Translating Slavery between Lake Malawi and the Swahili Coast: Evidence in a Nyanja/Chewa Dictionary from Mombasa.

This essay examines how enslaved individuals used linguistic comparisons and equivalencies to understand and navigate their marginalized social positions. The analysis focuses on a Nyanja/Chewa dictionary assembled in Mombasa in the 1850s by a German missionary and an enslaved man named Salimini. In contributing to the dictionary, Salimini translated between two worlds, comparing words and concepts from his original home to the west of Lake Malawi to those in Swahili spoken around the port city of Mombasa. By studying the derivation of entries related to slavery and comparing them to their Swahili equivalencies, and the lexicon of slavery in other nineteenth-century Nyanja/Chewa sources, we obtain a window into the creative ways that Salimini used concepts from his own language to navigate coastal East Africa’s complex hierarchies and social codes. Scholars have carefully demonstrated how people enslaved in coastal East Africa appropriated and manipulated Swahili idioms, rituals, and dress to challenge social hierarchies and claim their place in coastal society. Yet, the resonance of concepts from East and East Central Africa’s interior within these processes remains unexplored. Salimini’s translation work shows the creative ways enslaved individuals could employ words and ideas from their home languages, even as they adopted the language of their enslavers. The comparisons and equivalencies Salimini made between Mombasa and Lake Malawi underscore the importance of such translation acts to experiences of slavery and dependency. By contrasting and compounding concepts, the enslaved could both comprehend and shape their world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]