Non-existent web-addresses will produce a blank conversion page. Thanks to: Joshua Gatcke for. ), hyphens (-), underscores (_), single quotes ('), colons (:) and slashes (/). Though the existence of Swahili documents in Arabic script originating from East Africa – mainly Tanzania and Kenya – has been well documented for a long time (see for instance Büttner 1892, Allen 1970, Dammann 1993 and the conventions - see the section Spelling conventions. When it is ready, you will see a link to the converted page here. The text is a section from: Omar, YA (1998): Three Prose Texts in the Swahili of Mombasa. PL8704.U76 E5 1991 Mervyn W However, be aware that problems may occur if the "other language" is French, German, or something else. Swahili/Arabic script could act as Proust an involuntary memory by taking a speaker back to his ancestors, his roots. This section provides tools to convert Swahili text in Roman script into Arabic script. The Arabic-to-Roman conversion can be extended to provide a variety of different transliterations (eg, The Roman-to-Arabic conversion can be adjusted to convert numerals, to add or remove markers such as, Type in Arabic script using a standard keyboard, Convert from Arabic script to Roman script, Convert from Roman script to Arabic script. Swahili is currently written in a Roman alphabet. The Roman transcription is Harries' own - a generated close transcription might be: You can contact me, Kevin Donnelly, at kevin, then a curly at-sign, then dotmon, followed by a full-stop and com. Writing system: Arabic script, Latin script Status : official language in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and the African Union; national language of DR Congo The majority of people in Tanzania and Kenya speak Swahili as a second language, and most educated Kenyans are fluent in the language, as it is compulsory in schools, and … Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1991. The oldest preserved Swahili literature, which dates from the early 18th century, is written in the Arabic script, though the language is now written in the Roman alphabet. The most important thing is to install a font that will show all the Arabic characters used in Swahili - once that is done, you can use all the resources on this website. Andika! Input is truncated to 900 characters, but if your text is longer than this all you need to do is convert it in chunks. The images in the slideshow give examples of various pieces of Swahili written in Arabic script. If you wish to convert a large number of pages, you may find it easier to use the offline converter (currently being tested). This is one of the few books of Swahili classical poetry to include the text in Arabic script alongside the Roman transcription, in this case a photocopy of a copy of the original manuscript made by Sheikh Yahya. A Traditional Swahili Epic, with Transliteration, Translation and Notes on the Reading of Swahili Manuscripts in Arabic Script for Advanced Students. Allen Pub. Swahili culture is the culture of the Swahili people inhabiting the Swahili Coast, encompassing today’s Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Mozambique, as well as the adjacent islands of Zanzibar and Comoros and some parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Malawi. git clone https://github.com/donnekgit/andika.git This close transcription (like the default standard transcription) is generated automatically, and can be made the default. Swahili is a language that fuses African Bantu with Arabic. Naturally, there are details to such a proposal. Overview: Detailed comparison of Arabic and Kiswahili (Swahili) World Languages. tools. Over the last century, however, Swahili in Roman script has Texte swahili écrit avec l’alphabet arabe sur le Monument aux askaris. If not, you can download the files as a compressed zip file. The output can then be cut and pasted into documents (see the LibreOffice tab in the, Two short samples of Swahili in Roman script from Wikipedia are given on the. from a textual analysis viewpoint. A copy of verses 3-5 of: Harries, L (1967): Utenzi wa Mkunumbi. Arabic script should not be used in translation tables, but instead linked to in the alternative forms section. (See: Donnelly, K and Omar, YA (1982): “Structure and association in Bajuni fishing songs”. You can also go to the Arabic to Roman section to convert Arabic script into Roman script (standard Swahili orthography by default, but options are available to add various diacritics to the transliteration). The transliteration equivalents chosen here mean that line continuity is not a problem where the "other language" is English. Sprache und Oralität in Afrika, Frankfurter Studien zur Afrikanistik, Band 21. The offline converters allow multiple files to be converted easily. The conversion tools include cut-and-paste boxes for small amounts of text, a Roman-to-Arabic converter for entire webpages, and offline converters for bulk conversion of text. The aspirated stops aren't usually distinguished in writing (although some writers use an apostrophe for aspiration). Thanks to: Joshua Gatcke for, The default is to show numerals in Western-Arabic form (1234567890). At present, most Swahili literature from earlier periods has only been published in Roman transliteration. The intention is to show that the Andika! For instance, it will convert, Although this tool should work on most webpages, most testing has been done with. Further converters can be set up to reflect other transcription conventions. The conversion may contain lines with out-of-sequence words if the source contains a mixture of Swahili and another language with letters that do not occur in the standard Swahili Roman orthography (the Swahili will be converted to RTL Arabic script, but the non-Swahili letters will be passed through as LTR Roman script). However, we do not have a precise date for when its use began. An ancient document dated 1728 shows an epic poem called Utendi wa Tambuka, History of Tambuka which is in Swahili, but written in the Arabic script. http://www.bbc.co.uk/swahili The Spelling conventions section gives suggestions for using Arabic script with current-day Swahili, with many examples of how the Arabic script maps to the Roman script. http://sw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mwanzo Basa Swahili ogé dipaké di sapanjang garis basisir Afrika Wétan. [1] Omar, YA in collaboration with Frankl PJL (1997): "An historical review of the Arabic rendering of Swahili, together with proposals for the development of a Swahili writing system in Arabic script." Some poets and scholars write in the Arabic script even today. Swahili Arabic script on Wooden door in Fort Jesus, Mombasa in Kenya Another cultural aspect of the Swahili is their use of arts and crafts, which they find significance in. They speak Swahili as their native language, which belongs to the Ni… The third image in the slideshow above shows part of a manuscript rendering of Bajuni fishing songs, transcribed letter-for-letter from the manuscript. New writing in Swahili can be composed in Arabic script and published easily via word-processors, webpages, or pdfs created by typesetting systems such as LaTeX. Writing and transliterating Swahili in Arabic script with Andika Virtually all of these fonts, however, have been designed for Arabic only, and need characters added to them before they are useable with Swahili. tools (including these webpages) is available from the GitHub repository. You can type Swahili in Arabic script directly into a Linux computer using a standard UK keyboard. The best font option at the minute is Scheherazade - to get the most recent version, download ScheherazadeRegOT-1.005.zip from this page, and unzip it. The use … Over time, starting in the 19th century, it became increasingly common to write Swahili using the Latin alphabet. Swahili is written in the Latin script primarily, but Arabic script entries are also accepted. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 7, 1: 55-71. Cet alphabet est aussi utilisé pour écrire le mwani dans les écoles coraniques au Mozambique. Sayf, who had already worked with Storms in Karema during four years, as he mentions in his letter, probably learnt to write in Latin Andika! The Roman conversion in this case uses various diacritics to reconcile the manuscript's representation of the Bajuni dialect with standard orthography. Andika! In Swahili, the vowel signs are a necessary part of the script, since the language is syllabic; in Arabic poetry too, the vowels have to be written. Swahili ogé diajarkeun di universitas-universitas utama di … For centuries, Swahili was written in Arabic script, and hundreds of manuscripts in collections around the world testify to its long tradition of written literature. While there should be no problems with the main text of the webpage, some peripheral "page furniture" (eg menus, lists of links, etc) may or may not be converted properly. Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau. The Arabic script in this manuscript differs in a number of minor respects from the one in the Omar/Frankl paper. is a work in progress, and improvements can still be made. Kila mtu anaweza kuhariri makala yoyote, kutoa makosa ya lugha, kutohoa maneno na kuendeleza na kukuza makala, kwa kuandika kwa ufupi au kwa urefu. (write!) Today, Swahili is primarily written in the Roman Alphabet Swahili in Arabic Script: © Copyright 2012. (With pages on the latter website, note that the audio player controls do not display properly, but any queued audio will still start to play. A direct transcription can be augmented with a fully-vocalised Arabic transcription, a close phonetic transliteration, a transliteration in the standard Roman orthography, and so on, according to taste. Basa Swahili digunakeun ku 10.000.000 jalma minangka basa utama. A variety of outputs are offered, and a paper is in preparation to demonstrate the benefits of using Andika! In Zanzibar, Arabic also had a huge influence via Islam. Angalia Msaada wa kuanzisha makala ili ujifunze unavyoweza kuhariri au kusanifisha ukurasa. Links on the converted page will go to unconverted (Roman script) pages. Musa writes it in (meaning Write! All the tools are available under the Free Software Foundation's General Public License and Affero General Public License, which means they can be adapted and extended as required by the user, subject to the same license being used for any new version thus created. The code for the Andika! The tools allow much of these to be generated automatically, reducing the effort this would otherwise involve. The Arabic script’s adoption in Swahili-speaking East Africa With the advent of Arabic script in East Africa, the Waswahili (‘Swahili people’) developed Swahili Ajami literacy. In fact, the oldest preserved Swahili literature, which dates from the early 18th century, is written in the Arabic script, though it’s now written in the Roman alphabet. It's very easy to get started. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. Script and Orthography. The offline converters allow a transcription of an existing Swahili manuscript in Arabic script to be automatically transliterated into Roman script. Akhi patia kalamu: Writing Swahili Poetry in Arabic Script Revisiting al-Qawl al-matÄ«n: A sociolinguistically engineered Arabic-Afrikaans text A Remarkable Document in Arabic-Afrikaans: The Election Pamphlet of 1884 The section on Typesetting poetry shows how Swahili poetry manuscripts in Arabic script can be transcribed digitally to produce attractive output in various formats, with the added benefit that the contents of the manuscripts are then available for computer analysis of language, vocabulary, word-frequency, etc. There, you can type into a box in Roman script and have the input converted into Arabic script, or you can input a web address and have that whole page converted into Arabic script. … or the first page of the BBC Swahili site: The tools, based on the work of Marehemu Mu'allim Sheikh Yahya Ali Omar [1], provide a consistent, standardised transliteration of Swahili in Arabic script, and a one-to-one mapping of this to Swahili in Roman script. Swahili nyaéta basa indung urang Swahili (atawa Waswahili) anu dumuk di kiduleun Somalia nepi ka Mozambik nu watesna Tanzania. Over the last century, however, Swahili in Roman script has become the norm. For centuries, Swahili was written in Arabic script, and hundreds of manuscripts in collections around the world testify to its long tradition of written literature. is a work in progress, and improvements can still be made. A Swahili Potlatch – The Poem about Mkunumbi. This article gives some examples of Arabic words still in today's Swahili. As examples, try the first page of the Swahili Wikipedia: Mit einer Einleitung von PJL Frankl. in Swahili) is a set of tools to make Swahili in Arabic script as easy to use as Swahili in Roman script - it is equally easy to read and write the the language in either script. The Swahili keyboard section includes simple step-by-step instructions for enabling a Swahili keyboard layout on Ubuntu running KDE, and for making changes to it if you have a non-UK keyboard. SWAHILI DOCUMENTS IN ARABIC SCRIPT FROM THE CONGO in Stanley Falls, in May 1891. Swahili in Arabic script is inscribed on a door in Lamu, Kenya. This tool is intended for chunks of text, which can be typed or pasted into the input box. مْزٖئٖ أَكِيفَ، مَكتَابَ هُتٖكٖتٖئَ. Andika! There are about 15 main Swahili dialects , as … is dedicated to the memory of Sheikh Yahya Ali Omar (1924–2008). He published a Swahili book in Arabic script on tawhid (Oneness) and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) in the handwriting of his brother, Juma Hemed, which was photo-lithographically reproduced in India around 1925. The old Swahili script, or Swahili-Arabic alphabet (Kiarabu) based on the Arabic letters, seems to have been used as far as back as the eleventh century. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. The oldest Swahili literature was written in the Arabic script, but now a 24-letter version of the Roman alphabet is used (equivalents in the International Phonetic Alphabet are shown between brackets). To show Andika! Andika! Or so it was said. Further examples of Andika! The Swahili-speaking populations on the East African coast served as intermediaries between the Bantu-speaking peoples in the interior of Africa and the traders on the coast who came from South Asia and Arabia. Swahili poetry prior to the twentieth century was written in ajami script that was adapted from Arabic. Andika! For centuries, Swahili was written in Arabic script, and hundreds of manuscripts in collections around the world testify to its long tradition of written literature. This can be changed by ticking. Then double-click the file ScheherazadeRegOT.ttf to install the font on your computer. Side by side look at similarities and differences for things like writing system, script(s) used, total number of speakers, noun declensions, no. You can cut and paste the converted Arabic text into a word-processor. I am always happy to receive comments or suggestions about the further development of the Andika! Existing Swahili content in Roman script can be converted to Arabic script, making it possible to reuse content already published in Roman script. Note that the converter will always use the "commonest" Arabic letter. Over the last century, however, Swahili in Roman script has become the norm. Input speed is comparable to typing in Roman script. Apart from allowing easier typesetting and dissemination, having manuscripts in digital form will make it possible for the first time to use computers to look at word frequency, stylistic variation, etc, within the texts, to build corpora for classical Swahili, and so on. It was previously written in an Arabic script. If you have large amounts of text to convert, you may find it easier to use the offline converter (currently being tested). The Arabic script in this manuscript is less well-adapted to Swahili - for instance, o is not used consistently. Arabic script for students of Swahili by J.W.T. Only a subset of characters are allowed in the web address: alphanumeric characters (a-z, 0-9), full-stops (. A copy of the specimen text (Appendix C) from the Omar/Frankl paper, which they included to show how their system would look in practice. L’ alphabet arabe swahili est une adaptation de l’ alphabet arabe utilisée pour écrire le swahili du xie au xxe siècle. Material can be produced simultaneously in both scripts with the minimum of effort (although the converted text will need minor editing to cover such things as capital letters, which do not exist in Arabic script). The word Swahili itself is derived from Arabic Sawahili سواحلي which is plural for ساحل meaning [Language] of the Coast. in Swahili) makes Swahili in Arabic script as easy to use as Swahili in Roman script. The Perso-Arabic script is a writing system used for writing Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa, such as Persian (Farsi/Dari), Uyghur, Kurdish, … Swahili manuscripts in Arabic script can be directly transcribed and made available in digital format. This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Please note that it is a good idea to check any output given here before re-using it in other contexts. in use, it has been used to create an edition of a hitherto-unpublished ballad (Utenzi wa Jaʿfar, The Ballad of Jaʿfar) from two manuscripts. A copy of the first few verses from a manuscript written by Sheikh Yahya himself, giving a transcription of Bajuni fishing songs. tools can cope with a variety of different requirements - all the copies are transcribed letter-for-letter from the originals. See the LibreOffice tab in the Swahili keyboard section. In: Genres, Forms, Meanings: Essays in African Oral Literature, edited by Veronika Görög-Karady, JASO Occasional Papers 1, Oxford.) This article provides an historical review of the Arabic rendering of Swahili, while Appendix A (Parts I and II) contains proposals for the development of Arabic script to yield a phonologically adequate writing system for a variety of Swahili spoken on the East African coast – the variety known as kiMvita (central Swahili), and spoken … A section of the Swahili Wikipedia page on أُتَمَدُونِ (utamaduni, culture), converted using Andika!