Abstract
The paper discusses how the evolution of the Bantu speaking peoples helped to reinforce certain characteristics of the Swahili language through a African point of view. The writer notes that the evidence is often doubtful in his mind as to the ways that the language had developed, but relates that they suspect that Bantu linguistic roots are the main reason why Swahili has a mostly African 'diaspora' in its earliest stages of development through the migratory aspects of economic trade in early tribal culture.

Tags:swahili, history, people

Abstract
This paper is a book review of a text describing the complex social history of the region of east Africa known as the Swahili coast, an area perhaps 200 miles long near the island of Zanzibar, where in 1888, an attempt by German colonialists to assert control led to a rebellion which set up a rebel-run state that held itself out against German control for nearly a year. The book looks at the complex background to this rebellion, although, in this writer's opinion, not entirely successfully.

From the Paper
"Along the east coast of Africa, for roughly one hundred miles to the north and to the south of the island of Zanzibar, lies the area that Jonathan Glassman in "Feasts and Riot" refers to as the Swahili coast, after the language that predominates in that area. During the late nineteenth century, these peoples went through a series of severe social dislocations. The term "social dislocations" is an awkward one, and as Glassman explains in his preface, one of the critical problems of studying the people of this region during this period is that the struggles among the various social groups along the Swahili Coast during this period do..."

Tags:swahili, africa, dar es salaam