ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the comparative perspective of the linguistic politics of Swahili translation of both the Bible and the Quran. Some of the earliest recorded views on Swahili translation relate to biblical materials. The Bible is by far the most widely read book in translation in the history of the written word. Even the original four gospels of the New Testament were written primarily in the Greek language, with only a smattering of Aramaic phrases. As early as 1850, the Reverend Dr. Johann Ludwig Krapf of the Church Missionary Society was already campaigning for Swahili as a language of the Bible and Christian evangelism. The translation, according to Broomfield, resulted in a language that is impoverished and clumsy, Swahili renderings of the holy book. Unlike other parts of the Arab world such as Egypt and Lebanon, where the Arabic translation of the Bible retained the Arabic script, the translation into the Sudanese dialect of Arabic used the Roman script.
