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The “Archaic” Perfect Tense in Old and Modern Swahili

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

M. A. Bryan
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Extract

The use of the “archaic” perfect tense with suffix -ile in old Swahili has been mentioned by many writers, particularly Taylor and stigand. This form of the perfect is well known in other languages, but in modern Swahili the form with prefix-me-has taken its place.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , February 1937 , pp. 195 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1937

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References

page 195 note 1 Taylor, African Aphorisms, p. 166; also notes in the text.

page 195 note 2 Stigand, Dialects of Swahili, pp. 44, 45.

page 195 note 3 Meinhof, Bantu Phonology, p. 45.

page 197 note 1 The probability is that the -me- form is the perfect of mala, to finish (see Meinhof, op. cit., p. 131).

page 198 note 1 Haddon, E. B., “The Perfect Tense in the Eastern Bantu Languages,” Uganda Journal, vol. iv, No. 2, 1936, pp. 120–5.Google Scholar