al-Ḥuḍūr al-Muʻjamī al-ʻArabī fī al-Lughah al-Sawāḥilīyah: Ālīyāt al-Iqtirāḍ al-Dalālī wa-Tamaththulātuhu al-Ḥaḍārīyah - Abū Ghalyūn, ʻAṭwah; Muʼtamar al-Istiqāmah al-Duwalī al-Thānī: al-ʻUmānīyūn wa-al-Sawāḥilīyah bayna al-Taʼthīr wa-al-Taʼaththur (2026) (Mumbāsā) (Mumbāsā : Jamʻīyat al-Istiqāmah al-Khayrīyah al-Islāmīyah al-ʻĀlamīyah, 2026)
This research investigates the Arabic lexical presence in the Swahili language through an analysis of the mechanisms of semantic borrowing and their civilizational representations, situated within the context of linguistic and cultural interaction between Arabic and Swahili. The study proceeds from the hypothesis that Arabic influence on Swahili was not merely a transient lexical borrowing but constituted a profound sociolinguistic and civilizational phenomenon, intrinsically linked to the spread of Islam, the movement of religious education, and commercial and cultural exchange along the coasts of East Africa. The study identifies selected models of Swahili lexemes of Arabic origin and analyses the pathways of their semantic evolution — whether through narrowing and specialisation, broadening and generalisation, or semantic shift — while elucidating how these developments reflect the civilizational contact between the two languages and the social conditions in which the borrowed vocabulary was received and reshaped.
Permanent citation identifier: MHF-MOMBASA2026-002.
Conference theme (in Arabic): المحور الثالث: الأثر العربي في السواحلية.
Text in Arabic; title also romanized (ALA-LC); abstract and keywords in English.
Keywords: Arabic loanwords; Swahili lexicon; Semantic borrowing; Language contact; East Africa; Sociolinguistics