Bantu

Swahili: The Rise of an African World Language

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kofi2

Today Lingoblog celebrates United Nations Swahili Day with this post by Kofi Yakpo.

Encounters with Swahili

In 1995, I won a scholarship to study Swahili at the Institute of Swahili and Foreign Languages in Zanzibar, Tanzania. I had crammed for two months before the qualifying exam, trying to catch up with African Studies students who had been studying Swahili for two years. I couldn’t utter a single coherent sentence, but I knew all the nominal classes and verbal extensions by heart. It got me through.

I stayed with the family of Bi Faiza in Michenzani, Zanzibar, a household consisting of Bi Faiza and her three daughters. She welcomed me as her son, and so, my journey of learning began. … ↪

Languages in Angola

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Anopheles stephensi 1 scaled

First, I would like to apologize for my co-responsibility for the killing of 1000 penguins in Antarctica. I flew to Angola, and with my CO2 emissions I caused the ice to melt far too quickly. And then cute baby penguins drowned. Sorry, sorry.

I thought that you could not travel overland from Denmark to Angola. But along the way, in the Basque country, I actually met a beekeeper who had driven all the way through Africa to South Africa. In a car. But I flew, sorry. Flying is also considerably faster, I’m sure, than driving a car.

I was invited to a language conference in Angola. At first I was hesitant on whether I should go there, it was far … ↪

Mbessa: The Cameroonian language that refused to be swallowed by Kom

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Africa Map Cameroon
Mbessa (Mbesa) is a kingdom of over 25,000 people in the Anglophone Northwest Region of Cameroon. Mbessa, like the hundreds of other kingdoms in the grassfields of the Northwest Region, is actually called a Fondom and it is headed by a powerful traditional authority called the Fon, and specifically called Foyn in the Mbessa language. It should therefore be understood that Fondom equals kingdom while Fon or Foyn equals king.

The kingdom of Mbessa was founded in the 18th century (circa 1772) by an exiled Nkar man called Tfukenu and a self-exiled Oku prince called Nsuung Nyiete (Mala 2013). Geographically, Mbessa is located between Akeh, Din, Kom and Oku, all of which are neighbouring Fondoms.

Mbessa is found in a

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