Swahili language

Swahili, also known as Kiswahili (translation: language of the Swahili people), is a Bantu language and the first language of the Swahili people. Swahili is a Bantu language of the Sabaki branch.

The Bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is Swahili; however, the majority of its speakers use it as a second language (L1: c. 16 million, L2: 80 million, as of 2015).

Swahili, also known as Kiswahili (translation: language of the Swahili people), is a Bantu language and the first language of the Swahili people.

The Swahili speak the Swahili language, which belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo family.

It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, some parts of Malawi, Somalia, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Rwanda (u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda (Repubulika y'u Rwanda; Swahili: Jamhuri ya Rwanda; République du Rwanda), is a country in Central Africa and one of the smallest countries on the African mainland.

It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, some parts of Malawi, Somalia, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In June 1928, an interterritorial conference attended by representatives of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar took place in Mombasa.

The official languages are English and Swahili, although "any other language may be used as a medium of instruction in schools or other educational institutions or for legislative, administrative or judicial purposes as may be prescribed by law."

It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, some parts of Malawi, Somalia, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Between the 7th and 11th centuries, a series of Swahili port towns developed here, which contributed to the development of a distinct Swahili culture and language.

It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, some parts of Malawi, Somalia, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The country does not have a de jure official language, although the national language is Swahili.

Swahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community.

The African Union has defined a number of languages as working languages including Swahili, Arabic, English, French and Portuguese as well as other African languages if possible.

Comorian, spoken in the Comoros Islands, is sometimes considered to be a dialect of Swahili, though other authorities consider it a distinct language. Shikomor, the official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte (Shimaore), is related to Swahili.

Like Swahili, the Comorian languages are Sabaki languages, part of the Bantu language family.

It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, some parts of Malawi, Somalia, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Bantu Swahili language is the most commonly spoken language in the African Great Lakes region.

Swahili is a Bantu language of the Sabaki branch.

In addition to Swahili, they include Ilwana (Malakote) and Pokomo on the Tana River in Kenya, Mijikenda, spoken on the Kenyan coast; and Comorian, in the Comoro Islands.

It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, some parts of Malawi, Somalia, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In June 1928, an interterritorial conference attended by representatives of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar took place in Mombasa.

Kenya has close ties with its fellow Swahili-speaking neighbours in the African Great Lakes region.

It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, some parts of Malawi, Somalia, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Swahili developed as a lingua franca between several Bantu-speaking tribal groups on the east coast of Africa with heavy influence from Arabic.

In June 1928, an interterritorial conference attended by representatives of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar took place in Mombasa.

Although a Bantu language, the Swahili language as a consequence today includes some elements that were borrowed from other civilizations, particularly loanwords from Arabic.

A significant fraction of Swahili vocabulary derives from Arabic, in part conveyed by Arabic-speaking Muslim inhabitants. In Guthrie's geographic classification, Swahili is in Bantu zone G, whereas the other Sabaki languages are in zone E70, commonly under the name Nyika. Local folk-theories of the language have often considered Swahili to be a mixed language because of its many loan words from Arabic, and the fact that Swahili people have historically been Muslims.

Arabic is also an important source of vocabulary for languages such as Amharic, Baluchi, Bengali, Berber, Bosnian, Chaldean, Chechen, Croatian, Dagestani, English, German, Gujarati, Hausa, Hindi, Kazakh, Kurdish, Kutchi, Kyrgyz, Malay (Malaysian and Indonesian), Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Rohingya, Romance languages (French, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, Sicilian, Spanish, etc.) Saraiki, Sindhi, Somali, Sylheti, Swahili, Tagalog, Tigrinya, Turkish, Turkmen, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Visayan and Wolof, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken.

In June 1928, an interterritorial conference attended by representatives of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar took place in Mombasa.

In 1502, the sultanate became independent from Kilwa Kisiwani and was renamed as Mvita (in Swahili) or Manbasa (Arabic).

Arvi Hurskainen is one of the early developers.

Since 1985 he has developed rule-based language technology mainly for Swahili, but also for other languages, including machine translation from English to Finnish.

It was originally written in Arabic script.

Swahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community.

English is designated as the official language of the EAC, with Kiswahili, often known as Swahili, designated for development as the lingua franca of the community.

It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, some parts of Malawi, Somalia, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In Somalia, where the Afroasiatic Somali language predominates, a variant of Swahili referred to as Chimwiini (also known as Chimbalazi) is spoken along the Benadir coast by the Bravanese people.

Other minority languages include Bravanese, a variant of the Bantu Swahili language that is spoken along the coast by the Bravanese people, as well as Kibajuni, a Swahili dialect that is the mother tongue of the Bajuni minority ethnic group.

This is a characteristic feature of all the Bantu languages of sub-Saharan Africa, and traces of it are also found in the Niger-Congo languages of West Africa.

The most widely spoken by total number of speakers is Swahili.

In Guthrie's geographic classification, Swahili is in Bantu zone G, whereas the other Sabaki languages are in zone E70, commonly under the name Nyika. Local folk-theories of the language have often considered Swahili to be a mixed language because of its many loan words from Arabic, and the fact that Swahili people have historically been Muslims.

Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes:,,,, and.

It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, some parts of Malawi, Somalia, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Although several hundred local languages and dialects are spoken, the linguistic variety is bridged both by widespread use of French and the national intermediary languages Kituba, Tshiluba, Swahili, and Lingala.

Shikomor, the official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte (Shimaore), is related to Swahili.

In Somalia, where the Afroasiatic Somali language predominates, a variant of Swahili referred to as Chimwiini (also known as Chimbalazi) is spoken along the Benadir coast by the Bravanese people.

Bravanese, also called Chimwiini (ChiMwini, Mwiini, Mwini) or Chimbalazi is a variety of Swahili spoken by the Bravanese people, who are the predominant inhabitants of Barawa, or Brava, in Somalia.