Researching Swahili

After the arrival of the first missionaries in what is now Kenya in the 1840s, the East African lingua franca Swahili sparked interest in Europe. Initially, it was individual missionaries who learned the language, debated its standardization, recorded language samples, and translated the Bible. With the institutionalization of colonial sciences at the turn of the 20th century, the exploration of Swahili became firmly established in the metropolises of the colonial powers Germany and Britain. Africanist linguistics is thus closely linked to missionary and colonial claims to authority over the political upheavals of the 19th and 20th centuries. In my work, I inquire into the ideological and political factors, ideas, networks, and material conditions that shaped knowledge production. This involves, on the one hand, examining the competition and cooperation among European missionaries, colonial officials, and Africanists from a transimperial perspective. On the other hand, the contribution of African actors to knowledge production is explored – from scholars on the Swahili Coast to lecturers at colonial scientific institutions in Europe

^{Picture: Manuskript der Swahili-Dichtung »Qissati Yusufu«, geschrieben von Muhamadi Kijuma, ca. 1937. © STAATSBIBLIOTHEK ZU BERLIN – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Orientabteilung, Hs. or. 9893.}