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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.social,net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Re: American Blacks & Swahili
Message-ID: <231@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Jun-85 22:28:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubvax.231
Posted: Mon Jun 24 22:28:07 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Jul-85 06:05:47 EDT
References: <1867@ut-ngp.UTEXAS>
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Xref: watmath net.social:759 net.politics:9661 net.religion:7193

In article <1867@ut-ngp.UTEXAS>, sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi) writes:
> 
> 	While almost all of the slaves who were brought to the
> 	'New World' came from West Africa, why is Swahili given
> 	such a high stature by Blacks in the U.S. when Swahili
> 	is from East Africa?

Most of the internationalist (n > 1) generation Africans I know don't
distinguish between East or West Africa in their sense of African
heritage.  That is, they are African more than they are East or
West African.

Why Swahili?  I'm not sure, but perhaps because at the time of
rising identification with Africa, Swahili was being pushed as a
continental black African language, a tongue for commerce,
diplomacy and culture between black African nations.

There would be more point in picking a language to be close to
modern African political developments than to choose an arbitrary
tribal language out of historical nostalgia.  Of course, most
of these choices were made before the rise of Nigeria to its
current prestige and economic power.

As to "white" influence on this decision, my impression from the
history books I've read is that African nationalist movements in
the US have always been led and supported by Blacks alone.

Tony Wuersch
{amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw