Abstract: The usage of common man language (Skaz) in Swahili epic poems has been dealt with scantily or coincidentally. This paper tries to show this type of language usage in Utendi wa Siri li Asrari (Epic poem of secret of secrets) so as to understand the meaning intended by the composer. Skaz language is oriented towards everyday speech of the common folk and the narrator does not possess intellectual sophistication. Also, it has to be double voiced so as to include many other actors in the narration. Our data samples will include the type of narration, syntactic constructs, and lexicon utilized in the poem. The data is solely collected from the text and using descriptive analysis we shall shed light on the Skaz. We conclude that the Skaz is evident in the poem and by contextualizing the words we get to understand their meaning.
Keywords: Skaz, Swahili, Siri li Asrari, literature, epic.
Title: MANIFESTATION OF COMMON MAN LANGUAGE IN EPIC POEMS: A CASE STUDY OF UTENDI WA SIRI LI ASRARI
Author: Mohamed Karama, Rocha Chimerah, Kineene wa Mutiso
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
Research Publish Journals
