A English-Swahili Dictionary

The author portrays that this Dictionary is an attempt to bring together in a convenient form materials for the study of the language most widely known throughout East and Central Africa, and to combine them in the light of a long, though in various ways limited, experience. It would be more accurately described as an annotated vocabulary of the dialect of Swahili commonly spoken in Zanzibar city. It cannot lay claim to the formal completeness, especially in the treatment of verbs, which attaches to the idea of a dictionary, and it deals with a dialect which in respect of a large number of words is distinguished by the Swahilis themselves from the Swahili dialect of the coast. It is based on the lists of words, singularly accurate and relatively complete in themselves, furnished by Bishop Steere's Handbook of Swahili and scattered throughout his collections and translations, and on Krapfs Diclionary of Swahili —works issued more than twenty years ago. No work, however, at present exists (1903) which attempts the same object as the present. It was beyond the scope of Bishop Steere's plan to supply more than full lists of useful words. This important book is recommended for those who have deep interest in Swahili language.