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. Around 40% of Swahili vocabulary consists of Arabic loanwords including the name itself. The core of the language originates in Bantu languages of the coast of East Africa. Much of its Bantu vocabulary has cognates in the Unguja, Pemba, and Mijikenda languages. While opinions vary on specifics it has been historically purported that around 16, 20% of the vocabulary is derived from loan words. The vast majority are Arabic but other contributing languages include Persian, Hindustani, Portuguese, and Malay. Omani Arabic is the source of most Arabic loanwords in Swahili. In the text Early Swahili History Reconsidered Thomas Spear noted that Swahili retains a large amount of grammar, vocabulary, and sounds inherited from the Sabaki language. Using lists of one hundred words 72, 91% were inherited from the Sabaki language whereas 4, 17% were loan words from other African languages. Only 2, 8% were from non-African languages and Arabic loan words constituted a fraction of that.
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. The original letters are preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa India. Various colonial powers that ruled on the coast of East Africa played a role in the growth and spread of Swahili. With the arrival of the Arabs in East Africa they used Swahili as a language of trade as well as for teaching Islam to the local Bantu peoples. This resulted in Swahili first being written in the Arabic script. The later contact with the Portuguese resulted in the increase of vocabulary of the Swahili language. The language was formalised in an institutional level when the Germans took over after the Berlin Conference. After seeing there was already a widespread language the Germans formalised it as the official language to be used in schools. Thus schools in Swahili are called Shule from German in government, trade and the court system. With the Germans controlling the major Swahili-speaking region in East Africa they changed the alphabet system from Arabic to Latin. After the First World War Britain took over German East Africa where they found Swahili rooted in most areas not just the coastal regions. In June 1928 an inter-territorial conference attended by representatives of Kenya Tanganyika Uganda and Zanzibar took place in Mombasa. The Zanzibar dialect was chosen as standard Swahili for those areas and the standard orthography for Swahili was adopted.
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. It is also the first language for many people in Tanzania especially in the coastal regions of Tanga Pwani Dar es Salaam Mtwara and Lindi. In the inner regions of Tanzania Swahili is spoken with an accent influenced by other local languages and dialects. There it is a first language for most of the people who are born in the cities whilst being spoken as a second language in rural areas. Swahili and closely related languages are spoken by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi Comoros Malawi Mozambique Zambia and Rwanda. The East African Community created an institution called the East African Kiswahili Commission which began operations in 2015. The institution currently serves as the leading body for promoting the language in the East African region as well as for coordinating its development and usage for regional integration and sustainable development. In recent years Somalia South Africa Botswana Namibia Ethiopia and South Sudan have begun offering Swahili as a subject in schools or have developed plans to do so. In 2024 Somalia joined the East African Community and its inclusion may facilitate the spread of the Swahili language in Somalia.
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes e i o u a. According to Ellen Contini-Morava vowels are never reduced regardless of stress. However according to Edgar Polomé these five phonemes can vary in pronunciation. Polomé claims that e i o u are pronounced as such only in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables as well as before a prenasalized consonant they are pronounced as ə i ɑ u. A similar process exists in Zulu. Unlike most Bantu languages Swahili is not tonal. Modern Swahili Grammar East African Publishers 2001 Mohamed Abdulla Mohamed lists labial dental alveolar postalveolar palatal velar and glottal consonants. Some dialects of Swahili may also have the aspirated phonemes though they are unmarked in Swahili's orthography. Multiple studies favour classifying prenasalization as consonant clusters not as separate phonemes. Historically nasalization has been lost before voiceless consonants and subsequently the voiced consonants have devoiced though they are still written mb nd etc. The r phoneme is realised as either a short trill or more commonly as a single tap by most speakers. h exists in free variation with ɦ and is only distinguished by some speakers. In some Arabic loans emphasis or intensity is expressed by reproducing the original emphatic consonants q and gh or lengthening a vowel where aspiration would be used in inherited Bantu words.
Modern standard Swahili written in Latin is based on Kiunguja the dialect spoken in Zanzibar City. Swahili literature and poetry traditionally written in Swahili Ajami is based on Kiamu the dialect of Lamu on the Kenyan Coast. But there are numerous other dialects of Swahili some of which are mutually unintelligible such as Kimwani which is spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique. Chimwiini is spoken by the ethnic minorities in and around the town of Barawa on the southern coast of Somalia. Kibajuni is spoken by the Bajuni minority ethnic group on the coast and islands on both sides of the Somali, Kenyan border and in the Bajuni Islands. Socotra Swahili is extinct. Sidi in Gujarat India is possibly extinct. The rest of the dialects are divided into two groups: Mombasa, Lamu Swahili and Lamu. The dialects of the Lamu group especially Kiamu Kipate Kingozi are the linguistic base of the oldest Swahili manuscripts and poems that reached us. They are sometimes described as literary dialects but they were also used for everyday life and are still spoken today except Kingozi. Kiamu is spoken in and around the island of Lamu and have an important corpus of classical poems of the 18th and 19th centuries written in Arabic script.
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. Some of the tales included are The Story of the Washerman's Donkey also known as The Heart of a Monkey Goso the Teacher a cumulative tale and The Hare and the Lion a story about the trickster hare. Here are some of the proverbs that Steere recorded in Swahili Running on a roof ends at the edge of it Who will dance to a lion's roaring He that is drunk with wine gets sober he that is drunk with wealth does not What bites is in your own clothes. An anonymous publication from 1881 Swahili Stories from Arab Sources with an English Translation includes 15 stories in Swahili with English translations plus an additional 14 Swahili stories that are not translated. There is also a selection of proverbs and riddles with English translations. Two sayings with the same literal meaning of Where elephants fight the grass is trampled or figuratively speaking when those with power fight it is those below them who suffer exist in the oral tradition. Dada Masiti c. 1810s , the 15th of July 1919 was a Kenyan poet Shaaban bin Robert 1909, 1962 was a Tanzanian poet author and essayist Euphrase Kezilahabi 1944, 2020 was a Tanzanian novelist poet and scholar Mathias E. Mnyampala 1917, 1969 was a Tanzanian writer lawyer and poet Tumi Molekane b. 1981 is a South African rapper and poet Fadhy Mtanga b. 1981 is a Tanzanian creative writer photographer graphic designer Christopher Mwashinga b. 1965 is a Tanzanian author and poet Abdilatif Abdalla b. 1946 is a Kenyan poet and political activist Mwana Kupona d. ? was a Kenyan poet Ebrahim Hussein b. 1943 is a Tanzanian playwright and poet Haji Gora Haji 1933, 2021 was a Tanzanian poet Alamin Mazrui b. 1948 is a Kenyan poet Kithaka wa Mberia b. 1955 is a poet Ahmed Sheikh Nabhany 1927, 2017 is a Kenyan poet.
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Common questions
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.
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.