Morphological Integration of Lexical Borrowings from Kiswahili into Chimalaba

Abstract

This paper explores morphological strategies used to integrate lexical borrowings from Kiswahili into Chimalaba. The data were collected by Amani (2010) from a corpus of 169 lexical borrowings from Kiswahili into Chimalaba. The analysis was guided by Assimilation Theory, which holds that speakers assimilate borrowed words to the morphological habits of their languages. The findings indicate that the speakers of the recipient language do not fully integrate certain borrowed items; instead they adopt them with their foreign features intact. The findings further indicate that new sounds have been introduced into the recipient language, viz. /f/, /z/ and //, as a result of adopting loanwords from Kiswahili. Thus, the integration of Swahili loanwords has induced some changes in the structure of Chimalaba.