Swahili

Also known as Swahili language, Swahili (macrolanguage), Kiswahili

Swahili, also known as Kiswahili, is a Bantu language originally spoken by the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique (along the East African coast and adjacent littoral islands). Estimates of the number of Swahili speakers, including both native and second-language speakers, generally range from 150 million to 200 million. Most native speakers reside in Tanzania and Kenya.

AI overview

Swahili (also called Kiswahili) is a Bantu language spoken primarily along the East African coast in Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique, with between 150 and 200 million speakers when counting both native and second-language speakers. It matters as a major regional language, particularly in Tanzania and Kenya where most of its native speakers live.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

In the Vinony graph

Vinony's link graph records 4,172 inbound references to Swahili, and connects out to plosive consonant, fricative consonant and Ogiek.

The entry is geolocated on the map.

Vinony files it under Agglutinative languages, ISO language articles citing sources other than Ethnologue and Language articles citing Ethnologue 25.

Vinony links it to 184 Wikipedia language editions.

Key facts

Language.name: Swahili
Language.states: Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Bajuni Islands and Brava, southern Somalia
Language.speakers: L1: million (2019–2023) L2: million
Language.date: 2019–2021
Language.ref: e27
Language.speakers_label: Speakers
Language.familycolor: Niger-Congo
Language.fam1: Niger–Congo
Language.fam2: Atlantic–Congo
Language.fam3: Volta–Congo
Language.fam4: Benue–Congo
Language.fam5: Bantoid
Language.fam6: Southern Bantoid
Language.fam7: Bantu
Language.fam8: Northeast Bantu
Language.fam9: Northeast Coast Bantu
Language.fam10: Sabaki
Language.dia1: Bravanese

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of: literary language
Subclass of: Bantu
Has part: Kiswahili
Country: France
Image: Manuscrit colonial kiswahili-Africa Museum.jpg

Show 20 more facts

language regulatory body: Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa
Commons category: Swahili language
writing system: Swahili Ajami
topic's main category: Category:Swahili language
Wikimedia language code: sw
native label: كِسْوَحِيلِ
number of speakers, writers, or signers: 15437390
linguistic typology: agglutinative language
used by: Swahili people
on focus list of Wikimedia project: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
influenced by: Arabic
indigenous to: Swahili people
exact match: publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/language/SWA
category for films in this language: Category:Swahili-language films
different from: Swahili people
P10369: Poland
described by source: Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
has characteristic: agreement
topic has template: Q61684579
NCI Thesaurus ID: C154145

Sources (10)

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Encyclopedic overview

40 sections

Contents

Classification
History
Etymology
Origin
Colonial period
Current status
Overview
Tanzania
Kenya
Congo
Burundi
Uganda
Somalia
Religious and political identity
Religion
Politics
Phonology
Vowels
Consonants
Orthography
Grammar
Noun classes {{anchor|Noun classes}}
Semantic motivation
Borrowing
Agreement
Dialects and closely related languages
Dialects
Old dialects
Other regions
Pidgins and creoles
Swahili poets
Oral literature
19th-century collections
Additional proverbs
Sample text
See also
Notes
References
Sources
External links

Around 40% of Swahili vocabulary consists of Arabic loanwords, including the name of the language ( , a plural adjectival form of an Arabic word meaning 'of the coasts'). Swahili also has a significant number of loanwords from Portuguese, English and German. The Arabic loanwords date from the era of contact between Arab slave traders and the Bantu inhabitants of the east coast of Africa, which was also the time period when Swahili emerged as a lingua franca in the region.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Swahili” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.