Swahili language
The loanwords date from the era of contact between Arab 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.While opinions vary on the specifics, it has been historically purported that around 16–20% of the Swahili vocabulary is derived from loan words, the vast majority Arabic, but also other contributing languages, including Persian, Hindustani, Portuguese, and Malay.However, Thomas Spear noted that Swahili retains a large amount of grammar, vocabulary, and sounds inherited from the Sabaki language.[33][34] 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.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.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.After Tanganyika and Zanzibar unification in 1964, Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili (TUKI, Institute of Swahili Research) was created from the Interterritorial Language Committee.[49] Swahili is recognized as a national language in the Democratic Republic of The Congo and is widely spoken in the eastern regions.[50] In order to strengthen political ties with other East African Community nations, both Kiswahili and English have been taught in Burundian elementary schools since the academic year 2005/2006.[52] Uganda adopted Kiswahili as one of its official languages (alongside English) in 2022, and also made it compulsory across primary and secondary schools in the country.[55][56] Standard Swahili is generally only spoken by Somali nationals who have resided in Kenya and subsequently returned to Somalia.[57][58] Lastly, a closely related language Mushunguli (also known as Zigula, Zigua, or Chizigua) is spoken by some of the Somali Bantu ethnic minority mostly living in the Jubba Valley.Consequently, there is significant uncertainty regarding the adoption of the Swahili language in Somalia compared to the situation in most other EAC member states.[63] In some Arabic loans (nouns, verbs, adjectives), emphasis or intensity is expressed by reproducing the original emphatic consonants /dˤ, sˤ, tˤ, ðˤ/ and the uvular /q/, or lengthening a vowel, where aspiration would be used in inherited Bantu words.[68] However, the spread of a standardized indigenous variation of Arabic script for Swahili was hampered by the colonial takeover of East Africa by the United Kingdom and Germany.Thus despite a lack of official governmental backing, attempts at standardization and Swahilization of the Arabic script continued into the 20th century.Examples of the former are kisu "knife", kiti "chair" (from mti "tree, wood"), chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo).Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house".For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade".A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades", from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting.This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "metal forging", from -fua "to forge", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound".For example, Arabic دود dūd ("bug, insect") was borrowed as mdudu, plural wadudu, with the class 1/2 prefixes m- and wa-, but Arabic فلوس fulūs ("fish scales", plural of فلس fals) and English sloth were borrowed as simply fulusi ("mahi-mahi" fish) and slothi ("sloth"), with no prefix associated with animals (whether those of class 9/10 or 1/2).Modern standard Swahili, written in Latin, is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar City.[82] 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.[91] Some of the tales included are: "Kisa cha Punda wa Dobi,"[92] "The Story of the Washerman's Donkey," also known as "The Heart of a Monkey;" "Mwalimu Goso,"[93] "Goso the Teacher," a cumulative tale; and "Sungura na Simba,"[94] "The Hare and the Lion," a story about the trickster hare.[105][106]Ndovu wawili wakisongana, ziumiazo ni nyika.Where two elephants argue, the grassland is damaged.1) Kila mtu ana haki ya kuelimishwa.
TanzaniaMozambiqueComorosMayotteUgandaRwandaBurundiDemocratic Republic of the CongoBajuni IslandsSomaliaBravanese dialectMalawiMadagascarSwahiliLanguage familyNiger–CongoAtlantic–CongoVolta-CongoBenue–CongoBantoidSouthern BantoidNortheast BantuNortheast Coast BantuSabakiBravaneseBajuniCongo SwahiliSocotraWriting systemLatin scriptArabic scriptArabic Swahili alphabetSwahili BrailleAfrican UnionEast African CommunitySouthern African Development CommunityAngolaDR CongoZambiaRegulated byBaraza la Kiswahili la TaifaChama cha Kiswahili cha TaifaISO 639-1ISO 639-2ISO 639-3GlottologGuthrie codeLinguasphereSwahili coastUnicodeWaswahililocal nameBantu languageSwahili peopleEast AfricanlittoralloanwordsArabicPortugueseEnglishGermanArab traderslingua francaSouth SudanAfrican Great LakesSouthern AfricaEast African regionSouth AfricaBotswanaNamibiaEthiopiaShikomorComorianShimaoreUnited NationsSwahili Language DayJulius NyerereSabaki branchGuthrie's geographic classificationArab slave tradersAskari Monumentbroken pluralBantu languagesMijikenda languagesEast African Bantu languagesPersianHindustaniOmani ArabicIranian PersianMalagasySabaki languageLatin alphabetChristianmissionariesCatholicLord's PrayerBantu peoplesBerlin conferenceBritish East AfricaTanganyikaZanzibarMombasastandard SwahiliRed Sealanguage technologyArvi Hurskainenspelling checkerpart-of-speech tagginglanguage learning softwaretext corpuselectronic dictionarymachine translationSwahili WikipediaUniversity of Dar es SalaamSomali languageofficial statusDialectsethnic minoritiesKibajuniChimwiiniSomaliItalianMushunguliSomali BantuJubba ValleyNortheast Coast Bantu language