Contextualizing Universal Theory of Acronym Formation in Kiswahili acronyms

Abstract

In controlling and managing knowledge there is need of a tool that ensures such management. Theories, principles and rules are the right tools for knowledge management (cf. Mkude 2008: 158). There has been so far only one theory known to the present researcher, which is UTAF (Zahariev 2004). This study evaluates the applicability of Universal Theory of Acronym Formation (UTAF) to Bantu languages drawing data from Kiswahili since the UTAF was developed based on European, Asian and Middle East languages[1]and, hence, in real sense, its founder did not include any acronymic data from any African or Bantu languages. The theory was developed in 2004 by Zahariev arguing that, it is the first theory accounting for acronyms and for all human languages. To my knowledge, this claim has never been tested with any of Bantu languages, which this study intends to look after. Testing this theory in Kiswahili, a Bantu language, will stimulate further insightful studies on acronyms in other Bantu languages. [1] European languages involved are English, Spanish, French, German, Finnish, Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, Bulgarian and Romanian; Middle East languages involved are Hebrew, Arabic and Farsi; Asian languages involved are Chinese and Japanese.

Keywords

• Universal Theory of Acronym Formation
• acronym
• Kiswahili