Swahili language

Swahili, also known as Kiswahili as it is referred to in the Swahili language, 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).^[6] Estimates of the number of Swahili speakers, including both native and second-language speakers, vary widely. They generally range from 150 million to 200 million;^[7] with most of its native speakers residing in Tanzania and Kenya.

Swahili has a significant number of loanwords from other languages, mainly Arabic, as well as from Portuguese, English and German. Around 40% of Swahili vocabulary consists of Arabic loanwords,^[8][9] including the name of the language (سَوَاحِلي sawāḥilī, a plural adjectival form of an Arabic word meaning ‘of the coasts’). 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.^[10]

Due to concerted efforts by the governments of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili is one of three official languages (the others being English and French) of the East African Community (EAC) countries, namely Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. It is the lingua franca of other areas in the African Great Lakes region and East and Southern Africa.^[11][12][13] Swahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and of the Southern African Development Community. The East African Community created an institution called the East African Kiswahili Commission (EAKC) 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.^[14] In recent years South Africa,^[15] Botswana,^[16] Namibia,^[17] Ethiopia,^[18] and South Sudan^[19] have begun offering Swahili as a subject in schools or have developed plans to do so.

Shikomor (or Comorian), an official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte (Shimaore), is closely related to Swahili and is sometimes considered a dialect of Swahili, although other authorities consider it a distinct language.^[20][21] In 2022, based on Swahili’s growth as a prominent international language, the United Nations declared Swahili Language Day as 7 July to commemorate the date that Julius Nyerere adopted Swahili as a unifying language for African independence struggles.^[22]

Classification

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Swahili is a Bantu language of the Sabaki branch.^[23] 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. Historical linguists consider the Arabic influence on Swahili to be significant, since it takes around 40% of its vocabulary directly from Arabic, and was initially spread along the East African coast.^[8][24][25]

History

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Etymology

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The word “Swahili” comes from an Arabic name for the area, meaning “coasts”:

Origin

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The core of the Swahili language originates in Bantu languages of the coast of East Africa. Much of Swahili’s Bantu vocabulary has cognates in the Unguja, Pemba, and Mijikenda languages^[26] and, to a lesser extent, other East African Bantu languages. 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.^[27]

Omani Arabic is the source of most Arabic loanwords in Swahili.^[29][30] In the text “Early Swahili History Reconsidered”, however, Thomas Spear noted that Swahili retains a large amount of grammar, vocabulary, and sounds inherited from the Sabaki language. In fact, while taking account of daily vocabulary, using lists of one hundred words, 72–91% were inherited from the Sabaki language (which is reported as a parent 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.^[31] According to other sources, around 40% of the Swahili vocabulary comes from Arabic.^[8][32] What also remained unconsidered was that a good number of the borrowed terms had Bantu equivalents. The preferred use of Arabic loan words is prevalent along the coast, where local people, in a cultural show of proximity to, or descent from, Arab culture, would rather use loan words, whereas the people in the interior tend to use the Bantu equivalents. It was originally written in Arabic script.^[33]

The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa, Tanzania, in 1711 in the Arabic script that were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India.^[34][35]

Colonial period

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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 Schule) 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. The British decided to formalise it as the language to be used across the East African region (although in British East Africa [Kenya and Uganda] most areas used English and various Nilotic and other Bantu languages while Swahili was mostly restricted to the coast). 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,^[37] and the standard orthography for Swahili was adopted.^[38]

Current status

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Overview

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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.^[7]

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.^[39] The language was still understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea in the 20th century.^[40][41] The East African Community created an institution called the East African Kiswahili Commission (EAKC) 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.^[14]

Swahili is among the first languages in Africa for which language technology applications have been developed. Arvi Hurskainen is one of the early developers. The applications include a spelling checker,^[42] part-of-speech tagging,^[43] language learning software,^[43] an analysed Swahili text corpus of 25 million words,^[44] an electronic dictionary,^[43] and machine translation^[43] between Swahili and English. The development of language technology also strengthens the position of Swahili as a modern medium of communication.^[45]

Tanzania

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The widespread use of Swahili as a national language in Tanzania came after Tanganyika gained independence in 1961 and the government decided that it would be used as a language to unify the new nation. This saw the use of Swahili in all levels of government, trade, art as well as schools in which primary school children are taught in Swahili, before switching to English (medium of instruction)^[46] in secondary schools (although Swahili is still taught as an independent subject). After Tanganyika and Zanzibar unification in 1964, Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili (TUKI, Institute of Swahili Research) was created from the Interterritorial Language Committee. In 1970 TUKI was merged with the University of Dar es Salaam, while Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa (BAKITA) was formed. BAKITA is an organisation dedicated to the development and advocacy of Swahili as a means of national integration in Tanzania. Key activities mandated for the organisation include creating a healthy atmosphere for the development of Swahili, encouraging use of the language in government and business functions, coordinating activities of other organisations involved with Swahili, standardising the language. BAKITA vision are: “1.To efficiently manage and coordinate the development and use of Kiswahili in Tanzania 2.To participate fully and effectively in promoting Swahili in East Africa, Africa and the entire world over”.^[47] Although other bodies and agencies can propose new vocabularies, BAKITA is the only organisation that can approve its usage in the Swahili language. Tanzanians are highly credited for shaping the language to appear the way it is now.

Kenya

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In Kenya, Swahili (or Kiswahili as it is referred to in the Constitution and by the Kenya Law Reform Society ^[48] ) has been the national language since 1964 and is official since 2010.^[49] Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa (CHAKITA) was established in 1998 to research and promote Kiswahili language in Kenya.^[50] Kiswahili is a compulsory subject in all Kenyan primary and secondary schools.^[51]

Congo

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Main article: Congo Swahili

Swahili is recognized as a national language in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is widely spoken in the eastern regions. The local dialects of Swahili in Congo are known as Congo Swahili and differ considerably from Standard Swahili.^[52]

Burundi

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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. Kiswahili is now used widely in Burundi but is not recognised as an official language; only French, Kirundi, and English have this distinction.^[53] Since 2013, Swahili has been included in the all Burundian education system.^[54]

Uganda

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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][49]

Somalia

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The Somali language is the national and primary first language of Somalia.^[56] The Swahili language is not widespread in Somalia and has no official status nationally or regionally.^[56] Dialects of Swahili are spoken by some ethnic minorities on the Bajuni islands in the form of Kibajuni on the southern tip of the country and in the town of Brava in the form of Chimwiini; both contain a significant amount of Somali and Italian loanwords.^[57][58] Standard Swahili is generally only spoken by Somali nationals who have resided in Kenya and subsequently returned to Somalia.^[59][60] 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.^[61] It is classified as a Northeast Coast Bantu language as Swahili is^[62] and has some intelligibility with Swahili.

In 2024, Somalia joined the East African Community and its inclusion may facilitate the spread of the Swahili language in Somalia.^[63] Nevertheless, in Somalia, Swahili, as a foreign language, will have to compete with English, the primary global lingua franca, and Arabic, the official second language of Somalia and a liturgical language for Muslims,^[56] as popular secondary or tertiary languages. Consequently, there is significant uncertainty regarding the adoption of the Swahili language in Somalia compared to the situation in most other EAC member states.

Religious and political identity

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Religion

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Swahili played a major role in spreading both Christianity and Islam in East Africa. From their arrival in East Africa, Arabs brought Islam and set up madrasas, where they used Swahili to teach Islam to the natives. As the Arab population and influence expanded, a growing number of indigenous people converted to Islam and began receiving religious and cultural instruction in Swahili, which increasingly absorbed Arabic vocabulary.^[64]

With the arrival of Europeans in East Africa, Christianity was introduced to the region, profoundly shaping the development of Swahili. While Arab influence remained concentrated along the coastal areas, European missionaries ventured further inland, establishing missions and promoting Christian teachings.^[65][66] Early outposts were located along the coast, where they encountered Swahili as a widely spoken lingua franca. Recognizing its utility and structural similarities to other indigenous languages, the Europeans adopted Swahili as a medium for evangelization, religious and general educational instruction, and, eventually, colonization.^[67][68][69]

Politics

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During the struggle for Tanganyika independence, the Tanganyika African National Union used Swahili as a language of mass organisation and political movement. This included publishing pamphlets and radio broadcasts to rally the people to fight for independence. After gaining independence, Swahili was adopted as the national language. To this day, Tanzanians carry a sense of pride when it comes to Swahili, especially when it is used to unite over 120 tribes across Tanzania. Swahili was used to strengthen solidarity within the nation, and remains to be a key identity of the Tanzanian people.

Phonology

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For assistance with IPA transcriptions of Swahili for Wikipedia articles, see Help:IPA/Swahili.Example of spoken Swahili

Vowels

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Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: /ɑ/, /ɛ/, /i/, /ɔ/, and /u/. According to Ellen Contini-Morava, vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress.^[70] However, according to Edgar Polomé, these five phonemes can vary in pronunciation. Polomé claims that /ɛ/, /i/, /ɔ/, and /u/ are pronounced as such only in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, as well as before a prenasalized consonant, they are pronounced as [e], [ɪ], [o], and [ʊ]. E is also commonly pronounced as mid-position after w. Polomé claims that /ɑ/ is pronounced as such only after w and is pronounced as [a] in other situations, especially after /j/ (y). A can be pronounced as [ə] in word-final position.^[71] Long vowels in Swahili are written as doubled vowels (for example, kondoo, “sheep”) due to a historical process in which /l/ became elided between the second last and last vowels of a word (for example, kondoo, “sheep” was originally kondolo, which survives in certain dialects^[which?]). As a consequence, long vowels are not considered phonemic. A similar process exists in Zulu.

Consonants

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Where not shown, the orthography is the same as IPA.

Some dialects of Swahili may also have the aspirated phonemes /pʰ tʰ tʃʰ kʰ bʱ dʱ dʒʱ ɡʱ/ though they are unmarked in Swahili’s orthography.^[73] 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,^{[citation needed]} though they are still written mb, nd etc. The /r/ phoneme is realised as either a short trill [r] or more commonly as a single tap [ɾ] by most speakers. [x] exists in free variation with h, and is only distinguished by some speakers.^[71] 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.^[73]