaning: when the African side assumed the term and gave it new sense, a kind
of 'toponymical vacuum' appeared, to give place to 'Banadir'.
It is difficultto say when and why this separation occurred, but the decisive shift
towards south may have been connected with the passing of the leading role in the
development of Swahili language and culture from the northern centres (Lamu)
to Mombasa and on to Kilwa.40 If the clxonology suggested by Swahili annals
is to be trusted, the word could have figured as an ethnic term in the Swahili vocabulary
of the fourteenth century. Of the sixteenth century Whiteley writes :
"It has been pointed out that the Portuguese made no reference
to the Swahili,though a number of tribes are mentioned by name. . .This
does not seem to me to be at all surprising, since the term Swahili is an
Arabic one with a primariIy geographical reference, and there is no
obvious reason why the Portuguese should take this over when they had
the term 'Moor' available."41
If the Portuguese had no need of the etltnonym 'Sawahili', it was because of its
generalized character, which covered tribal distinctions, allowing it to play in a limited
area the same role as 'Moors' had on a larger scale. If the Portuguese had no use for
the foponynz 'Sawahil', it may have been because their contact with the northern part
of the Zanj coast had not displaced the firmly rooted in European tradition Zanguebar'.
In the Near Eastern tradition, 'Zanjabar' continued as the name of the East
African coast in the span which would include both Zanj and Sawahil. Reports on the
local population and its ethnic division seem to indicate considerable confusion which
existed in the Arabic sources on this issue. One and the same town can be claimed by
different authors to belong to three different countries. For example, al-Idrisi (d. 1156)
refers to Merka as being in the land of Barbara42 while Yaqut calls it a 'town in
al-Zanjabar7.43Brava is located by al-Idrisi in the country of 'iddels who have no
faith in anything. . . Part of this country is under the king of Barbara and the other
part, under Abyssinians.'44 Brava of Yaqut7salong with Malindi makes 'two close
towns of the land of Zanj.'45
In the fourteenth century Abu 'I-Fida states that Mogadisho is populated by the
Zanj and Abyssinians,46 but Yaqut says : 'it is a town at the beginning of the country
of Zanj, south of the Yemen, on the coast of al-Barbar, in the middle of their land.'
And all the inhabitants, he states, are 'strangers, not Blacks.'47
40. See V.M. Misiugin, 'On the origins and spread of the Swahili language,' Afrikanskiy etrzografisheskiy sbornlk (Moscow-Leningrad, 1957, in Russian).
41. Whiteley, p. 35.
42. al-Idrisi, 'Nuzhat al-Mushtaq' in V.V. Matveyev and L.E. Kubbel, Arabic sources of tlze tenth
to tweIft11cetztury on ethnography atzd history of Africa south of the Sahara (Moscow-Leningrad,
1965, in Russian and Arabic), p. 254.
43. Jacut, Vol. IV, P. 520.
44. V.V. ~ a t v e y e v-&d L.E. Kubbel, pp. 256-257.
45. Jacut, Vol. I, p. 485.
46. Reinaud, Geograpltie d'Abozr 'I-Feda, texte arabe (Paris, 1840), p. 161.
47. Jacut, Vol. IV, p. 602.
Arabic sources have very little other information for dating the toponyms in
this area: thus, Lainu is not mentioned until the fifteenth century, and 'Banadir',
along with many smaller points, only appears in sailing manuals at the turn of the
sixteenth century. While the external tradition does not reckon with the transformation
of 'Sawahil' from a toponyln into ethnonym, the native tradition creates its own
division of the Swahili coast :from the area north of Mogadisho to the Juba 'Benadit',
further to Malindi 'Bajun' and from Malindi to Kilwcz 'Mrima'.
Bajun possibly figures in al-Idris's 'Geography' as a name of town BadJzuna,
but Mrima appears only in the late sailing instructions along with the Indian 'Muli'
for 'coastal land', 'border between sea and the mainland'.4* The appearance of both
these terms in the singular allows me to reiterate here that the choice for plural as
a geographic name in the case of 'Sawahil' had been forced on the language primarily
by historical and economic circumstances. Besides, the singular sahil for 'coast'
without terminological connotation does 71ot usually appear in Swahili, and plvalzi
is commonly used in its stead.
The important fact that a foreign name, without having been imposed by the
foreigners, had been accepted by the natives and developed further into an ethnic
and socio-cultural term, becoming their self-name, would seem to underline it that
there existed no local word with the same functions which could take place of a generic
ethnonym disregarding formerly more important tribal divisions. Moreover, its
'foreignness' and abstract quality might have assured lack of resistance or resentment
which competition between native contenders for terminological leadership could have
caused. This conflict between the predominantly socio-culturzl connotation of
'Sawahili' and the particularism of tribal or areal ethnic afiliation of those who
rightly or wrongly are referred to as Waswahili is not reconciled even now, as noted
by Carol Eastman:
"People on the island of Pate and in parts of northern Kenya made it
plain to me that in their opinion those who speak the Bajun dialect of
Swahili areBajun and not Swahili. The Bajun made this clear as did their
neighbours on Lamu. It seemed to me, however, subjectively, that the
Bajun took pride in being Bajun while at the same time the inhabitants
of Lamu were proud to be Arab, Swahili, or African."49
This kind of regionalism, it seems to me, may be one of the reasons why the
concept of Swahili as a linguo-cultural entity, and indeed the name itself, leave no
trace in Swahili traditional poetry. Moreover, being considerably more conservative
t h m the vernacular in retaining ancient vocabulary, as poetry of any language, it may
have been particularly resistant towards ideas and expressions referring to new kinds
of wider relationship.
Arguing for indigenous terminology representing the Swahili language, Shariff
indicates that 'like dialects of many other African languages, each Kiswahili dialect
belongs to a specific society.'sO It is just the point of the present discussion that while
native names stress the regionalism and narrower ethnic or language background,
an external appellation became rooted in coastal societies when the need for it arose,
due to the lack of precisely this kind of fragmentary connotation. Significantly, like
48. Ali Celebi, "Mirror of the Seas,' in G . Ferrand, Relatiolts de voyages et textes geograpltiques
arabes, persans et trtrlcs relatifs a I'Extrenze-Orient dri VIII-e art XVIII-e siecles (Paris, 1913,
Vol. 11.
49. Eastman, p. 230.
50. Shariff, p. 69.
the name of the Swahili language, the terms for its dialects spring up from place
nanies : kiBajuni, kiBenndiri, ki Amu, lcih4vita, ctc. Tllus the name kiswahili implied
originally 'tile langaagc spoken in Sawalil', i.e. island emporiums, ports and harbor
settlements.
A. H. J. Prins, who translates kiswal~ilias 'language of the people-coastalpcoplc' considers waSwnhili a 'double' etlmonym, as in his view swalzil-ialready may
mean 'coastal people'50. Formerly kiswahili, he writes, 'was an appellativum used
by the people of Zanzibar for the dialects of the coast north of Malindi only."z
Comparatively rare place indicators Swalzili~~i
also refers to northern areas : "on the
coast northeast of the Tana rn outh' though some extend it as far south as Malindi."53
From his observations we conclude that the domination of socio-cultural over
etlmo-geographic in the concept of 'Swahili' is a relatively recent development.
Noting that at the turn of the century the case was different, he says :'What is meant
by beinga 'Swahili' depends entirely on thecontext. . .thetermis essentidly an epithet
of reference and hence an important sociological pointer but it is hardly ever used far
selfidentification.'54
Position of ki-Swaltili. along with Islam, was undoubtedly one of leadership
in consolidatjng the waswahili and building their cultural identity, with a new significance of the national language imposed on it by the growing social forces of modern
states. If Whiteley is most probably correct in suggesting that at the early stage of
lmguage consolidation tlze Swzhili-speakers 'have probably never been numerous', 55
at present ki-S.wahili became a major channel of communication between the indivudual a.nd the nation, and a fermenting element of national consciousness. New
pressures of the contradictory process of national growth communicate fresh urgency
t d repeated attempts of defining the concept of mswahili. If Eastman and Madoshi
aspire to formulate it through the eyes and self-expression of the wa-Swahili, R.Ohly
has tried to trace its transformation through the language itself:
"There are two possibilities of the developing of the contemporary
form of the term MswahiIi : a. sawahil
> sawahila
> sawahzi
>
>
msawahili
> mswahiIi, b. saw<hil
mswahili. It means that either proper meaning of the Arabic term has
been transferred to East Africa and its scope limited, or a special name
has been coined for a population included by the scope of the term
'wa Swal1ili'."s6
51. A.H.J. Prins, TJle S~l~~al~ili-spealcir~gpeoples
of Zanzibar and the f i s r Afiiurn coast,' (London,
1961)' p. 12.
52. Ibid., p. 25.
53. Ibid., p. 12.
54. Ibid,, p. 11.
55. Wl~lteley,p. 2.
56. Ohly, p. 16.
--
The form sa~&i/a (plural of saw~hil~sawahli)
for coastal inhabitants in general
and the Swahili in particulars7 seems to be comparatively recent and is not reflected
in medieval sources of Arabic or Swahili origin in application to Africa. The OmaniZanzibar modification sauwahlis8 also suggests external (Arab) rather than Swahili
accent. Indigenousrecordings of this name show conservative attitude towards initial
Arabic plural oftlle place, without taking into account its modern derivations developed by the Arabic language. Even in contemporary manuscripts the a of initial
syllable is preserved, as often is alifin the second syllable, aIthough its presence signifying a long vowel is not directly required by the norms of Arabic-Swahili script:
~awallili. A modification of this is presented by
sawahili, and a still
--
snlvahzz and
sawahili
further approximationto Bantu pronunciationby
a
m
where a purely Arabic device of syllable-building is used t o make the vocalizat~on
sawzh%shows the degree of 'Swahililook phonetically accurate. A rare form
zation' of the Arabic spelling, allowing to disregard the difference in sound values of
h and h in Semitic languages.
57. & Web, A Distionary of M o h Writmz Arabic (Wiesbaden. 1961).
58. C. Reinhard, Ein arabiscker DioIecCgesprochen in Oman undZanribur (Berlin, 1894). p. 53, cited
in Ohly, p. 16..