Comorian
shikomori شِكُمُرِ‎
Native to	Comoros and Mayotte
Region	Throughout Comoros and Mayotte; also in Madagascar and Réunion
Native speakers	800,000 in Comoros (2011)[1] 300,000 in Mayotte (2007)[2][3]
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu Northeast Coast Bantu Sabaki Comorian
Dialects	Maore
Writing system	Arabic Latin
Official status
Official language in	Comoros
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: zdj – Ngazidja dialect wni – Ndzwani (Anjouani) dialect swb – Maore dialect wlc – Mwali dialect
Glottolog	como1260
Guthrie code	G.44[4]

Comorian (Shikomori, or Shimasiwa, the "language of islands") is the name given to a group of four Bantu languages spoken in the Comoro Islands, an archipelago in the southwestern Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar. It is named as one of the official languages of the Union of the Comoros in the Comorian constitution. Shimaore, one of the languages, is spoken on the disputed island of Mayotte, a French department claimed by Comoros.

Like Swahili, the Comorian languages are Sabaki languages, part of the Bantu language family. Each island has its own language, and the four are conventionally divided into two groups: the eastern group is composed of Shindzuani (spoken on Ndzuani) and Shimaore (Mayotte), while the western group is composed of Shimwali (Mwali) and Shingazija (Ngazidja). Although the languages of different groups are not usually mutually intelligible, only sharing about 80% of their lexicon, there is mutual intelligibility between the languages within each group, suggesting that Shikomori should be considered as two language groups, each including two languages, rather than four distinct languages.^[5][6]

Historically, the language was written in the Arabic-based Ajami script. The French colonial administration introduced the Latin script, of which a modified version was officially decreed in 2009.^[6] Many Comorians now use the Latin script when writing the Comorian language although the Ajami script is still widely used, especially by women.^{[citation needed]} Recently, some scholars have suggested that the language may be on its way to endangerment, citing the unstable code-switching and large amount of French words used in daily speech.^[7]

It is the language of Umodja wa Masiwa, the national anthem.

History and Classification

The first Bantu speakers arrived at the Comoros sometime between the 5th and 10th centuries, before the Shirazi arabs.^[7]

Shimwali

The Shimwali dialect was possibly one of the earliest Bantu languages to be recorded by a European. On July 3, 1613, Walter Payton claimed to have recorded 14 words on the island of Moheli, stating "They speak a kind of Morisco language." Sir Thomas Roe and Thomas Herbert also claimed to have recorded vocabulary.^[8]

Until the 1970s, it was regarded as a dialect or archaic form of Swahili. This was first proposed in 1871, when Kersten suggested it might be a mixture of Shingazija, Swahili, and Malagasy. In 1919 Johnston, referring to it as 'Komoro Islands Swahili - the dialect of 'Mohila' and 'the 'Mohella' language', suggested that, taken together with the other two dialects in the Comoros, it might be an ancient and corrupt form of Swahili. However, Ottenheimer et al. (1976) found this to not be the case. Instead, they classify Shimwali, as well as the other Comorian languages, as a separate language group from Swahili.^[9]

Shinzwani

Shinzwani was first noted by a South African missionary Reverend William Elliott in 1821 and 1822. During a 13-months' mission stay on the island of Anjouan he compiled a vocabulary and grammar of the language. Elliott included a 900-word vocabulary and provided 98 sample sentences in Shinzwani. He does not appear to have recognized noun- classes (of which there are at least six in Shinzwani) nor does he appear to have considered Shinzwani a Bantu language, only making a superficial connection to Swahili.^[9]

The dialect was noted again in 1841 by Casalis, who placed it within Bantu, and by Peters, who collected a short word list. In 1875 Hildebrandt published a Shinzwani vocabulary and suggested in 1876 that Shinzwani was an older form Swahili.

The idea of the distinctness of Shingazija and Shinzwani from Swahili finally gained prominence during the latter part of the 19th century and the early 20th century. In 1883, an analysis by Gust distinguished Shinzwani from Swahili. He discusses Shinzwani and Swahili as two separate languages which had contributed to the port-language which he referred to as Barracoon.^[10]

In 1909 two publications reaffirmed and clarified the distinctiveness of Shinzwani, Shingazija and Swahili. Struck published a word list which appeared to have been recorded by a Frenchman in Anjouan in 1856, identified the words as belonging to Shinzwani and noted some influence from Swahili.^[11][12]

In his Swahili Grammar, Sacleux cautioned that although Swahili was spoken in the Comoros it must not be confused with the native languages of the Comoros, Shinzwani and Shingazija. He said that while Swahili was mostly spoken in cities, the Comorian languages were widely spoken in the countryside.^[13]

Shingazija

Shingazija was not documented until 1869 when Bishop Edward Steere collected a word list and commented that he did not know which language family it belong to. In 1870 Gevrey characterized both Shingazija and Shinzwani as the 'Souaheli des Comores' (Swahili of the Comoros) which was only a 'patois de celui de Zanzibar'. However, Kersten noted in 1871 that Shingazija was not at all like Swahili but was a separate Bantu language.

Torrend was the first to identify the difference between Shingazija and Shinzwani in 1891. He attempted to account for Shingazija by suggesting that it was a mixture of Shinzwani and Swahili.^[9]

Phonology

The consonants and vowels in the Comorian languages:

Vowels

Consonants

The consonants mb, nd, b, d are phonemically implosives, but may also be phonetically recognized as ranging from implosives to voiced stops as [ᵐɓ~ᵐb], [ⁿɗ~ⁿd], [ɓ~b], [ɗ~d]. A glottal stop [ʔ] can also be heard when in between vowels.

In the Shimaore dialect, if when inserting a prefix the leading consonant becomes intervocalic, [p] becomes [β], [ɗ] becomes [l],[tr] becomes [r], [k] becomes [h], and [ɓ] is deleted.

There is a preference for multi-syllable words and a CV syllable structures. Vowels are frequently deleted and inserted to better fit the CV structure. There is also an alternate strategy of h-insertion in scenarios which would otherwise results in VV.

There is a strong preference for penultimate stress. There was previously a tone system in the language, but it has been mostly phased out and no longer plays an active role in the majority of cases.

Grammar

Noun Class

As in other Bantu languages, Shimaore displays a noun class/gender system in which classes share a prefix. Classes 1 through 10 generally have singular/plural pairings.

Classes 9 & 10 consists mainly of borrowed words, such as dipe (from French le pain 'the bread') and do not take prefixes. Class 7 & 8 and class 9 & 10 take on the same agreements in adjectives and verbs. Class 10a contains a very small amount of words, generally plurals of Class 11. Class 15 consists of verbal infinitives, much like English gerunds.

Class 16 contains only two words, vahana and vahali, both meaning 'place'. It was probably borrowed from Swahili pahali, which was borrowed from Arabic mahal. Class 17 consists of locatives with the prefix ha-, and Class 18 consists of locatives with the prefix mwa-.^[7][16]

Numerals

Numerals in Comorian follow the noun. If the number is 1 through 5 or 8, it must agree with the class of its noun.

Demonstratives

There are three demonstratives: One that refers to a proximate object, a non-proximate object, and an object that was previously mentioned in the conversation.^[7]

Possessives

The possessive element -a agrees with the possessed noun. The general order of a possessive construction is possessed-Ca-possessor.^[7]

Verbs

Comorian languages exhibit a typical Bantu verb structure.

Although there is only one form of the subject marker for personal plural subjects and for subjects belonging to the classes 3-18.

In Proto-Sabaki, the 2sg and 2sg subject markers were *ku and *ka, respectively. However, the *k was weakened to h in Shingazija and further to Ø in all other dialects.^[18]

Verbs can be negated by adding the prefix ka-. However, occasionally other morphemes of the verb may take on different meanings when the negative prefix is added, such as in the following example, where the suffix -i, usually the past tense, takes on the present habitual meaning when it is in a negative construction.

The present progressive uses the prefix si-/su-, the future tense uses tso-, and the conditional uses a-tso-.There are two past tense constructions in Comorian. ^[7]The first of these is the simple past tense, which uses the structure SM-Root-Suffix 1.

The second is the compound past, using the structure SM-ka SM-Root-Suffix 1. ^[17]