Translating Swahili linguistic terminology into Italian

This article investigates the process of translating Swahili linguistic terminology into Italian as a way to reflect upon the metalinguistic representation of two different language structures. On the one hand, some terms of ancient Greek etymology, such as the English loanwords fonolojia ‘phonology’, fonimu ‘phoneme’,and mofimu ‘morpheme’, can be easily translated into Italian as ‘fonologia’, ‘fonema’, and ‘morfema’; on the other hand, some conceptual correspondences appear more problematic, especially in the field of morphology. There are terms that specifi-cally refer to Bantu linguistic concepts, such as viambishi nyambulishi vya vitenzi ‘verbal ex-tensions’, (it) ‘estensioni verbali’. Moreover, several synonyms that indicate the concept of “structure” (i.e. muundo ‘structure’, uambajengo ‘(syntactic) structure,’ tungo ‘construction’) have different uses according to the linguistic context; thus, I have suggested a translation based on the etymology (Tramutoli, 2018). The study is based on a corpus of approximately 150 lin-guistic terms mostly collected during Swahili linguistic lectures at the Department of Swahili Studies (TATAKI) at the University of Dar es Salaa

‘Love’ encoding in Swahili: a semantic description through a corpus-based analysis

Several studies have described emotional expressions used by speakers from different linguistic and cultural areas all around the world. It has been demonstrated that there are universal cognitive bases for the metaphorical expressions that speakers use to describe their emotional status. There are indeed significant differences concerning the use of emotional expressions, not only across languages but also language-internally. Quite a number of studies focus on the language of emotions in several European languages and languages of West Africa, whereas not enough research has been done on this regard on Eastern African language

Swahili Complex Predicates with Body Part Terms

Complex predicates (CP) have attracted the attention of a number of linguists, and their syntactic properties have been widely investigated cross-linguistically. This paper describes Swahili “complex predicates”, that is, verbal constructions (V+N) which resemble a typical verb-object relation, but function like a single lexical verb. In particular, we will deal with a specific type of CP, involving body part terms as part of the predicate, such as -fa moyo, lit. die heart, ‘despair’; -kata ini, lit. cut liver, ‘cause suffering’; or -toka damu, lit. go out blood, ‘bleed’. We show how body part nouns differ from other nominal elements typically employed in complex predicates, both in their syntactic properties (e.g. object marking and possessor raising) and in their semantic characteristics (e.g. degree of semantic compositionality). Indeed, body part terms are often employed to conceptualize more abstract entities and ideas which belong to different semantic domains. Unlike other nominal elements, they seem to occupy the slot of regular objects, while they are not syntactic arguments of the verb, but rather define the scope, range, character or extent of the process

The terms for “emotion” in Swahili: a lexical analysis based on interviews with native speakers

In this paper, I describe the linguistic encoding of the conceptual category “emotion” in Swahili, focusing on analysis of the lexicon. After giving a brief overview of recent studies on lexical semantics, I will discuss and problematise the conceptual category of “emotion”. I will first describe the Swahili verbs which describe the semantic domain of perception, e.g. –sikia (hear); -ona (see); -hisi (touch), and show that, in some contexts, their meaning is often metonymically extended to “feel”. I will then present analysis of definitions and contexts of use of the Swahili terms for “emotion” which were relevant during data collection. Data were collected both through Swahili monolingual and bilingual dictionaries and through interviews with and questionnaires administered to native Swahili speakers in Dar es Salaam. The study shows that Swahili uses different terms in order to describe the different facets of the complex category of “emotion”. Swahili uses a general term hisia, a loanword from Arabic, to indicate both physical and abstract feelings. However, there are other Swahili terms which indicate different semantic facets of the concept “emotion”: mzuka (spirit), which is culturally linked to spirit possession and healing practices; mhemko (excitement), which can have different meanings according to the context of use, e.g. anxiety, strong desire, anger or love; and msisimko (thrill), which suggests specific reference to a bodily reaction, e.g. to fear, cold or excitement

A New Model of Solar Illumination of Earth’s Atmosphere during Night-Time

In this work, a solar illumination model of the Earth’s atmosphere is developed. The developed model allows us to determine with extreme accuracy how the atmospheric illumination varies during night hours on a global scale. This time-dependent variation in illumination causes a series of sudden changes in the entire Earth-atmosphere-ionosphere system of considerable interest for various research sectors and applications related to climate change, ionospheric disturbances, navigation and global positioning systems. The use of the proposed solar illumination model to calculate the time-dependent Solar Terminator Height (STH) at the global scale is also presented. Time-dependent STH impact on the measurements of ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) is, for the first time, investigated on the basis of 20 years long time series of GPS-based measurements collected at the ground. The correlation analysis, performed in the post-sunset hours, allows new insights into the dependence of TEC–STH relation on the different periods (seasons) of observation and solar activity condition

Monitoring soil wetness variations by means of satellite passive microwave observations: the HYDROPTIMET study cases

Soil moisture is an important component of the hydrological cycle. In the framework of modern flood warning systems, the knowledge of soil moisture is crucial, due to the influence on the soil response in terms of infiltration-runoff. Precipitation-runoff processes, in fact, are related to catchment's hydrological conditions before the precipitation. Thus, an estimation of these conditions is of significant importance to improve the reliability of flood warning systems. Combining such information with other weather-related satellite products (i.e. rain rate estimation) might represent a useful exercise in order to improve our capability to handle (and possibly mitigate or prevent) hydro-geological hazards. <P style='line-height: 20px;'> Remote sensing, in the last few years, has supported several techniques for soil moisture/wetness monitoring. Most of the satellite-based techniques use microwave data, thanks to the all-weather and all-time capability of these data, as well as to their high sensitivity to water content in the soil. On the other hand, microwave data are unfortunately highly affected by the presence of surface roughness or vegetation coverage within the instantaneous satellite field of view (IFOV). Those problems, consequently, strongly limit the efficiency and the reliability of traditional satellite techniques. <P style='line-height: 20px;'> Recently, using data coming from AMSU (Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit), flying aboard NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) satellites, a new methodology for soil wetness estimation has been proposed. The proposed index, called Soil Wetness Variation Index (<I>SWVI</I>), developed by a multi-temporal analysis of AMSU records, seems able to reduce the problems related to vegetation and/or roughness effects. Such an approach has been tested, with promising results, on the analysis of some flooding events which occurred in Europe in the past. <P style='line-height: 20px;'> In this study, results achieved for the HYDROPTIMET test cases will be analysed and discussed in detail. This analysis allows us to evaluate the reliability and the efficiency of the proposed technique in identifying different amounts of soil wetness variations in different observational conditions. In particular, the proposed indicator was able to document the actual effects of meteorological events, in terms of space-time evolution of soil wetness changes, for all the analysed HYDROPTIMET test cases. Moreover, in some circumstances, the <I>SWVI</I> was able to identify the presence of a sort of 'early' signal in terms of soil wetness variations, which may be regarded as a timely indication of an anomalous value of soil water content. This evidence suggests the opportunity to use such an index in the pre-operational phases of the modern flood warning systems, in order to improve their forecast capabilities and their reliability

“What’s in a name?” Swahili toponymy of past towns on the East African coast

For the last century, archaeologists have surveyed and studied archaeological sites on the Swahili coast of East Africa, that represent the remains of past Swahili settlements and, in few cases, living historical towns. This paper is the first discussion of a collection of the names under which these past towns have been known, some of which may date back to the precolonial period. The present enquiry is concerned with the analysis of linguistic features, folk etymology and the conceptual content of these toponyms. It considers the recognised important themes in archaeology and history of the Swahili society, such as the political functioning of these towns as city states and the attested social and economic relevance of trade, the built environment and the ocean. Utilising this knowledge, it reflects on how the names contributed to place-making and defining the identity of these towns both as individual entities and as part of the Swahili cultural sphere. The interdisciplinary approach and perspectives (linguistic and archaeological) help to elucidate the connection between the socio-historical relevance of these sites with their cultural conceptualisations

Thermal Radiation Anomalies Associated with Major Earthquakes

Recent developments of remote sensing methods for Earth satellite data analysis contribute to our understanding of earthquake related thermal anomalies. It was realized that the thermal heat fluxes over areas of earthquake preparation is a result of air ionization by radon (and other gases) and consequent water vapor condensation on newly formed ions. Latent heat (LH) is released as a result of this process and leads to the formation of local thermal radiation anomalies (TRA) known as OLR (outgoing Longwave radiation, Ouzounov et al, 2007). We compare the LH energy, obtained by integrating surface latent heat flux (SLHF) over the area and time with released energies associated with these events. Extended studies of the TRA using the data from the most recent major earthquakes allowed establishing the main morphological features. It was also established that the TRA are the part of more complex chain of the short-term pre-earthquake generation, which is explained within the framework of a lithosphere-atmosphere coupling processes

EVIDENCE OF WEAK CHAOS WITHIN PLUG-SLUG TRANSITION IN HORIZONTAL TWO PHASE FLOW

Intermittent behaviour has been observed in gas-liquid flows in a horizontal pipe and a weak sign of deterministic chaos has been diagnosed within a transition from plug to slug flow. The analysis has been performed on the basis of an algorithm which exploits the concept of short-term predictability of chaotic motions. The method is completely non-parametric and works whatever the distribution function of the data points may be. The weak sign of chaos is in contrast with the Lorenz-type systems (strong chaos) and supports the idea of Kolmogorov about irregular motion in hydrodynamical systems

Monitoring the Agung (Indonesia) ash plume of November 2017 by means of infrared Himawari 8 data

The Agung volcano (Bali; Indonesia) erupted in later November 2017 after several years of quiescence. Because of ash emissions, hundreds of flights were cancelled, causing an important air traffic disruption in Indonesia. We investigate those ash emissions from space by applying the RSTASH algorithm for the first time to Himawari-8 data and using an ad hoc implementation scheme to reduce the time of the elaboration processes. Himawari-8 is a new generation Japanese geostationary meteorological satellite, whose AHI (Advanced Himawari Imager) sensor offers improved features, in terms of spectral, spatial and temporal resolution, in comparison with the previous imagers of the MTSAT (Multi-Functional Transport Satellite) series. Those features should guarantee further improvements in monitoring rapidly evolving weather/environmental phenomena. Results of this work show that RSTASH was capable of successfully detecting and tracking the Agung ash plume, despite some limitations (e.g., underestimation of ash coverage under certain conditions; generation of residual artefacts). Moreover, estimates of ash cloud-top height indicate that the monitored plume extended up to an altitude of about 9.3 km above sea level during the period 25 November at 21:10 UTC-26 November at 00:50 UTC. The study demonstrates that RSTASH may give a useful contribution for the operational monitoring of ash clouds over East Asia and the Western Pacific region, well exploiting the 10 min temporal resolution and the spectral features of the Himawari-8 data