What is the origin of the word Swahili?
The word Swahili comes from an Arabic name for the area meaning coasts. It is a plural adjectival form of an Arabic word that translates to coastal or coastal inhabitant.
Questions about Swahili
Short answers, pulled from the story.
When were the earliest known documents written in Swahili created?
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa Tanzania in 1711 in the Arabic script. These letters were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies.
How many people speak Swahili as a first or second language?
Estimates of the total number of first- and second-language Swahili speakers vary widely from as low as 50 million to as high as 200 million but generally range from 60 million to 150 million. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions of people in the five African Great Lakes countries Kenya DRC Rwanda Uganda and Tanzania where it is an official or national language.
Which dialect forms the basis of modern standard Swahili?
Modern standard Swahili written in Latin is based on Kiunguja the dialect spoken in Zanzibar City. The Zanzibar dialect was chosen as standard Swahili for those areas and the standard orthography for Swahili was adopted at the inter-territorial conference in Mombasa in June 1928.
Who published the collection Swahili Tales as Told by Natives of Zanzibar?
In 1870 Edward Steere published Swahili Tales as Told by Natives of Zanzibar a collection of 23 Swahili tales with facing-text English translation along with a selection of proverbs and riddles.