This project aims to describe and analyze the use of modal expressions (such as can, must, and maybe) in Swahili, focusing on variation and change across time and space. Spoken widely throughout multilingual East Africa, Swahili is a large language with numerous second-language speakers and regional varieties. A central aspect is to investigate language contact and how modal constructions have been borrowed into and out of Swahili.
The project combines corpus-based research –including the development of the world's largest diachronic Swahili corpus – with comparative-typological work (including fieldwork) on East African languages that display Swahili influence in their modal systems. In this way, we combine and expand upon the growing research interests around modality in Bantu, and Swahili-related linguistic variation and change.
The International Conference on Modality in Bantu: Variation & Change is soon to take place at Mkwawa University College of Education (MUCE), Iringa, Tanzania, on 20-21 February 2026, See https://sites.google.com/view/modality-in-bantu/.
