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Comorian languages
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| Comorian | |
|---|---|
| shikomori' شِكُمُرِ / شیكهمهری[1] | |
| Native to | Comoros and Mayotte |
| Region | Throughout Comoros and Mayotte; also in Madagascar and Réunion |
| Ethnicity | Comorians |
Native speakers | 800,000 in Comoros (2011)[2] 300,000 in Mayotte (2007)[3][4] |
| Dialects | |
| Arabic Latin | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Comoros |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously:zdj – Ngazidja dialectwni – Ndzwani (Anjouani) dialectswb – Maore dialectwlc – Mwali dialect |
| Glottolog | como1260 |
G.44[5] | |
Comorian (Shikomori, or Shimasiwa, the "language of islands") is the name given to a group of four Bantu languages spoken in the Comoro Islands, an archipelago in the southwestern Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar. It is named as one of the official languages of the Union of the Comoros in the Comorian constitution. Shimaore, one of the languages, is spoken on the disputed island of Mayotte, a French department claimed by Comoros.
Like Swahili, the Comorian languages are Sabaki languages, part of the Bantu language family. Each island has its own language, and the four are conventionally divided into two groups: the eastern group is composed of Shindzuani (spoken on Ndzuani) and Shimaore (Mayotte), while the western group is composed of Shimwali (Mwali) and Shingazija (Ngazidja). Although the languages of different groups are not usually mutually intelligible, only sharing about 80% of their lexicon, there is mutual intelligibility between the languages within each group, suggesting that Shikomori should be considered as two language groups, each including two languages, rather than four distinct languages.[6][7]
Historically, the language was written in the Arabic-based Ajami script. The French colonial administration introduced the Latin script. In 2009 the current independent government decreed a modified version of the Latin script for official use.[7] Many Comorians now use the Latin script when writing the Comorian language although the Ajami script is still widely used, especially by women.[citation needed] Recently, some scholars have suggested that the language may be on its way to endangerment, citing the unstable code-switching and numerous French words used in daily speech.[8]
It is the language of Umodja wa Masiwa, the national anthem.
History and classification
[edit]The first Bantu speakers arrived at the Comoros sometime between the 5th and 10th centuries, before the Shirazi Arabs.[8]
Shimwali
[edit]The Shimwali dialect was possibly one of the earliest Bantu languages to be recorded by a European. On July 3, 1613, Walter Payton claimed to have recorded 14 words on the island of Moheli, stating "They speak a kind of Morisco language." Sir Thomas Roe and Thomas Herbert also claimed to have recorded vocabulary.[9]
Until the 1970s, it was considered a dialect or archaic form of Swahili. This was first proposed in 1871, when Kersten suggested it might be a mixture of Shingazija, Swahili, and Malagasy. In 1919 Johnston, referring to it as 'Komoro Islands Swahili - the dialect of 'Mohila' and 'the 'Mohella' language', suggested that, taken together with the other two dialects in the Comoros, it might be an ancient and corrupt form of Swahili. However, Ottenheimer et al. (1976) found this to not be the case. Instead, they classify Shimwali, as well as the other Comorian languages, as a separate language group from Swahili.[10]
Shinzwani
[edit]Shinzwani was first noted by a South African missionary Reverend William Elliott in 1821 and 1822. During a 13-months' mission stay on the island of Anjouan he compiled a vocabulary and grammar of the language. Elliott included a 900-word vocabulary and provided 98 sample sentences in Shinzwani. He does not appear to have recognized noun- classes (of which there are at least six in Shinzwani) nor does he appear to have considered Shinzwani a Bantu language, only making a superficial connection to Swahili.[10]
The dialect was noted again in 1841 by Casalis, who placed it within Bantu, and by Peters, who collected a short word list. In 1875 Hildebrandt published a Shinzwani vocabulary and suggested in 1876 that Shinzwani was an older form of Swahili.
The idea of the distinctness of Shingazija and Shinzwani from Swahili finally gained prominence during the latter part of the 19th century and the early 20th century. In 1883, an analysis by Gust distinguished Shinzwani from Swahili. He discusses Shinzwani and Swahili as two separate languages which had contributed to the port-language which he referred to as Barracoon.[11]
In 1909 two publications reaffirmed and clarified the distinctiveness of Shinzwani, Shingazija and Swahili. Struck published a word list which appeared to have been recorded by a Frenchman in Anjouan in 1856, identified the words as belonging to Shinzwani and noted some influence from Swahili.[12][13]
In his Swahili Grammar, Sacleux cautioned that although Swahili was spoken in the Comoros it must not be confused with the native languages of the Comoros, Shinzwani and Shingazija. He said that while Swahili was mostly spoken in cities, the Comorian languages were widely spoken in the countryside.[14]
Shingazija
[edit]Shingazija was not documented until 1869 when Bishop Edward Steere collected a word list and commented that he did not know which language family it belonged to. In 1870 Gevrey characterized both Shingazija and Shinzwani as the 'Souaheli des Comores' (Swahili of the Comoros) which was only a 'patois de celui de Zanzibar'. However, Kersten noted in 1871 that Shingazija was not at all like Swahili but was a separate Bantu language.
Torrend was the first to identify the difference between Shingazija and Shinzwani in 1891. He attempted to account for Shingazija by suggesting that it was a mixture of Shinzwani and Swahili.[10]
Phonology
[edit]The consonants and vowels in the Comorian languages:
Vowels
[edit]| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i ĩ | u ũ | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a ã |
Consonants
[edit]| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Dental/Alveolar | Palatal | Retroflex | Velar | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | |||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | plain | p | t | t͡s | t͡ʃ | ʈ | k | (ʔ) | |
| prenasal | ᵐp | ⁿt | ⁿt͡s | ⁿt͡ʃ | ᶯʈ | ᵑk | ||||
| voiced/ implosive |
plain | ɓ~b | ɗ~d | d͡z | d͡ʒ | ɖ | ɡ | |||
| prenasal | ᵐɓ~ᵐb | ⁿɗ~ⁿd | ⁿd͡z | ⁿd͡ʒ | ᶯɖ | ᵑɡ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | θ | s | ʃ | x | h | |||
| voiced | β | v | ð | z | ʒ | ɣ | ||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||
The consonants mb, nd, b, d are phonemically implosives, but may also be phonetically recognized as ranging from implosives to voiced stops as [ᵐɓ~ᵐb], [ⁿɗ~ⁿd], [ɓ~b], [ɗ~d]. A glottal stop [ʔ] can also be heard when in between vowels.
In the Shimaore dialect, if when inserting a prefix the leading consonant becomes intervocalic, [p] becomes [β], [ɗ] becomes [l], [ʈ] becomes [r], [k] becomes [h], and [ɓ] is deleted.
There is a preference for multi-syllable words and a CV syllable structures. Vowels are frequently deleted and inserted to better fit the CV structure. There is also an alternate strategy of h-insertion in scenarios which would otherwise results in VV.
I
5.DEF
kukuyi
5.rooster
li-hi(h)a
5.NOM-crow.PRF
The rooster crowed
There is a strong preference for penultimate stress. There was previously a tone system in the language, but it has been mostly phased out and no longer plays an active role in the majority of cases.
Orthography
[edit]Comorian is most commonly written in Latin alphabet today. Traditionally and historically, Arabic alphabet is used as well but to a lesser extent. Arabic alphabet has been universally known in Comoros, due to the fact that there was a near universal attendance at Quranic schools on the islands, whereas knowledge and literacy in French was lacking. Since independence from France, the situation has changed, with improvements to infrastructure of secular education, in which French is the language of instruction.
Latin alphabet
[edit]| Comorian Latin alphabet[17] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upper Case | A | Ɓ | B | C | Ɗ | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z |
| Lower Case | a | ɓ | b | c | ɗ | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | t | u | v | w | y | z |
| IPA | [a] | [ɓ] | [b] | [t͡ʃ] | [ɗ] | [d] | [e] | [f] | [ɡ] | [h] | [i] | [d͡ʒ][a 1] | [k] | [l] | [m] | [n] | [o] | [p] | [r] | [s] | [t] | [u] | [v] | [w] | [j] | [z] |
| Digraphs | dh | dj | dr | dz | gh | ny | sh | pv | th | tr | ts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | [ð] | [d͡ʒ][a 2] | [ɖ] | [d͡z] | [ɣ] | [ɲ] | [ʃ] | [β] | [θ] | [ʈ] | [t͡s] |
Note: In Shimaore, the digraphs " vh " and " bv " are used for representing the phoneme [β].
Arabic alphabet
[edit]Comoros being located near the East African coast, the archipelago being connected by deep trade links to the mainland, and Comorian being a Bantu language much like Swahili language, means that historically, the Arabic orthography of Comorian followed the Swahili suit in being part of the tradition of the African Ajami script. Key components of the Ajami tradition are mainly that vowels were always represented with diacritics (thus differing from Persian conventions). The letters alif ا, wāw و, and yāʼ ي were used for indicating stressed syllable or long vowels. Furthermore, whereas Bantu languages have 5 vowels, while Arabic has 3 vowels and 3 diacritics; until recently, specifically until the early 20th century, there hasn't been an agreed upon way of writing the vowels [e] and [o]. Furthermore, sounds unique to Bantu languages were generally shown with the closest matching letter in the Arabic alphabet, avoiding as much as possible the creation of new letters in order not to deviate from the authentic 28-letter base. In addition, prenasalized consonants were shown using digraphs.[1]
The 20th century marked the start of a process of orthographic reform and standardization across the Muslim world. This process included standardizing, unifying, and clarifying the Arabic script in most places, ditching the Arabic script in favour of Latin or Cyrillic in others in places such as Soviet Turkistan and Soviet Caucasus, to Turkey and Kurdistan, to Indonesia and Malaysia,[18] to the Eastern African coast (Swahili Ajami) and Comoros.
The mantle of standardization and improvement of Arabic-based orthography in Comoros was carried by the literaturist Said Kamar-Eddine (1890-1974) in 1960. Only two decades before, in 1930s and 1940s, Swahili literaturists such as Sheikh el Amin and Sheikh Yahya Ali Omar had developed the Swahili Arabic alphabet as well.[19][1]
In Swahili, two new diacritics were added to the 3 original diacritics, namely ◌ٖ to represent the phoneme [e], and ◌ٗ to represent the phoneme [o]. Furthermore, the usage of the 3 mater lectionis (or vowel carrier letters) followed the following convention too: Vowels in stressed (second-to-last) syllable of the word are marked with diacritic as well as a carrier letter, namely alif ا for vowel [a], yāʼ ي for vowels [e] and [i], and wāw و for vowels [o] and [u].[19][1]
But, in the proposal by Said Kamar-Eddine for Comorian, there was a departure from the Ajami tradition and a divergence from what was done by Swahili literaturists. Kamar-Eddine had an eye on Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan, and the orthographic reforms implemented there. In Kurdish, the direction of the reforms of the alphabet favoured elimination of all diacriticts and designating specific letters to each and every vowel sound, thus creating a full alphabet. Kurdish orthography wasn't unique in this regard. A similar direction was pursued in various Turkic languages such as Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Uyghur, and Kazakh, as well as languages of the Caucasus such as Western and Eastern Circassian languages and Chechen language. This makes Said Kamar-Eddine orthography for Comorian, a unique case for Sub-saharan African languages that have been written with the Arabic script.[1]
In the initial position, the vowels are written as a single letter. No preceding alif or hamza is required. (This is similar to the convention of Kazakh Arabic alphabet)
| Final | Medial | Initial | Isolated | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | ـا | ا | ||
| u | ـو | و | ||
| i | ـی | ـیـ | یـ | ی |
| o | ـه | ـهـ | هـ | ه |
| e | ـہ | ـہـ | ہـ | ہ |
In Kurdish, new vowel letters were created by adding accents on existing letters. The phonemes [o] and [e] are written with ۆ and ێ respectively. In Comorian, new independent letters were assigned instead. The letter hāʾ in two of its variants are used for both aforementioned phonemes. A standard Arabic hāʾ, in all its 4 positional shapes (ه هـ ـهـ ـه) is used for the vowel [o]. This is a unique innovation exclusive to this orthography. The letter hāʾ in these shapes is not used as vowel in any other Arabic orthography. A letter hāʾ, in a fixed medial zigzag shape (medial form of what's known in Urdu as gol he) ( ہ ) is used for the vowel [e]. The usage of this variant of the letter hāʾ as a vowel is not unique to Comorian. In the early 20th century, West and East Circassian Arabic orthography also used this variant of the letter hāʾ to represent the vowel [ə] (written as ы in Cyrillic).
Letters representing consonant phonemes that are not present in Arabic have been formed in either of the two following methods. First method is similar to Persian and Kurdish, where new letters are created by adding or modifying of dots. The second method is to use the Arabic gemination diacritic Shaddah on letters that are most similar to the missing consonant phoneme. This is similar to the tradition of Sorabe (Arabo-Malagasy) orthograhpy, where a geminated r (رّ) is meant to represent [nd] or [ndr], and where a geminated f (فّـ ࢻّ) is meant to represent [p] or [mp].
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ا ( A a ) [a] |
ب (B b / Ɓ ɓ) [b]/[ɓ] |
پ (P p) [p] |
ت (T t) [t] |
تّ (Tr tr) [ʈ] |
ث (Th th) [θ] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ج (J j / Dj dj) [d͡ʒ] |
ح (H h) [h] |
د (D d / Ɗ ɗ) [d]/[ɗ] |
ذ (Dh dh) [ð] |
ر (R r / Dr dr) [r] / [ɖ] |
ز (Z z) [z] |
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
زّ (Dz dz) [d͡z] |
س (S s) [s] |
سّ (Ts ts) [t͡s] |
ش (Sh sh) [ʃ] |
شّ (C c) [t͡ʃ] |
غ (G g / Gh gh) [ɡ]/[ɣ] |
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ف (F f) [f] |
ڢ (Pv pv) [β] |
ڤ (V v) [v] |
ك (K k) [k] |
ل (L l) [l] |
م (M m) [m] |
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ن (N n) [n] |
نّ (Ny ny) [ɲ] |
هـ ـهـ ـه ه (O o) [o] |
ہ (E e) [e] |
و (U u / W w) [u]/[w] |
ی (I i / Y y) [i]/[j] |
| Arabic (Latin) [IPA] |
ئ ( - ) [ʔ] |
There are two types of vowel sequencees in Comorian, a glide or a vowel hiatus. Latin letters w and y, represented by و and ی, are considered semivowels. When these letters follow another vowel, they are written sequentially.
Other succession of vowels are treated as vowel hiatus. In these instances, a hamza (ئ) is written in between.
Prenasalized consonants are written as digraphs, with either m (م) or n (ن).
Sample text
[edit]Comorian Latin Alphabet:
- Ha mwakinisho ukaya ho ukubali ye sheo shaho wo ubinadamu piya pvamwedja ne ze haki za wadjibu zaho usawa, zahao, uwo ndo mshindzi waho uhuria, no mlidzanyiso haki, ne amani yahe duniya kamili.
Comorian Arabic (Kamar-Eddine's) Alphabet:
- حا مواكینیشه وكایا حه وكوبالی یہ شہئه شاحه وبینادامو پییا ڢاموہجا نہ زـہ حاقی زا واجیبو زاحو وساوا، زاحائه، ووه نده مشینزّی واحو وحوریا، نه ملیزّانّیسه حاقی، نہ امانی یاحہ دونیا كامیلی.
Grammar
[edit]Noun class
[edit]As in other Bantu languages, Shikomor displays a noun class/gender system in which classes share a prefix. Classes 1 through 10 generally have singular/plural pairings.
| Class | Prefix | Class | Prefix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | m(u)-, mw | 2 | wa- |
| 3 | m(u)-,mw- | 4 | m(i)- |
| 5 | Ø- | 6 | ma- |
| 7 | shi- | 8 | zi- |
| 9 | Ø- | 10 | Ø- |
| 10a | ngu- | 11 | u- |
Classes 9 & 10 consists mainly of borrowed words, such as dipe (from French du pain 'some bread') and do not take prefixes. Class 7 & 8 and class 9 & 10 take on the same agreements in adjectives and verbs. Class 10a contains a very small amount of words, generally plurals of Class 11. Class 15 consists of verbal infinitives, much like English gerunds.
Ufanya
15.do
hazi
work
njema
good
Working is good
Class 16 contains only two words, vahana and vahali, both meaning 'place'. It was probably borrowed from Swahili pahali, which was borrowed from Arabic mahal. Class 17 consists of locatives with the prefix ha-, and Class 18 consists of locatives with the prefix mwa-.[8][20]
Numerals
[edit]Numerals in Comorian follow the noun. If the number is 1 through 5 or 8, it must agree with the class of its noun.
| Number | Comorian | Num. | Comorian |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | oja/muntsi | 6 | sita |
| 2 | ili/mbili | 7 | saba |
| 3 | raru/ndraru | 8 | nane |
| 4 | nne | 9 | shendra |
| 5 | tsano/ntsanu | 10 | kumi/kume |
Demonstratives
[edit]There are three demonstratives: One that refers to a proximate object, a non-proximate object, and an object that was previously mentioned in the conversation.[8]
Possessives
[edit]The possessive element -a agrees with the possessed noun. The general order of a possessive construction is possessed-Ca-possessor.[8]
gari
5.car
l-a
5-GEN
Sufa
Sufa
Sufa's car
Verbs
[edit]Comorian languages exhibit a typical Bantu verb structure.
| Slot | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Content | Verbal preprefix (pre) | Subject Marker (SM) | Tense-Aspect-Mood | Object Marker (OM) | Root | Extension | Final Vowel | Suffix |
Although there is only one form of the subject marker for personal plural subjects and for subjects belonging to the classes 3-18.
| Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
(Shingazija and Shimwali only) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1sg | ni- | tsi- | -m- |
| 2sg | u- | hu-/u- | -o- |
| 3sg | a- | ha-/a- | -u- |
| 1pl | ri- | ||
| 2pl | m-/mu- | ||
| 3pl | wa- | ||
In Proto-Sabaki, the 2sg and 2sg subject markers were *ku and *ka, respectively. However, the *k was weakened to h in Shingazija and further to Ø in all other dialects.[22]
Verbs can be negated by adding the prefix ka-. However, occasionally other morphemes of the verb may take on different meanings when the negative prefix is added, such as in the following example, where the suffix -i, usually the past tense, takes on the present habitual meaning when it is in a negative construction.
ri-dy-i
1PL-eat-PST
nyama
meat
We ate meat
ka-ri-dy-i
NEG-1PL-eat-PRES.HAB.NEG
nyama
meat
We don't eat meat
The present progressive uses the prefix si-/su-, the future tense uses tso-, and the conditional uses a-tso-.There are two past tense constructions in Comorian.[8]The first of these is the simple past tense, which uses the structure SM-Root-Suffix 1.
The second is the compound past, using the structure SM-ka SM-Root-Suffix 1.[21]
tsi-ka
1sg.NOM-PST
tsi-hu-on-o
1sg.NOM-2sg.ACC-see-FV
I(sg) saw you(sg)
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g Lafon, Michel (2007). "Le système Kamar-Eddine : une tentative originale d'écriture du comorien en graphie arabe". Ya Mkobe (in French) (14–15): 29–48. Retrieved 26 August 2022. (Archive).
- ^ "Udzima wa Komori". Université Laval, 2325, rue de l'Université. Archived from the original on 4 March 2015. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
- ^ Daniel Barreteau. "Premiers résultats d'une enquête sociolinguistique auprès des élèves de CM2 de Mayotte" (PDF) (in French). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-17.
- ^ "Population of Mayotte". INSEE. Archived from the original on 2019-04-03. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
- ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ^ Breslar, Jon Haskell (1981). An ethnography of the Mahorais (Mayotte Comoro Islands) (Thesis). OCLC 9174567. ProQuest 303167533.[page needed]
- ^ a b Ahmed-Chamanga, Mohamed (2010). Le shiNdzuani. Introduction à la grammaire structurale du comorien. Moroni (Comores): Komedit CNDRS Palashiyo. ISBN 978-2-914564-74-8.
- ^ a b c d e f Alnet, Aimee Johansen (2009). The Clause Structure Of The Shimaore Dialect Of Comorian (Bantu). Shimaore.net. Archived from the original on 2024-02-27. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
- ^ Roe, Sir Thomas (1615). Observations Collected out of the Journal of Sir Thomas Roe, Knight, Lord Embassadour from His Majestie of Great Britaine, to the Great Mogol . . . I. Occurrents and Observations, in Samuel Purchas (1905) Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes,-ol. IV. Glasgow.
- ^ a b c Ottenheimer, Harriet Joseph; Ottenheimer, Martin (1976). "The Classification of the Languages of the Comoro Islands". Anthropological Linguistics. 18 (9): 408–415. JSTOR 30027589.
- ^ Richardson, Irvine (1963). "Evolutionary Factors in Mauritian Creole". Journal of African Languages. 2 (1): 2–14.
- ^ Doke, Clement M. (1945). Bantu: Modern Grammatical, Phonetical and Lexicographical Studies Since 1860. Oxford. ISBN 9781138095816.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Heepe, Martin (1920). Die Komorendialekte Ngazidja, Nzwani und Mwali [The Comorian Dialects Shingazija and Shimwali] (in German). Hamburg. ISBN 978-1361862162.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Sacleux, Ch. (1909). Grammaire des Dialects Swahilis. Paris.[page needed]
- ^ a b Ahmed-Chamanga (1992).
- ^ a b Lafon (1991).
- ^ Ahmed-Chamanga, Mohamed (5 June 2019). "Transcription et orthographe du comorien". KomEDIT. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
- ^ Pusat Rujukan Persuratan Melayu (2014), Ejaan Rumi Baharu Bahasa Malaysia, retrieved 2014-10-04
- ^ a b Omar, Yahya Ali; Frankl, P. J. L. (April 1997). "An Historical Review of the Arabic Rendering of Swahili Together with Proposals for the Development of a Swahili Writing System in Arabic Script (Based on the Swahili of Mombasa)". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 7 (1): 55–71. doi:10.1017/S1356186300008312.
- ^ Rombi, Mmie-Franyoise 1983. Le Shimaore Paris: SELAF.
- ^ a b Full, Wolfram (2001). "Two past tenses in Comorian: morphological form and inherent meaning". Swahili Forum. 8: 49–58. Archived from the original on 2024-03-06. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
- ^ Nurse, D (1983). "The Proto-Sabaki Verb System and its Subsequent Development". The Proto-Sabaki Verb System and Its Subsequent Development. 5: 45–109. INIST 6144169.
Works cited
[edit]- Ahmed-Chamanga, Mohamed (1992). Lexique Comorien (shindzuani) – Français. Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 978-2-7384-1663-6.
- Ahmed-Chamanga, Mohamed (2010). Introduction à la grammaire structurale du comorien. Moroni: Komedit. ISBN 9782914564748. 2 vols.
- Breslar, Jon (1981). An Ethnography of the Mahorais (Mayotte, Comoro Islands) (PhD thesis). University of Pittsburgh.
- Lafon, Michel (1991). Lexique Français-Comorien (Shingazidja). Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 978-2-296-24728-4.
Further reading
[edit]- Ahmed-Chamanga, Mohamed. (1997) Dictionnaire français-comorien (dialecte Shindzuani). Paris: L'Harmattan.
- Djohar, Abdou. (2014) Approche contrastive Franco-comorienne: les séquences figées à caractère adjectival. Université Paris-Nord.
- Johansen, Aimee. A History of Comorian Linguistics. in John M. Mugane (ed.), Linguistic Typology and Representation of African Languages. Africa World Press. Trenton, New Jersey.
- Rey, Veronique. (1994) Première approche du mwali. Africana Linguistica XI. Tervuren: MRAC.
External links
[edit]† indicates the language is no longer written using Arabic | |
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Comorian languages
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Classification and dialects
Linguistic affiliation
The Comorian languages, known collectively as Shikomori, belong to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo language family, a classification supported by comparative linguistic analysis of morphology, phonology, and lexicon shared with other Bantu tongues.[1] This affiliation places them within the broader Atlantic-Congo subgroup, characterized by features such as noun class systems marked by prefixes and concordial agreement across syntactic elements.[5] Bantu languages, numbering over 500, expanded from a Proto-Bantu homeland near the Nigeria-Cameroon border around 3,000–5,000 years ago, reaching the East African coast through migrations that introduced these structural traits to insular settings like the Comoros.[6] Within Bantu, Comorian varieties are specifically grouped under the Northeast Coastal Bantu (G40 in Guthrie's numbering), forming the Sabaki subgroup alongside Swahili (G42) and other coastal languages like Mijikenda.[7] This Sabaki affiliation is evidenced by shared innovations, including the reduction of Proto-Bantu consonants (e.g., loss of ŋg to ng or g) and vowel harmony patterns not found in inland Bantu branches.[3] Phonological studies highlight Comorian's retention of seven-vowel systems typical of Sabaki, with dialectal variations in tone and nasalization distinguishing it from Swahili while maintaining high lexical similarity—estimated at 80–90% cognate retention.[1] Linguistic consensus, drawn from historical-comparative methods since the mid-20th century, affirms this placement without significant debate, though some early classifications debated whether Comorian constituted a single language or dialect cluster due to island-specific divergences.[3] Sources like Glottolog catalog Comorian as a coordinated set of four principal varieties under "Comorian Bantu," emphasizing their unity within Sabaki despite Arabic and French adstrata influencing lexicon but not core grammar.[5] This framework aligns with archaeological evidence of Bantu settlement in the Comoros by the 8th–10th centuries CE, predating heavy Austronesian or Arab overlays.[8]Principal dialects
The principal dialects of the Comorian language (Shikomori) correspond to the four main islands of the Comoros archipelago and Mayotte, forming two dialectal groups: a western group comprising shiNgazidja and shiMwali, and an eastern group including shiNdzuani and shiMaore. These dialects share a common Bantu Sabaki origin but diverge in phonology, verbal morphology (particularly the imperfective aspect), and lexical items, with intercomprehension possible among speakers with effort, often favoring shiNgazidja as a reference variety.[2][4] ShiNgazidja, spoken primarily on Grande Comore (Ngazidja)—the most populous island and location of the capital Moroni—functions as the prestige dialect due to the island's political, economic, and demographic dominance. It has approximately 312,000 speakers and exhibits extensive phonological processes, including amalgamation of morphemes, vowel and syllable elision, epenthesis of sounds, and truncation, which contribute to its rapid speech patterns. As part of the western group, it maintains closer mutual intelligibility with shiMwali than with eastern varieties.[2][9] ShiMwali is the dialect of Mohéli (Mwali), the smallest island in the union, spoken by a smaller community concentrated in rural and coastal areas. Belonging to the western group, it shares foundational traits with shiNgazidja but differs notably in phonemic inventory and verbal forms for the imperfective, reflecting localized adaptations to the island's environment and historical settlement patterns.[2][4] ShiNdzuani prevails on Anjouan (Ndzuani), a densely populated island known for its agricultural economy, where it serves as the everyday vernacular for commerce, storytelling, and local governance. As an eastern dialect, it features distinct phonemes and morphological patterns in verb conjugation compared to western varieties, with greater lexical borrowing from Arabic due to historical trade influences on the island.[2][4] ShiMaore, associated with Mayotte (Maore)—a French overseas department outside the Comoros Union—differs from the others in its sociolinguistic context, coexisting with French in education and administration, which has led to hybrid forms and code-switching. This eastern dialect mirrors shiNdzuani in phonological and morphological traits but has an estimated 326,000 speakers, bolstered by Mayotte's growing population and migration dynamics.[2][10]Mutual intelligibility and debates on unity
The principal dialects of Comorian—Shingazidja (spoken on Ngazidja/Grande Comore), Shindzwani (on Ndzwani/Anjouan), Shimwali (on Mwali/Mohéli), and Shimaore (primarily on Maore/Mayotte)—exhibit substantial mutual intelligibility, with speakers generally able to comprehend one another across varieties despite regional phonological, morphological, and lexical differences. Linguistic studies report lexical overlap of around 80% between dialects, supporting effective inter-dialectal communication in everyday contexts, though comprehension may require adjustments for island-specific innovations or varying loanword densities from Arabic (heavier in Shingazidja) and French.[11] Complete mutual intelligibility holds between closely related southeastern varieties like Shimaore and Shindzwani, based on minimal genetic distances in phonological and lexical features.[12] Challenges to full intelligibility arise primarily from morphological variations, such as noun class marking and verb conjugation patterns, which diverge more noticeably between northwestern Shingazidja and the southeastern dialects; these can lead to initial misunderstandings in rapid speech or complex narratives but diminish with exposure or code-switching. Geographical proximity enhances intelligibility—speakers from adjacent islands report near-native understanding—while broader archipelago-wide interactions, facilitated by migration and media, further bridge gaps, as evidenced by the use of vehicular forms like urban Shingazidja in national discourse. Debates on the unity of Comorian center on whether these varieties represent a single language or separate ones, with consensus among Bantu linguists favoring classification as dialects of a unified Shikomori within the Sabaki subgroup, due to shared core grammar, high intelligibility thresholds (exceeding 70-80% in tested pairs), and common Bantu substrate predating divergent influences.[12] Proponents of disunity argue for distinct language status based on sociopolitical fragmentation, including Mayotte's French-aligned Shimaore divergence and the absence of a standardized orthography, which hinders literary unification; however, quantitative analyses of divergence (e.g., Levenshtein distances under 20% for key pairs) refute low-intelligibility claims, affirming genetic closeness akin to dialect continua elsewhere in Sabaki languages.[12] These discussions intersect with policy debates over national standardization, where preferences for a prestige dialect (often Shingazidja) clash with equitable representation, yet empirical evidence prioritizes unity for pedagogical and cultural preservation efforts.Historical development
Bantu origins and early settlement
The Comorian languages, collectively known as Shikomori, belong to the Bantu language family, specifically the Sabaki subgroup within the Northeast Coastal Bantu branch (Guthrie classification G40). This classification traces their origins to the Proto-Bantu speakers who emerged in the West-Central African region, near present-day Cameroon and Nigeria, approximately 5,000 years ago. From there, Bantu communities expanded eastward and southward over millennia, introducing agriculture, ironworking, and their languages to vast regions of sub-Saharan Africa.[13][14] The Sabaki languages, including Comorian and Swahili, diverged from other Bantu varieties along the East African coast, where Proto-Sabaki likely formed between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago amid interactions with non-Bantu coastal populations.[15][16] Early settlement of Bantu speakers in the Comoros archipelago occurred as an extension of this coastal expansion, with migrants arriving from mainland East Africa, particularly the Swahili coast of present-day Kenya and Tanzania. Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicates initial Bantu presence by the 6th to 8th centuries CE, though some sites suggest activity as early as the 5th century CE, coinciding with or following Austronesian (proto-Malagasy) voyages from Southeast Asia that introduced Asian crops like banana and taro.[17][18] These Bantu settlers, likely proto-Swahili or closely related groups, established communities through maritime trade and migration, bringing iron tools, pottery traditions, and Sabaki speech forms that formed the foundation of Comorian dialects.[19] Genetic analyses reveal admixture between these Bantu arrivals and earlier Austronesian inhabitants, yet the linguistic outcome favored Bantu dominance, possibly due to demographic superiority or cultural assimilation pressures.[20][16] By the 8th to 10th centuries CE, Bantu settlement had solidified across the islands, evidenced by Iron Age sites with ceramics and metallurgy akin to mainland Swahili traditions, marking the onset of enduring linguistic continuity. This period predates significant Arab-Persian influences, which later layered loanwords onto the Bantu core without altering its foundational structure. The isolation of the archipelago relative to the mainland fostered early dialectal variation among the islands—Ngazidja, Ndzuani, Mwali, and Maore—while retaining close mutual intelligibility with Swahili, reflecting shared recent origins in the Sabaki expansion.[21][18]External linguistic influences
The Comorian languages, as Bantu varieties closely related to Swahili, exhibit substantial lexical borrowing from Arabic, stemming from intensive trade contacts and Islamic dissemination across the Indian Ocean rim starting around the 8th century CE. This influence permeates domains such as religion, law, and commerce, with Arabic loanwords comprising a notable portion of the core vocabulary in dialects like Shingazidja; for instance, phonological adaptations occur where Arabic uvular and pharyngeal consonants are approximated using native Bantu articulations, and morphophonological integration involves prefixing Bantu class markers to Arabic roots.[22] Such borrowings parallel those in Swahili, reflecting shared historical networks of Omani and Hadrami Arab merchants who established sultanates in the Comoros by the 16th century.[23] French exerted a more recent and structurally superficial impact during the colonial era, formalized as a protectorate in 1886 and extending through independence in 1975 for most islands. Primarily administrative and educational, this influence manifests in loanwords for modern governance, technology, and institutions—terms like those for "government" or bureaucratic processes—while the Latin script, imposed by French authorities, supplanted the earlier Arabic-based Ajami orthography for vernacular writing.[11] French remains an official language, fostering code-switching in urban and elite contexts, though it has not deeply reshaped core morphology or phonology as Arabic did.[9] Minor external traces include Persian-derived terms via intermediary Arabic-Swahili mediation, evident in nautical and mercantile lexicon shared with coastal East African languages, attributable to pre-Islamic Indian Ocean exchanges predating widespread Islamization. Austronesian substrate effects from early Malagasy settler contacts (circa 7th-10th centuries CE) are negligible in the lexicon, given the Bantu overlay from African migrations, though genetic studies suggest cultural admixture that may have indirectly shaped pragmatic usages.[24][20]Modern dialect divergence
In the 20th century, French colonial rule (1841–1975) imposed a Latin-based orthography across the Comoros archipelago, facilitating written expression but not altering core spoken dialect distinctions rooted in geographic isolation.[7] Phonological and lexical differences persisted, with Shingazidja exhibiting the greatest divergence from eastern varieties like Shindzwani and Shimaore (lexical distances of 0.32–0.36), while Shimwali occupied an intermediate position.[12] Comoros' independence in 1975, excluding Mayotte, marked a pivotal divergence in dialect trajectories. In the Union of the Comoros, national language policies promoted Shikomori standardization, including a 1976 literacy campaign under President Ali Soilih and a 2009 presidential decree establishing an official Latin spelling for educational use, aiming to unify dialects like Shingazidja, Shindzwani, and Shimwali amid political emphasis on cultural identity.[7] These efforts encountered setbacks from coups and instability, limiting convergence, though civil initiatives continue advocacy for broader instrumentalization.[7] Conversely, Shimaore on Mayotte, under continued French sovereignty, has incorporated extensive French loanwords through monolingual French education, administration, and media dominance, accelerating lexical shifts absent in Comorian dialects where Arabic and Swahili borrowings prevail.[25] [26] This political separation frames Shimaore as linguistically and administratively distinct despite high mutual intelligibility with Shindzwani (lexical distance 0.13), potentially widening gaps via code-mixing among youth.[12][7] Overall, modern influences have reinforced rather than bridged island-specific variations, with quantification via phylogenetic and NLP analyses underscoring Shingazidja's outlier status.[27][12]Geographical and sociolinguistic context
Speaker demographics
The Comorian languages, collectively known as Shikomori, are the native tongue of nearly all residents in the Union of the Comoros, where they are spoken by 96.9% of the population as a first language.[28] With the country's total population estimated at 888,400, this equates to approximately 860,000 native speakers.[29] The speaker base extends to Mayotte, a French overseas department adjacent to the Comoros, where the Shimaore dialect is the dominant indigenous language among a population of over 300,000, the majority of whom are ethnic Comorians.[30] Smaller communities of speakers exist in diaspora settings, such as France and neighboring islands like Madagascar and Réunion, though these number in the tens of thousands at most and primarily consist of migrants maintaining the language.[4] Speakers are overwhelmingly ethnic Comorians, an ethnolinguistic group characterized by admixture of Bantu African, Malagasy, Malay, and Arab ancestries, with Sunni Islam as the predominant religion (over 98% of the population).[31] [32] Dialectal usage correlates strongly with geography and island demographics: Shingazidja predominates on Grande Comore (Ngazidja), the most populous island; Shinzwani on Anjouan (Ndzwani); Shimwali on Mohéli (Mwali), with around 29,000 speakers; and Shimaore in Mayotte.[28] Approximate speaker counts for major dialects include 300,000 for Shingazidja and 264,000–350,000 for Shinzwani, reflecting island population distributions where Comorian dialects serve as the vernacular for daily life across urban and rural areas.[33] [34] The languages exhibit robust vitality, with Ethnologue classifying the principal varieties as stable due to consistent intergenerational transmission and minimal language shift, even amid bilingualism in French or Arabic.[35] [36] No significant demographic disparities by age, gender, or socioeconomic status are reported in available linguistic surveys, as acquisition occurs universally in early childhood through family and community immersion.[37]Official status and policy
The official languages of the Union of the Comoros are Shikomori (Comorian), French, and Arabic, as stipulated in Article 9 of the 2018 Constitution, which designates Shikomori explicitly as the national language while affirming the equal status of all three.[38] This recognition builds on the 2001 Constitution (revised 2009), which similarly enumerates "the Shikomor, the national language, French and Arabic" as official, reflecting a post-independence effort to balance indigenous linguistic heritage with colonial and religious influences following French rule until 1975.[39] Prior to 1992, French held sole official status, with Arabic and Shikomori added amid pushes for cultural sovereignty, though implementation has prioritized French in administrative functions.[1] In governmental policy, Shikomori functions primarily as a vernacular for oral communication and community affairs across the islands of Grande Comore, Anjouan, and Mohéli, but lacks robust institutional support compared to French, which dominates legal proceedings, international diplomacy, and secondary education curricula.[40] Arabic serves religious and Quranic instruction, underscoring the 98% Sunni Muslim population's influence on policy. Educational reforms, including a 2017 national policy review, reinforce French and Arabic as primary languages of instruction from primary through tertiary levels, limiting Shikomori to preschool or supplementary roles despite its official designation, which contributes to persistent literacy challenges (around 60% primary attendance as of early 2000s data).[40][32] No comprehensive standardization policy exists for Shikomori's dialects, hindering its formal codification, though sporadic efforts promote Latin-script orthography for broader accessibility.[1]Distinct situation in Mayotte
Mayotte, as a French overseas department since March 31, 2011, presents a sociolinguistic context for Comorian languages distinct from the independent Union of the Comoros, where Comorian dialects hold official status alongside Arabic and French. The primary Comorian variety spoken is Shimaore (also known as Maore Comorian), a Bantu language used as a first language by the majority of the indigenous ethnic community, estimated at around 71% of the population in 2009 data.[41][37] Shimaore remains a stable indigenous language, integral to daily communication and cultural practices, though it exhibits informal bilingualism with French through code-switching, particularly among urban youth.[37][41] French serves as the sole official language, dominating administration, media, and formal domains, with only 2.2% of residents speaking it as a first language in 2009.[41] This contrasts sharply with Comoros, which since independence in 1975 has recognized Comorian dialects in policy and education, including experiments with vernacular-medium instruction during its revolutionary period.[41] In Mayotte, assimilationist policies prioritize French immersion from preschool, excluding Shimaore from the curriculum and contributing to high educational failure rates, such as 64% of pupils scoring below 17/60 on assessments in 2010 and 28% repeating years by multiple grades in primary school by 2009.[41] Limited initiatives, like one-hour weekly mother-tongue activities in three classes or a 2011 preschool bilingual scheme, have not scaled, fostering linguistic insecurity and subtractive bilingualism rather than additive multilingualism.[41] Significant immigration from Comoros islands has introduced speakers of other dialects like Shindzuani, comprising up to a third of Mayotte's ~200,000 population and straining resources, yet reinforcing Shimaore's role amid informal plurilingualism—84.5% of 14-19-year-olds spoke French plus a local language per 2007 INSEE data.[41] This dynamic, coupled with French departmentalization's emphasis on republican integration, limits Shimaore's institutionalization compared to Comoros' promotion of Comorian unity, potentially accelerating shift toward French in public spheres while preserving vernacular vitality in private and traditional contexts.[41]Phonological features
Vowel system
The Comorian languages, across their principal dialects (Ngazidja, Ndzwani, Mwali, and Maore), share a symmetrical five-vowel phonemic inventory typical of many Northeastern Bantu languages: /i, e, a, o, u/.[42] This system lacks phonemic vowel length distinctions, with any observed lengthening arising phonetically from prosodic factors such as penultimate stress or tonal associations rather than underlying contrasts.[43] Vowel quality remains stable, though realizations may vary slightly by dialect; for instance, /e/ and /o/ are mid vowels that exhibit sonority hierarchies in prosodic structuring, where /a/ dominates mid vowels, which in turn dominate high vowels /i/ and /u/.[44] Nasalized vowels occur in the dialects, particularly in environments adjacent to nasal consonants, but their phonemic status remains debated and is often analyzed as allophonic rather than contrastive.[45] No evidence supports advanced tongue root (ATR) harmony or a seven-vowel expansion in core inventories, distinguishing Comorian from some other Bantu subgroups with heightened vowel distinctions.[46] Dialectal variation primarily affects phonetic realization, such as subtle front-back asymmetries in sonority prominence, but the underlying inventory preserves uniformity conducive to mutual intelligibility.[44]Consonant inventory
The Comorian languages, comprising the dialects of Ngazidja, Ndzwani, Mwali, and Maore, possess consonant inventories characteristic of northeastern Bantu (Sabaki subgroup) languages, with 25–30 core phonemes including stops, implosives, frricatives, affricates, nasals, approximants, and liquids. Voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/ contrast with voiced counterparts /b/, /d/, /g/, the latter often realized as implosives [ɓ], [ɗ], [ɠ] in Ngazidja and Mwali dialects but as modally voiced plosives , , in Ndzwani and Maore.[47] Affricates /ts/, /dz/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/ and fricatives /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ are robust across dialects, alongside nasals /m/, /n/, /ɲ/, lateral /l/, rhotic /r/ or flap /ɾ/, and glides /w/, /j/. Prenasalized stops and affricates (e.g., /ᵐb/, /ⁿd/, /ᵑɡ/, /ⁿts/) function as phonemic units, exhibiting dialectal phonetic variation such as homorganic nasals followed by implosives or plosives.[47] Certain dialects feature retroflex stops /ʈ/, /ɖ/, particularly in Maore and Ndzwani, which may alternate with affricates [ʈʂ], [ɖʐ] or alveolar realizations in loans and rapid speech.[47] Labiodental approximant /β/ appears intervocalically as an allophone of /v/ or /w/, while marginal phonemes like dental fricatives /θ/, /ð/, velar fricatives /x/, /ɣ/, and glottal stop /ʔ/ occur sporadically in Arabic loans or idiolects but lack contrastive status in native vocabulary.[47] Glottal /h/ is attested, often in emphatic or borrowed contexts. Implosives neutralize to plosives post-nasally across dialects, reflecting historical Bantu patterns.[47] The following table summarizes the consonant inventory for Shimaore (Maore dialect), representative of the family's structure with dialect-shared phonemes in bold and Maore-specific or marginal ones noted; parallels hold for other dialects with the implosive/voiced stop variations described.[47]| Manner/Place | Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | p b | t̪ d̪ | ʈ ɖ | k g | ||||
| Implosives | ɓ | ɗ | ||||||
| Affricates | ts dz | tʃ dʒ | ||||||
| Fricatives | f v | (θ) (ð) | s z | ʃ ʒ | (x) (ɣ) | h | ||
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | |||||
| Approximants/Liquids | β | l ɾ r | j | (ʔ) |
Prosody and suprasegmentals
Shingazidja, the primary dialect of Comorian spoken on Ngazidja (Grande Comore), features a privative lexical tone system distinguishing high (H) tones from toneless syllables, with tones typically shifting rightward to the penultimate syllable within phonological phrases unless blocked by prior tones.[48] Adjacent high tones undergo deletion per the Obligatory Contour Principle, while toneless phrases insert an H* pitch accent on the penultimate syllable, reflecting an interplay between tone and emerging accentual properties.[48][43] Unlike closely related Swahili, which replaced tone with penultimate stress, Comorian dialects retain tonal contrasts, though acoustic measures like duration and intensity on the penult suggest a gradual reinterpretation of high tones as phrasal accents.[43] Phrase-level prosody involves tone spreading to the final syllables and downstep, where successive high tones are progressively lowered in pitch, marking phonological phrase boundaries.[48] Penultimate stress predominates, often strengthening at phrase edges and interacting with tone realization; for instance, a high tone on the penult lengthens the vowel, while open final vowels can compete for prominence via intensity.[48][43] Intonation contours overlay lexical tone using an autosegmental-metrical framework: declarative statements terminate with a low (L%) boundary tone, yielding a flat F0 trajectory modulated by high tones, whereas yes-no questions employ a superhigh LH* on the penultimate (or antepenultimate if final-toned), and wh-questions feature a shallow end-rise without L%.[48] Non-final phrases end in H% with a sharp F0 rise, and biased questions (e.g., echo or surprise) show LH*!H% on a lengthened final syllable.[48] In syntactic contexts like relative clauses, prosody aligns with phrase boundaries variably: restrictive relatives typically form a single phonological phrase with the head noun, lacking an intonation phrase break except when the head is a matrix object, while non-restrictive relatives and clefts introduce a boundary, halting tone shift and applying non-finality effects such as penultimate tone peaking.[49] These patterns exhibit sensitivity to speech rate, utterance length, and focus, with faster speech compressing tone spread and emphasizing penultimate raising.[49] Across Comorian dialects, suprasegmental features show consistency in tonal retention and penultimate prominence, though dialectal variation in tone realization persists, as in the Washili subdialect's vowel aperture effects on metrical strength.[43]Orthographic systems
Arabic script usage
The Arabic script, adapted as Ajami for Comorian languages, has been employed since the arrival of Islam in the archipelago around the 10th century, facilitating the transcription of religious texts, poetry, and local literature in dialects such as Ngazidja and Ndzwani.[4] This adaptation reflects the profound Islamic cultural influence on Comorian society, where the script served as the primary medium for written expression prior to European colonization.[9] In the 1960s, Sheikh Ahmed Said Kamar-Eddine (c. 1890–1974), a Comorian literati, developed a systematic orthography based on the Arabic alphabet, drawing from Swahili Ajami traditions while addressing Comorian-specific phonemes like implosives and additional vowels.[50] His system innovatively incorporated diacritics and modifications, such as elongated forms for long vowels (e.g., ـ۴ـ for /eː/ and ﻩ for /oː/), shadda (gemination mark) for affricates like /ny/ and /tr/, and borrowings from Persian-Arabic letters for consonants absent in standard Arabic, such as /v/ and /g/.[50] Letters like ḥāʾ (ح), ʿayn (ع), and qāf (ق) were reserved primarily for Arabic loanwords, minimizing interference with native Bantu morphology.[4] Despite the post-independence promotion of Latin script under French influence, the Kamar-Eddine Arabic orthography persists in informal writing, religious instruction, and among older generations and women, who often prefer it for its cultural resonance and ease in Quranic contexts.[40] As of recent linguistic surveys, both scripts coexist without a unified standard, leading to dual-literacy challenges; for instance, archival texts and folk poetry remain predominantly in Ajami.[50] Modern computational efforts, such as the 2025 Shialifube transliteration tool, enable bidirectional conversion between Latin and Kamar-Eddine scripts, achieving character error rates around 9.56% and supporting applications like speech recognition, where Arabic-script models perform comparably to Latin ones despite limited corpora.[50] These initiatives underscore ongoing attempts to digitize and preserve Ajami usage amid data scarcity, though adoption remains constrained by the dominance of Latin in education and administration.[50]Latin script adoption
The Latin script for Comorian languages, primarily ShiKomori, was initially introduced during French colonial rule in the Comoros, beginning in the 19th century following the establishment of protectorates and colonies from 1843 onward, as part of efforts to transcribe local languages for administrative and educational purposes aligned with French orthographic practices.[4] This marked a shift from the predominant Arabic script (Ajami), which had been used since Islamic influences arrived around the 7th century, reflecting religious and cultural writing traditions.[1] The colonial Latin orthography was modified over time to better suit Comorian phonology, incorporating diacritics and additional characters to represent Bantu-specific sounds, though early versions remained inconsistent.[4] Post-independence in 1975, adoption accelerated under President Ali Soilih's regime, which in 1976 standardized a Latin-based alphabet for ShiKomori to promote national unity and literacy, culminating in the 1977 "Narisome shi komor" campaign that produced primers and translated the constitution into the language.[1] This effort positioned Latin script as a tool for secular education and modernization, diverging from Arabic's association with religious elites. However, Soilih's overthrow in a 1978 coup by Ahmed Abdallah led to an abrupt reversal, with the Latin alphabet denounced as "the devil's alphabet" and Comorian literacy programs banned, reinstating Arabic script dominance in official and religious contexts.[1] Renewed standardization efforts emerged in the 1990s amid debates on language policy. A 1993 National Assembly law recognized ShiKomori as an official language alongside French and Arabic, implicitly favoring Latin for practical vernacular use in administration and media.[1] The 2001 constitution reaffirmed this status (Article 1), though without mandating a script, while educational policies since the 1970s have grappled with dual-script usage, limiting Comorian to preschool and oral domains due to orthographic instability.[40] A pivotal advancement occurred in 2009 with a presidential decree formalizing an official Latin orthography, aiming to unify dialects like Ngazidja and Shimaore for textbooks and publications, though implementation remains uneven.[1] Challenges persist, including resistance from conservative Islamic groups favoring Arabic for cultural preservation, dialectal variations complicating uniformity (e.g., vowel length notations), and limited resources for teacher training, resulting in persistent digraphia where Latin prevails in secular media and education but Arabic endures in religious texts.[40][1] Despite these hurdles, Latin script usage has grown since the 2009 decree, supported by linguistic research at the University of Comoros and digital tools for transliteration, reflecting pragmatic needs for accessibility in a French-influenced postcolonial context.[40]Challenges and reform efforts
The Comorian languages face significant challenges in standardization due to their dialectal diversity, with four main varieties—Shingazidja, Shimahori, Shindrani, and Shimaore—exhibiting limited mutual intelligibility, which complicates efforts to develop a unified written form.[51] No universally accepted orthography exists, as both Arabic (historically dominant and linked to ~90% literacy in religious contexts as of the 1970s) and Latin scripts are employed inconsistently, reflecting competing cultural and colonial influences.[40] [52] This duality hinders literacy development, as Comorian remains primarily oral, with adult literacy rates in the Union of the Comoros estimated at 58-77% overall, but far lower in standardized Comorian due to reliance on French and Arabic in formal domains.[53] [54] In education, French serves as the primary medium of instruction from early primary levels onward, with Arabic used for religious education and Comorian confined to preschool, exacerbating dropout rates and limiting mother-tongue proficiency; debates to introduce Comorian and Arabic in primary schools emerged around 2009 but have not been fully implemented.[40] The 2001 Constitution designates Comorian (Shikomoro) as a national and official language alongside French and Arabic, yet its practical exclusion from governance and higher education undermines national identity consolidation and perpetuates diglossia.[39] [40] Reform efforts began post-independence in 1975, with proposals for a Latin-based orthography by figures like Ali Soilihi and Mohamed Ahmed-Chamanga to promote literacy and reduce French dependence.[51] In the early 1980s, the government commissioned a linguistic study culminating in Moinaecha Cheikh's 1986 Latin orthography, which adopted French-influenced spellings (e.g., 'j' for [ʒ], 'dj' for [dʒ]) but faced regional resistance, particularly from Wanzwani speakers, limiting widespread adoption.[51] [52] Dictionary projects advanced standardization, including Ahmed-Chamanga's 1992 Shinzwani-French dictionary and Harriet Ottenheimer's 2008-2011 Comorian-English dictionary, while ongoing work by Comorian linguists at the University of Comoros continues to address dialectal harmonization.[51] These initiatives aim to enhance written use and cultural preservation, though persistent script conflicts and policy inertia constrain progress.[40]Grammatical structure
Noun class system
Comorian languages exhibit a noun class system typical of Bantu languages, in which nouns are grouped into classes defined primarily by prefixes that indicate singular or plural forms and trigger obligatory agreement on associated modifiers, demonstratives, possessives, and verbs.[55] This system organizes approximately 15 classes, though some (such as 12, 13, and 14) are infrequently used in dialects like Shinzwani; classes generally pair as singular-plural sets, with semantic tendencies linking certain classes to categories like humans, augmentatives, diminutives, or locatives.[55] The prefixes and their typical associations are as follows:| Class Pair | Singular Prefix | Plural Prefix | Semantic Tendencies | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-2 | m-/mu-/mw- | wa- | Humans, animates | mwana (child); wana (children) |
| 3-4 | m-/mu-/mw- | mi- | Trees, body parts, inanimates | mwiri (body/tree); miri (bodies/trees) |
| 5-6 | Ø/dzi-/ji- | ma- | Various objects, fruits, liquids | dzitso (eye); matso (eyes); magari (cars) |
| 7-8 | shi-/ki- | zi- | Tools, utensils, diminutives, natural features | shiri (chair/island); ziri (chairs/islands) |
| 9-10 | Ø/n- | Ø/n- | Animals, borrowed terms, abstracts | nyombe (cow/cows); ndia (bird/birds) |
| 11 | u-/w- | - | Augmentatives, abstracts | uuhura (wall) |
| 15 | ku-/hu- | - | Infinitives, manner | kuhuja (to come) |
| 16-18 | pa-/ku-/mu- | - | Locatives (place, time, manner) | pava (place) |
Verbal morphology
Comorian languages employ a templatic verbal structure characteristic of Bantu languages, comprising a subject agreement prefix, followed by tense-aspect-mood (TAM) and object markers as infixes, the verb root (potentially with derivational extensions), and a final vowel that often undergoes vowel harmony.[55][56] This agglutinative system allows for compact expression of grammatical relations, with dialectal variations primarily in prefix realization and TAM forms across Ngazidja, Nzuani, Mwali, and Maore varieties.[2] Subject agreement prefixes fuse with the following morpheme and align with the noun class system, using sets adapted for personal pronouns: ni- (1st singular), u- (2nd singular), a- (3rd singular), ri- (1st plural), mu- (2nd plural), wa- (3rd plural).[55] For non-human classes, prefixes follow broader Bantu patterns (e.g., ki- for class 7), though Comorian dialects exhibit simplification compared to proto-Bantu. Negative polarity replaces affirmative prefixes with forms like tsi- (1st singular), ku- (2nd singular), and ka- (3rd singular).[55] TAM infixes occupy a pre-root slot, with key markers including -si- for present continuous (e.g., nisifanya "I am doing"), -tso- for simple future (e.g., nitsofanya "I will do"), and -ako- for imperfective past (e.g., nakofanya "I was doing").[55] Past tenses distinguish remoteness: a simple form uses subject prefix plus root with harmonized final vowel for recent events (e.g., tsifanya or tsireme "I did/hit" today or yesterday), while a compound form incorporates an auxiliary -ka- plus the simple past verb for remote events (e.g., tsika tsifanya "I had done" last week or earlier).[56][55] Negated pasts employ ka- plus subject marker and -a- before the root (e.g., katsija "I did not hit").[56] Object incorporation occurs via pre-root infixes concordant with the object's class, such as -ni- (1st singular), -mu- (3rd singular), or -zo (plural suffix for multiple objects), enabling ditransitive constructions like nimusadia "I helped him/her".[55] Derivational extensions post-root include reflexive -dji- (e.g., nidjifanya "I do to myself") and possibly applicative or causative suffixes inherited from Bantu, though less productively attested in Comorian than in mainland varieties.[55] Non-indicative moods feature subjunctive forms with subject prefix plus -e- replacing the final -a- (e.g., nifanye "that I do/should do"), used in purposive or hortative contexts, and imperatives as bare stems for singular addressees (e.g., fanya! "do!") or nam- plus stem--e for plural (e.g., namfanyee! "do!").[55] Habitual present often periphrases with subject pronoun plus infinitive (e.g., wami ufanya "I do habitually").[55] Dialects like Shingazidja show minor prosodic and tonal adjustments to these forms, but the core morphology remains consistent.[56]Other syntactic elements
Comorian languages, as Sabaki Bantu varieties, exhibit subject-verb-object (SVO) word order in declarative sentences, consistent with the structure observed in related languages like Swahili.[55] This canonical order applies across dialects such as Shinzwani and Shingazidja, where subjects may be omitted if identifiable from verbal prefixes, but full noun phrases precede the verb when expressed. For instance, in Shinzwani, a sentence like "Wami ɗe nafanya ihazi piya" translates to "I am the one that did all the work," maintaining SVO alignment.[55] Negation is primarily marked by the preverbal prefix ka-, which combines with subject markers and tense-aspect-mood (TAM) elements, altering the verbal form without changing basic word order. In simple past tenses, the structure is ka-SM-TAM-root-a, where SM denotes the subject marker from Set 1 (e.g., 1sg tsi-), as in Shingazidja tsaka nahuona ("I did not see you").[56] [55] Compound past negatives extend this to auxiliaries, yielding forms like ka-SM-a-ka SM-a-root-a in dialects such as Shinzwani and Shimwali (e.g., karaka rawaona "we did not see them").[56] Negative subjunctives employ -si- instead, as in Shinzwani tsisifanye ("I shouldn’t do").[55] The prefix ka- derives from Proto-Northeast Coast Bantu nka-, appearing once per clause even in multi-verbal constructions.[56] Interrogative sentences retain SVO order but position question words sentence-finally in many cases, diverging from fronting strategies in some Bantu languages. Yes/no questions rely on intonation or particles, while content questions use forms like ɗeni ("who") or hapvi ("where"), as in Shinzwani Apiha ishahula ɗeni? ("Who cooked the food?").[55] Relative clauses follow the head noun and are marked by tense-specific affixes, such as present -o- or past a- + prefix, yielding examples like Shinzwani Ishio nishisomao ("The book I am reading").[55] Coordination of verbs often involves subjunctive forms for the second verb, facilitating serial-like structures without overt conjunctions, as in nisitsaha usome ("I want you to study").[55] Conditionals employ nahika ("if") with negative or positive verb forms, such as nahika tsipara mapesa, nitsoendra ("If I find money, I will go"), preserving SVO while integrating modal elements.[55] Apposition in Shingazidja allows extraposition, where appositives separate from anchors via intervening material, linking syntactically to antecedents while embedding prosodically in the host clause.[57]Lexicon and borrowing
Core Bantu vocabulary
The core Bantu vocabulary of Comorian languages forms the indigenous lexical foundation, comprising terms for fundamental concepts like kinship, anatomy, and environment that trace back to Proto-Bantu roots with minimal alteration beyond Sabaki-specific sound shifts, such as nasal assimilation and vowel reduction. This stratum persists amid extensive Arabic and French overlays, which predominantly affect abstract, cultural, and modern domains rather than quotidian basics. Linguistic documentation of dialects like Shinzwani reveals retention of Proto-Bantu-derived forms, often marked by characteristic noun class prefixes (e.g., mu-/mi- for singular/plural in trees or body parts) and disyllabic stems.[55] Key examples from Shinzwani illustrate this inheritance:| Term | English | Noun Class | Notes on Bantu Retention |
|---|---|---|---|
| mwana | child | 1/2 | Singular/plural wana; widespread Bantu root for offspring.[55] |
| mwiri | tree | 3/4 | Plural miri; parallels Northeast Coast Bantu forms like Swahili mti.[55] |
| mundru | leg | 3/4 | Plural mindru; reflects Bantu anatomical lexicon stability.[55] |
| mhono | hand/arm | 3/4 | Plural mihono; cognate with Proto-Bantu *mànò for hand.[55] |
| dzitso | eye | 5/6 | Plural matso; derived from Proto-Bantu *jɪ̀tʊ̀.[55] |