Mr. Dennis Simiyu recently published a research paper titled: “Kiamu na Usomi wa Kale wa Waswahili” (Kiamu and Ancient Language of Instruction of the Swahili People) in the seventh edition of Ruaha Journal of Arts and Social Sciences (RUJASS) - Volume 7, Issue 2, 2021.
This article explores and tries to justify that Kiamu dialect was used as a language of instruction among the Swahili people on the East African Coast before the arrival of foreigners and the standardization of Kiswahili. The study used the language planning models, Ferguson’s (1959) Diglossia and Fisherman’s (1969) Bilingualism with and without diglossia providing a theoretical framework while also examining why Kiamu dialect was used by other Swahili dialects before the standardization of Swahili.
