Chapter 7. Utu as epistemology and conviviality in Kiswahili culture

Abstract

Anthropological linguistics is essentially concerned with language in/as cultural practices as they emerge and change through humans living in communities. Yet the aspect of living together itself has rarely been explicitly addressed from anthropological linguistic perspectives. In our contribution, we aim to explore the concept of utu (‘humanity’) in Kiswahili by looking at linguistic practices in different domains. To show that utu can be regarded as an epistemology and a way of knowing and mastering living together as humans, we will look at language in unyago (coming-of-age rituals), proverbs and sayings but also at grammatical features of Kiswahili. This chapter thus investigates concepts of humanity at the intersection of language and culture.