Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ut-ngp.UTEXAS Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!sunil 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 \ / ut-sally netword \ / ut-ngp | sunil