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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
A Language for the World: The Standardization of Swahili

A Language for the World: The Standardization of Swahili

Robinson, Morgan J.

Paperback

Series: New African Histories

AnthropologyGeneral World HistorySwahili

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ISBN10: 0821424955
ISBN13: 9780821424957
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: Nov 8 2022
Pages: 286
Weight: 0.80
Height: 0.80 Width: 6.00 Depth: 8.90
Language: English

This intellectual history of Standard Swahili explores the long-term, intertwined processes of standard making and community creation in the historical, political, and cultural contexts of East Africa and beyond.

Morgan J. Robinson argues that the portability of Standard Swahili has contributed to its wide use not only across the African continent but also around the globe. The book pivots on the question of whether standardized versions of African languages have empowered or oppressed. It is inevitable that the selection and promotion of one version of a language as standard--a move typically associated with missionaries and colonial regimes--negatively affected those whose language was suddenly deemed nonstandard. Before reconciling the consequences of codification, however, Robinson argues that one must seek to understand the process itself. The history of Standard Swahili demonstrates how events, people, and ideas move rapidly and sometimes surprisingly between linguistic, political, social, or temporal categories.

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