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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The earliest extant word-list of Swahili 1613
Author:Hair, P.E.H.ISNI
Year:1981
Periodical:African Studies
Volume:40
Issue:2
Pages:151-153
Language:English
Geographic term:East Africa
Subjects:Swahili language
dictionaries (form)
External link:https://doi.org/10.1080/00020188108707575
Abstract:The late Wilfred Whiteley in 1969 pointed out that, although the Portuguese were in contact with the East African coast from 1500, no word-list of the Swahili language collected by Portuguese before 1650 is known (or indeed is known to have existed) and that the earliest word-list was collected, somewhat surprisingly, in the Comoro Islands by an English merchant, William Payton, who after reaching the islands in 1613 included in his journal a vocabulary of fourteen terms collected at 'Mohelia', that is, Moheli Island. The manuscript is not extant, nor is any other account of Payton's voyage. But in 1665 and 1677 Thomas Herbert inserted Payton's vocabulary in a description of a voyage to India, claiming to have collected it himself. In this article Whiteley's listing and identification of the terms in Payton's word-list is slightly corrected and augmented. Notes.
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