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From: sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.africa,net.social,net.politics,net.religion
Subject: American Blacks & Swahili
Message-ID: <1867@ut-ngp.UTEXAS>
Date: Sun, 23-Jun-85 02:40:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.1867
Posted: Sun Jun 23 02:40:44 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Jun-85 05:14:00 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: The University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712
Lines: 24
Xref: watmath net.nlang.africa:64 net.social:731 net.politics:9561 net.religion:7176


	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? Why not a West African language,
	like Yoruba?  Since the Europeans stripped the African
	slave of his own language and culture (or at least the
	Europeans thought they did), did the 'white man' have any-
	thing to do with Swahili becoming the 'native language'
	to the Blacks in the U.S.?  Even the Arabs, who also had an 
	extremely active African slave trade, did many of the same 
	things that the Europeans did to the African slaves. While
	the Euopean 'gave' the Bible, the Arab 'gave' the Koran [Quran].
	Why has Swahili been chosen since it is too a language of 
	the slavemasters? 
					  Sunil Trivedi
					sunil@ut-ngp.ARPA

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