Bajuni – A Language Peninsula

Abstract

The article deals with the northern Swahili dialect Bajuni. It is viewed as a language peninsula rather than island, attached to neighbouring and related dialects to the south but jutting north into Somali-speaking areas. It is currently severely endangered, having been largely replaced by Somali in Somalia, and Swahili in Kenya during the late twentieth century, so it is regarded essentially as a historical language peninsula. It is treated under these headings: geography and population; history; political, sociocultural, and economic context; linguistics; regularity/complexity/stability; contact phenomena; sociolinguistics; language use and attitudes; networks.