-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------AN OVERVIEW OF HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SWAHILI TRANSLATION IN TANZANIA

: This paper aims at giving an overview of the historical development of Swahili translation in Tanzania. Currently, the available books and other publications have little information on the history of Swahili translation. The data of this study was drawn through a documentary review where books related to translation in Tanzania, dissertations, and journal articles were thoroughly analysed. The findings demonstrate that translation works were practiced informally translation works were practiced and focused on one-time communication purposes. During the post-colonial period, translations by many writers occupied a significant portion of the Tanzanian literary polysystem. In the 21st century, translations have focused on the country's economic, political, and social, cultural development. The current trend in publications shows that Swahili translation has increased, and many scholars are attracted to the field. The study recommends further studies to be carried out in the thematic area of Swahili translations in pre-colonialism, during colonialism and post-colonialism.


INTRODUCTION
The act of translation is as old as the human language. Translation has played a vital role in almost every aspect of human endeavours throughout history. The translation is undoubtedly a very ancient activity who since dates to the birth of different languages across the world.
According to Robinson (2014), the history of translation goes back to ancient times with the distinction of a word-for-word (literal translation or verbum pro verbo) and sense-for-sense (free translation or sensum pro sensu). People began to feel the necessity to communicate with one another. A translator is a communicator, a bridge-builder between languages and cultures defines the process of translation as involving "the translator changing an original written text (the source text or S.T.) in the original verbal language (the source language or S.L.) into a written text (the target text or T.T.) in a different verbal language (the target language or T.L.)".
In the recent years Tanzania has experienced rapid growth of translation industry. The wide growth of science and technology have influenced to a larger extent expansion of world economy and communication leading to what is globalization. This situation has necessitated knowledge and information transfer from one community to another. Tanzania just like many other countries in Africa and the word at large has been utilizing knowledge and information related to business, diplomacy, education, politics, and religions from diverse communities speaking different languages. For example, about 1200 documents including contracts, manuals, brochures, and diplomatic credentials are translated from Chinese to Kiswahili or to English and vice versa in a month. This shows great demand of translation in the country and has in fact been used as a central instrument for fostering development.
Translation in Tanzania emerged because of the contact between Swahili people and the external world but by then translation was done by non-professionals and was informal. The idea of professionalism does not apply here because there are several unprofessional translators producing high quality translations (Nida, 2001). However, Nida's opinion that translators do not need considerable training in linguistics is not proper because knowing meaning of some words is not enough to do translation. Baker & Saldanha (2019), confirm that translation

158
activities have existed in Western part of Sahara including Tanzania in the last two centuries, the time before invasion of colonialism. It is reported in literature that much of translation works in Africa and Tanzania in particular were basically focused on religious and trade related issues (Pöchhacker, 2016). The existing literature on Swahili translation in Tanzania is rather fragmented, lacking chronological flow see (Fupi et al., 2018;Mazrui, 2016;Mulokozi & Sengo, 1995;Mwangi, 2021;Ryanga, 1985;Talento, 2013;Traore, 2013). The study by Talento examined translation activities which were recorded in Swahili literature focussing on precolonial and early colonial times. The study gives justifications for the existence of translation at the early time of contact between people of the coast and outsiders like Arabs who travelled long from Arabic peninsular and the Persian Gulf through Indian ocean since the 2 nd Century (Talento, ,2013). The communication between the two language communities was facilitated by translators (hereby refer Theas interpreters). It retranslation of the earlier Arab story texts such as the tales of Abunuwas which was famous among Swahili people of the coast, stories from the book Thousands and One Nights and the Swahili manuscript of Hamziyya dated 1652. Similarly, the study reports some works of translation in the post-colonial period such as Shakespeare's plays by Mwalimu Nyerere, Animal Farm translated by Fortunatus Kawegere and many more texts.
The study by Mazrui (2016) revealed that translation activities began long, not later than the 17 th century with the appearance of the long narrative poem known as Hamziyya famous among Swahili people of the coast. The intrusion of Arabs, Persians, Indians, Chinese and Portuguese raised question of language which necessitated translators or interpreters.
Translation of religious books such as Qur'an in 1923 enters the second phase of translation the period known as the booming of translations where many English classical texts were translated.
During this period the colonialists needed translators for their administrative purposes among other things was to mediate communication with local people. The study further examines translation activities in the third phase around 1960's known as the post-colonial era.
Translations involved not only English classical texts, but European texts written in English, and it was right during this period that the third stage of translation of Swahili literary works started as well.
In the study Norms of Swahili Translation in Tanzania: An Analysis of selected Translated Prose by (Hadjivayanis, 2011), a brief history of translation is narrated categorically This study is deemed to help students learning this course in secondary schools, colleges, and universities to have an extended view of translation in general and Swahili translation in particular, its development and the present trend. By studying the previous translations and today's works students will be able to recognize efforts of individuals and institutions engaging in translation. Its major contribution is the provision of experience in translation studies in Kiswahili and adding comprehensive information about translation history. As old saying goes 'learning history helps to build strong future' this study provides necessary information for people in the field. To attain the study purpose researchers have addressed two questions as outlined below.

(i)
What is the historical development of Swahili translation in Tanzania?
(ii) What is an overview of current trend in translation industry in Tanzania?

Design
Regarding the nature of the study descriptive-qualitative design was adopted to explore an overview of historical development of Swahili translation in Tanzania. The design was used because the study involves the exploration of a phenomenon in stages. It is argued that

160
descriptive-qualitative allows a straight forward exploration of a phenomenon (Lambert & Lambert, 2012). The phenomena in this study were described in terms of scenarios giving opportunity to present data based on time of occurrence and chronological order of events.

Instrument and Data Collection
The study applied documentary review to collect relevant information. Documentary is one of the common instruments in collecting descriptive-qualitative data. Essentially, documentary review involves the analysis of documents that contains information about the phenomenon we wish to study (Ahmed, 2010 Direct, Directory of Open Access Journal and JSTOR were the basic sources to access those study documents.

Data Analysis
The study collected qualitative data thorough reviewing relevant resources which were latter analysed by content analysis strategy. Content analysis is the process of organising information into categories related to the central questions of the research (Bowen, 2009 arguments based on the topic in-text was done through paraphrasing the content or citing directly. Furthermore, the process involved checking for cohesion and coherence the in-text citations and the list of references. When all processes were completed, the researchers synchronized the research questions, the result and discussion.

Results
The results obtained are briefly presented descriptively in terms of scenarios, say scenario one (the years before 1700), scenario two (1700 -1884), scenario three (1885 -1961), scenario four  and scenario five (2001 -2021) as follow:

Scenario One: Translation in the Early Pre-colonial era (Years up to 1700)
The coast of Indian ocean including towns along the ocean such as Kilwa, Dar Es salaam, Tanga, the Islands of Mafia and Zanzibar were centres where people from Asia and Europe first settled for trade activities.
In the year between 700-1200 AD the East Africa had already part of Islamic World and between 1200 -1500 AD it was already known and identified as Swahili community (Chami, Le Guennec-Coppens, & Mery, 2002). This means interaction with the external world had been there long ago. It is documented that Portuguese (Vasco da Gama) arrived at the coast of East Africa in the year 1498 and found coast towns already Islamic trading cities (Lodhi, 1994;Posnansky, 1978). Kilwa controlled the trade from eastern to southern Africa and much more on the coast of East Africa (Chami et al., 2002). It was an invasion of Portuguese which destroyed coast towns including Kilwa, Lamu, Mogadishu and Mombasa which were for some years established as trade centres by their predecessors Arabs.
In the year 1696 the Oman Sultanate's movement laid siege over Mombasa and by 1698 he had recaptured most of the coast cities (Killick, 2009). The existence of Arabs and Portuguese within the Swahili people of the coast obviously raised language issue which called for some people with language skills to offer interpretation/translation.
Translations in Swahili literature took its inspiration form religion specifically Islam which essentially began through expansion and adoption of this religion that reached the coast of East Africa in the 8 th Century (Bandia, 2001). Swahili translated literature therefore derived its inspiration from Islam and was therefore initiated through the spread and adoption of this religion which reached the East African coast as early as the 8 the century. There is no physical evidence of translated texts during this time because translation/interpretation was based on oral communication serving as one-time communication purpose. Saying Islamic civilization at this period, Arabs had learned importance of learning languages from the Prophet Muhammad's teaching who used to teach his disciples saying, "whoever learns the language

162
of people is safe from their plots". The spread of Islam and communication with non-Arab speaking communities such as Romans, Jews and others pushed the prophet to look for translators (interpreters) and encouraged his people to learn foreign languages. One of the great translators of the time was Zaid Ibn Thabit who translated letters sent by the prophet to Kings of Persia, Syria, Rome, and Jews and those sent to Prophet from those kings. The eve of science in the Islamic dispensation in the years from 750 -1250 AD was the rise of Arabic language as a trans-ethnic and trans-racial means of communication (Mazrui, 2017). It is at this epoch that the study by Vittori, Bremer and Vittori called it the first stage of Islam in East Africa with early settlements of Muslims at the coastal area (Vittori, Bremer, & Vittori, 2009 (Mwansoko, 2003). Essentially, there is no exact date recorded to when this poem was translated. Some scholars argue that the poem was translated years before 1652 (Allen, 1982;  Mulokozi & Sengo, 1995;Mutiso, 2005)while other scholars claim to be translated in 1652 (Mulokozi, 1996). To avoid all these contradictions this study categorically put this event into scenario one, translations before the year 1700. However, much of translation/interpretation works at this epoch was practiced informally and focused on serving one-time communication purpose as already stated.

Scenario Two: Translation in the Late Pre-colonial era (1700 -1884)
The oceanic exchange network by the time had extended from the coast to interior where much of items were clothes, pottery, and beads. Swahili language and literary repertoire developed at the functional exponent during this period. It was at this epoch that literary translation merged among Swahili community with the series of foreign text adopted for translation in Swahili most of them being religious and poetic texts (Allen, 1982). The poem Chuo cha Herikali or known as Utenzi wa Tambuka an Islamic epic is one of the works recorded to be documented in 1728 (Vierke, 2014 Therefore, many texts were rendered in Swahili but using Arabic transcriptions. For example, the text titled prayer of intercession for rain (salat al-'istisqa') or in Swahili as dua ya kuombea  (Harries, 1952). Mutiso reports in his study to support this assertion that information was written down in Swahili through the Arabic transcript (Mutiso, 2005). Furthermore, during this period Swahili community had developed to the level of resolving community related problems formally in local courts. In these courts there were translators/interpreters who served communication (Hadjivayanis, 2011). These people who worked as translator (known as Mtapta) continued to serve communication in courts and trade activities during colonial period. Hamdani who was good at Germany, English and Arabic languages had received formal training from colonialists, but it is evident that they were doing this job before colonialism with exception of Edwin Brenn who worked with colonial administration. The assumption behind this claim is that Arabic language was spoken among Swahili and used in communication with

Scenario three: Translation during colonial era 1885 -1961
The introduction of colonialism in Tanzania (by then called Tanganyika-German East Africa) which commenced by German power required translators to solve language problems with local chiefs and the Swahili speaking community at large. During this period translation was considered as a very important tool because without it, German colonialists could not access resources of which was the colonial interest. According to Hadjivayanis (2011), translators were trained in schools which were built by German in the early year of colonialism

Translation of Religious texts During Colonialism
Translation of religious texts in Swahili started many years following the contact with the external world. Presence of oldest building in 1300 AD at Kizimkazi in Zanzibar functioning as mosque, implies that Islamic practices existed for many years back among the coastal people (Lodhi, 1994 in the year 1923 whose intention was to shed missionaries and Christians of East Africa with 1, February 2022, e-ISSN: 2442-482x, p-ISSN: 2089-3345

Scenario five: Tanzania and the current trends in Translation (2001-2021)
Translation in the 21 st century has been very much significant on economic, political, and social-cultural development of Tanzania just like other countries across the world.
Translation has been used as a bridge between language boundaries that exhibit smooth dialogues between people, communities, and countries at large. In the last two decades many academicians in Tanzania 1, February 2022, e-ISSN: 2442-482x, p-ISSN: 2089-3345, page 156- (Malangwa, 2017). In mass media, translation has been a major tool in delivering information to people. Many of the news broadcasted in local radios, televisions and newspapers in Tanzania particularly international news are originally adopted from foreign medias and translated into Kiswahili for their final consumers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Premise Journal Vol.11 No
One What exactly is forcing these changes in translation so far? It is due to higher demand of information related to world economy, politics, and social cultural issues. Firms and companies selling goods and services in various countries need to localize and translate information linked to their goods for a number of languages to suit their market (Maylath & Maylath, 2013). Therefore, the need of Swahili translation services is changing in line with which is believed to have been composed in the 13 th C (Mwansoko et al., 2013). The absence of written document does not mean translation did not exist rather printing technology was not yet to be discovered. Furthermore, translation in Tanzania like in other countries existed even before invention of writing (Ya et al., 2011). There are several quotes on the existence of translation long before colonialism in Africa. For instance, (Baker & Saldanha, 2019), report that translation in Africa, South of Sahara to be old as the age of communication through the words of mouth. This means translation has been in place from centuries ago. Translation during the early contact was basically simple and informal grounded on day-to-day communication. Considering the low level of technology and literacy among Swahili people, the forms of translation were not documented on papers as it was to serve one-time purpose. It was until when indigenous printing and publishing started to take place seriously that the As with translation industry across the world, Swahili translation today is making use of technology where some translation software such as google translate, Systran, SDL Trados and others have listed Swahili language as one of working languages. This is the highest achievement that translation industry in Tanzania have ever attained. In the context of information economy, this may suggest that dozens of works can be processed and delivered quickly to various audience for a low cost and in a short period of time. In addition to that, following recognition of Swahili language as one of official languages of the African Union (A.U.) there have been a flow of works for translation from and to Swahili language.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
This study has presented a history of Swahili Translation and its development in Tanzania. Based on the study results, much of the translation works before the colonial period