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Swahili language
Swahili, also known as Kiswahili (translation: language of the Swahili people), is a
Bantu language and the first language of the Swahili people. It is a lingua franca of the
Swahili
African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, Kiswahili
including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, and the Native to Tanzania, Kenya,
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).[6] Comorian, spoken in the Comoros Democratic
Islands is sometimes considered to be a dialect of Swahili, though other authorities Republic of the
Congo, Bajuni
consider it a distinct language.[7]
islands,
The exact number of Swahili speakers, be it native or second-language speakers, is Mozambique
unknown and a matter of debate. Various estimates have been put forward and they (mostly Mwani),
Burundi, Rwanda,
vary widely, ranging from 50 million to 100 million.[8] Swahili serves as a national
Uganda,[1]
language of the DRC, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Shikomor, the official language
Comoros, Mayotte,
in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte (Shimaore), is related to Swahili.[9] Swahili is
Zambia, Malawi,
also one of the working languages of the African Union and officially recognised as a and Madagascar
lingua franca of the East African Community.[10] In 2018 South Africa legalized the
Native Estimates range
teaching of Swahili in South African schools as an optional subject to begin in speakers from 2 million
2020.[11] (2003)[2] to 15
million (2012)[3]
A significant fraction of Swahili vocabulary derives from Arabic,[12] in part conveyed
L2 speakers: 90
by Arabic-speaking Muslim inhabitants. For example, the Swahili word for "book" is million (1991–
kitabu, traceable back to the Arabic word ‫ ﻛﺘﺎب‬kitāb (from the root k-t-b "write"). 2015)[3]
However, the Swahili plural form of this word ("books") is vitabu, rather than the Niger–Congo
Language
Arabic plural form ‫ ﻛﺘﺐ‬kutub, following the Bantu grammar in which ki- is reanalysed family
as a nominal class prefix, whose plural is vi-.[13]
Atlantic–Congo
Benue–Congo
Southern
Bantoid
Contents Bantu
Classification
Northeast
History Coast Bantu
Origin
Sabaki
Colonial period
Current status Swahili

Phonology
Writing Latin script (Roman
Vowels system Swahili alphabet)
Consonants
Arabic script
Orthography
(Arabic Swahili
Grammar alphabet)
Noun classes
Semantic motivation
Swahili Braille
Agreement Official status
Dialects and closely related languages Official Tanzania
Dialects language in
Kenya
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Old dialects Democratic

Other regions Republic of the
Swahili poets Congo
See also Rwanda
References Uganda
Sources African Union
External links East African
Community
Regulated by Baraza la Kiswahili
Classification la Taifa (Tanzania)
Swahili is a Bantu language of the Sabaki branch.[14] In Guthrie's geographic Chama cha
classification, Swahili is in Bantu zone G, whereas the other Sabaki languages are in Kiswahili cha Taifa
zone E70, commonly under the name Nyika. Local folk-theories of the language have (Kenya)
often considered Swahili to be a mixed language because of its many loan words from Language codes
Arabic, and the fact that Swahili people have historically been Muslims. However, ISO 639-1 sw (https://www.l
historical linguists do not consider the Arabic influence on Swahili to be significant oc.gov/standards/
enough to classify it as a mixed language, since Arabic influence is limited to lexical iso639-2/php/lang
items, most of which have only been borrowed after 1500, while the grammatical and codes_name.php?is
syntactic structure of the language is typically Bantu.[15][16] o_639_1=sw)

ISO 639-2 swa (https://www.

History loc.gov/standard
s/iso639-2/php/la
ngcodes_name.php?

Origin code_ID=432)

Its old name was Kingozi, but as traders came from Arab countries, their vocabulary
ISO 639-3 swa – inclusive
intermingled with the language. It was originally written in Arabic script.[17]
code
Individual codes:
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711 in swc – Congo

the Arabic script that were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. Swahili
swh – Coastal
The original letters are preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India.[18]
Swahili
Its name comes from Arabic: ‫ﺎﺣﻞ‬
ِ ‫ َﺳ‬sāħil = "coast", broken plural ‫اﺣﻞ‬
ِ ‫ َﺳ َﻮ‬sawāħil = ymk – Makwe
"coasts", ‫اﺣﻠِ ّﻰ‬
ِ ‫ َﺳ َﻮ‬sawāħilï = "of coasts". wmw – Mwani

Glottolog swah1254 (http://

glottolog.org/res
Colonial period ource/languoid/i
Since Swahili was the language of commerce in East Africa, the colonial d/swah1254)[4]
administrators wanted to standardize it.[20] In June 1928, an interterritorial conference Guthrie code G.42–43;
attended by representatives of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar took place in
G.40.A–H (pidgins
Mombasa. The Zanzibar dialect was chosen as standard Swahili for those areas,[21] and
& creoles)
the standard orthography for Swahili was adopted.[22] [5]

Linguasphere 99-AUS-m
Current status

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Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three African
Great Lakes countries (Tanzania, Kenya, and the DRC) where it is an official or
national language. In 1985, with the 8–4–4 system of education, Swahili was made a
compulsory subject in all Kenyan schools.[23] Swahili and closely related languages
are spoken by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Comoros, Malawi,
Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia and Rwanda.[24] The language was still understood in
the southern ports of the Red Sea in the 20th century.[25][26]

Some 80 percent of approximately 62 million Tanzanians speak Swahili in addition to

their first languages.[27] The five eastern provinces of the DRC are Swahili-speaking.
areas where Swahili or
Nearly half the 81 million Congolese reportedly speak it.[28] Swahili speakers may
Comorian is the indigenous
number 120 to 150 million in total.[29]
language
Swahili is among the first languages in Africa for which language technology official or national language
applications have been developed. Arvi Hurskainen is one of the early developers. The as a trade language
applications include a spelling checker[30], part-of-speech tagging[31], a language
learning software[32], an analysed Swahili text corpus of 25 million words[33], an Person Mswahili
electronic dictionary[34], and machine translation[35] between Swahili and English. The
People Waswahili
development of language technology also strengthens the position of Swahili as a
Language Kiswahili
modern medium of communication.[36]

Phonology
Unlike the majority of Niger-Congo languages,[37] Swahili lacks contrastive
tone (pitch contour). As a result of that and the language's shallow orthography,
Swahili is said to be the easiest African language for an English speaker to
learn.[38]

Vowels
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: /ɑ/, /ɛ/, /i/, /ɔ/, and /u/. Vowels are
never reduced, regardless of stress, but they are pronounced in full as
follows:[39]

/ɑ/ is pronounced like the "a" in father.

/ɛ/ is pronounced like the "e" in get.
/i/ is pronounced like the "ee" in see.
/ɔ/ is pronounced somewhat like the "o" in ford.
/u/ is pronounced like the "u" in zulu or "oo" in loop.

Consonants

Swahili in Arabic script—memorial plate at

the Askari Monument, Dar es Salaam
(1927)

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Although originally written with the Arabic

script, Swahili is now written in a Latin
alphabet introduced by Christian
missionaries and colonial administrators.
The text shown here is the Catholic version
of the Lord's Prayer.[19]

Swahili consonant phonemes[39][40]

Postalveolar
Labial Dental Alveolar Velar Glottal
/ Palatal
Nasal m ⟨m⟩ n ⟨n⟩ ɲ ⟨ny⟩ ŋ ⟨ng'⟩
prenasalized ᵐb ⟨mb⟩ ⁿd ⟨nd⟩ ⁿdʒ ⟨nj⟩ ᵑɡ ⟨ng⟩
implosive
Stop ɓ ~ b ⟨b⟩ ɗ ~ d ⟨d⟩ ʄ ~ dʒ ⟨j⟩ ɠ ~ ɡ ⟨g⟩
/ voiced
voiceless p ⟨p⟩ t ⟨t⟩ tʃ ⟨ch⟩ k ⟨k⟩
prenasalized ᶬv ⟨mv⟩ ⁿz ⟨nz⟩
Fricative voiced v ⟨v⟩ (ð ⟨dh⟩) z ⟨z⟩ (ɣ ⟨gh⟩)
voiceless f ⟨f⟩ (θ ⟨th⟩) s ⟨s⟩ ʃ ⟨sh⟩ (x ⟨kh⟩) h ⟨h⟩
Approximant l ⟨l⟩ j ⟨y⟩ w ⟨w⟩
Trill r ⟨r⟩

Some dialects of Swahili may also have the aspirated phonemes /pʰ tʰ tʃʰ kʰ bʰ dʰ dʒʰ ɡʰ/ though they are unmarked in Swahili's
Orthography.[41] "[I]n some Arabic loans (nouns, verbs, adjectives) emphasis or intensity is expressed by reproducing the original
emphatic consonants /dˤ, sˤ, tˤ, zˤ/ and the uvular /q/, or lengthening a vowel, where aspiration would be used in inherited Bantu
words."[42]

Orthography
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Swahili is currently written in an alphabet close to English, except it does not use the letters
Q and X.[43] There are two digraphs for native sounds, ch and sh; c is not used apart from
unassimilated English loans and, occasionally, as a substitute for k in advertisements. There
are also several digraphs for Arabic sounds not distinguished in pronunciation outside of
traditional Swahili areas.

The language used to be written in the Arabic script. Unlike adaptations of the Arabic script
for other languages, relatively little accommodation was made for Swahili. There were also
differences in orthographic conventions between cities and authors and over the centuries,
some quite precise but others different enough to cause difficulties with intelligibility.

/e/ and /i/, /o/ and /u/ were often conflated, but in some spellings, /e/ was distinguished from
/i/ by rotating the kasra 90° and /o/ was distinguished from /u/ by writing the damma
backwards. Swahili in Arabic script on the
clothes of a woman in Tanzania
Several Swahili consonants do not have equivalents in Arabic, and for them, often no special (ca. early 1900s)
letters were created unlike, for example, Urdu script. Instead, the closest Arabic sound is
substituted. Not only did that mean that one letter often stands for more than one sound, but
also writers made different choices of which consonant to substitute. Here are some of the equivalents between Arabic Swahili and
Roman Swahili:

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Swahili in Arabic Script

Swahili in Latin Alphabet
Final Medial Initial Isolated

‫ـﺎ‬ ‫ا‬ aa

‫ـﺐ‬ ‫ـﺒـ‬ ‫ﺑـ‬ ‫ب‬ b p mb mp bw pw mbw mpw

‫ـﺖ‬ ‫ـﺘـ‬ ‫ﺗـ‬ ‫ت‬ t nt

‫ـﺚ‬ ‫ـﺜـ‬ ‫ﺛـ‬ ‫ث‬ th?

‫ـﺞ‬ ‫ـﺠـ‬ ‫ﺟـ‬ ‫ج‬ j nj ng ng' ny

‫ـﺢ‬ ‫ـﺤـ‬ ‫ﺣـ‬ ‫ح‬ h

‫ـﺦ‬ ‫ـﺨـ‬ ‫ﺧـ‬ ‫خ‬ kh h

‫ـﺪ‬ ‫د‬ d nd

‫ـﺬ‬ ‫ذ‬ dh?

‫ـﺮ‬ ‫ر‬ r d nd

‫ـﺰ‬ ‫ز‬ z nz

‫ـﺲ‬ ‫ـﺴـ‬ ‫ﺳـ‬ ‫س‬ s

‫ـﺶ‬ ‫ـﺸـ‬ ‫ﺷـ‬ ‫ش‬ sh ch

‫ـﺼـ ـﺺ‬ ‫ﺻـ‬ ‫ص‬ s, sw

‫ـﻀـ ـﺾ‬ ‫ﺿـ‬ ‫ض‬ dhw

‫ـﻂ‬ ‫ـﻄـ‬ ‫ﻃـ‬ ‫ط‬ t tw chw

‫ـﻆ‬ ‫ـﻈـ‬ ‫ﻇـ‬ ‫ظ‬ z th dh dhw

‫ـﻊ‬ ‫ـﻌـ‬ ‫ﻋـ‬ ‫ع‬ ?

‫ـﻎ‬ ‫ـﻐـ‬ ‫ﻏـ‬ ‫غ‬ gh g ng ng'

‫ـﻒ‬ ‫ـﻔـ‬ ‫ﻓـ‬ ‫ف‬ f fy v vy mv p

‫ـﻖ‬ ‫ـﻘـ‬ ‫ﻗـ‬ ‫ق‬

k g ng ch sh ny
‫ـﻚ‬ ‫ـﻜـ‬ ‫ﻛـ‬ ‫ك‬
‫ـﻞ‬ ‫ـﻠـ‬ ‫ﻟـ‬ ‫ل‬ l

‫ـﻢ‬ ‫ـﻤـ‬ ‫ﻣـ‬ ‫م‬ m

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‫ـﻦ‬ ‫ـﻨـ‬ ‫ﻧـ‬ ‫ن‬ n

‫ـﻪ‬ ‫ـﻬـ‬ ‫ﻫـ‬ ‫ه‬ h

‫ـﻮ‬ ‫و‬ w

‫ـﻲ‬ ‫ـﯿـ‬ ‫ﯾـ‬ ‫ي‬ y ny

That was the general situation, but conventions from Urdu were adopted by some authors so as to distinguish aspiration and /p/ from
/b/: ‫ ﭘﮭﺎ‬/pʰaa/ 'gazelle', ‫ ﭘﺎ‬/paa/ 'roof'. Although it is not found in Standard Swahili today, there is a distinction between dental and
alveolar consonants in some dialects, which is reflected in some orthographies, for example in َ‫ ُﻛﭧ‬-kuta 'to meet' vs. ‫ ُﻛ َﺖ‬-kut̠a 'to be
satisfied'. A k with the dots of y, ‫ﮚ ﮜ ﮝ ﮛ‬, was used for ch in some conventions; ky being historically and even
contemporaneously a more accurate transcription than Roman ch. In Mombasa, it was common to use the Arabic emphatics for Cw,
for example in ‫ﺺ‬ ِ swiswi (standard sisi) 'we' and ‫ ِﻛ َﻂ‬kit̠wa (standard kichwa) 'head'.
ِ ‫ﺻ‬

Particles such as ya, na, si, kwa, ni are joined to the following noun, and possessives such as yangu and yako are joined to the
preceding noun, but verbs are written as two words, with the subject and tense–aspect–mood morphemes separated from the object
and root, as in aliyeniambia "he who told me".[44]

Grammar

Noun classes

Semantic motivation
The ki-/vi- class historically consisted of two separate genders, artefacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils and hand tools mostly) and
diminutives (Bantu class 12), which were conflated at a stage ancestral to Swahili. 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". It is the diminutive sense that has been
furthest extended. An extension common to diminutives in many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of
some characteristic, like -y or -ish in English). 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. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are
marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and
therefore is marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person",
kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are
dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus"
(perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").

Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti,
miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example. However, it seems to cover vital entities neither human nor typical animals: trees and other
plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural
forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart',
mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', and, by analogy, mzinga

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'beehive/cannon'. 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". Words may be connected to
their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also
both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things, as in
many other languages with noun classes. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and
perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Animals exceptional in some way and so not easily fitting in the other classes may be placed in this class.

The other classes have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive.[45] In short,

Classes 1–2 include most words for people: kin terms, professions, ethnicities, etc., including translations of most
English words ending in -er. They include a couple generic words for animals: mnyama 'beast', mdudu 'bug'.
Classes 5–6 have a broad semantic range of groups, expanses, and augmentatives. Although interrelated, it is easier
to illustrate if broken down:

Augmentatives, such as joka 'serpent' from nyoka 'snake', lead to titles and other terms of respect (the opposite of
diminutives, which lead to terms of contempt): Bwana 'Sir', shangazi 'aunt', fundi 'craftsman', kadhi 'judge'.
Expanses: ziwa 'lake', bonde 'valley', taifa 'country', anga 'sky'

from this, mass nouns: maji 'water', vumbi 'dust' (and other liquids and fine particulates which may cover broad
expanses), kaa 'charcoal', mali 'wealth', maridhawa 'abundance'
Collectives: kundi 'group', kabila 'language/ethnic group', jeshi 'army', daraja ' stairs', manyoya 'fur, feathers',
mapesa 'small change', manyasi 'weeds', jongoo 'millipede' (large set of legs), marimba 'xylophone' (large set of
keys)

from this, individual things found in groups: jiwe 'stone', tawi 'branch', ua 'flower', tunda 'fruit' (also the names
of most fruits), yai 'egg', mapacha 'twins', jino 'tooth', tumbo 'stomach' (cf. English "guts"), and paired body
parts such as jicho 'eye', bawa 'wing', etc.
also collective or dialogic actions, which occur among groups of people: neno 'a word', from kunena 'to speak'
(and by extension, mental verbal processes: wazo 'thought', maana 'meaning'); pigo 'a stroke, blow', from
kupiga 'to hit'; gomvi 'a quarrel', shauri 'advice, plan', kosa 'mistake', jambo 'affair', penzi 'love', jibu 'answer',
agano 'promise', malipo 'payment'
From pairing, reproduction is suggested as another extension (fruit, egg, testicle, flower, twins, etc.), but these
generally duplicate one or more of the subcategories above
Classes 9–10 are used for most typical animals: ndege 'bird', samaki 'fish', and the specific names of typical beasts,
birds, and bugs. However, this is the 'other' class, for words not fitting well elsewhere, and about half of the class 9–
10 nouns are foreign loanwords. Loans may be classified as 9–10 because they lack the prefixes inherent in other
classes, and most native class 9–10 nouns have no prefix. Thus they do not form a coherent semantic class, though
there are still semantic extensions from individual words.
Class 11 (which takes class 10 for the plural) are mostly nouns with an "extended outline shape", in either one
dimension or two:

mass nouns that are generally localized rather than covering vast expanses: uji 'porridge', wali 'cooked rice'
broad: ukuta 'wall', ukucha 'fingernail', upande 'side' (≈ ubavu 'rib'), wavu 'net', wayo 'sole, footprint', ua 'fence,
yard', uteo 'winnowing basket',
long: utambi 'wick', utepe 'stripe', uta 'bow', ubavu 'rib', ufa 'crack', unywele 'a hair'

from 'a hair', singulatives of nouns, which are often class 6 ('collectives') in the plural: unyoya 'a feather',
uvumbi 'a grain of dust', ushanga 'a bead'
Class 14 are abstractions, such as utoto 'childhood' (from mtoto 'a child') and have no plural. They have the same
prefixes and concord as class 11, except optionally for adjectival concord.
Class 15 are verbal infinitives.
Classes 16–18 are locatives. The Bantu nouns of these classes have been lost; the only permanent member is the
Arabic loan mahali 'place(s)', but in Mombasa Swahili, the old prefixes survive: pahali 'place', mwahali 'places'.
However, any noun with the locative suffix -ni takes class 16–18 agreement. The distinction between them is that
class 16 agreement is used if the location is intended to be definite ("at"), class 17 if indefinite ("around") or involves
motion ("to, toward"), and class 18 if it involves containment ("within"): mahali pazuri 'a good spot', mahali kuzuri 'a
nice area', mahali muzuri (it's nice in there).

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Agreement
Swahili phrases agree with nouns in a system of concord, but if the noun refers to a human, they accord with noun classes 1-2
regardless of their noun class. Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions and
demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns. In Standard Swahili (Kiswahili sanifu), based on the dialect spoken in
Zanzibar, the system is rather complex; however, it is drastically simplified in many local variants where Swahili is not a native
language, such as in Nairobi. In non-native Swahili, concord reflects only animacy: human subjects and objects trigger a-, wa- and m-,
wa- in verbal concord, while non-human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger i-, zi-. Infinitives vary between standard ku-
and reduced i-.[46] ("Of" is animate wa and inanimate ya, za.)

In Standard Swahili, human subjects and objects of whatever class trigger animacy concord in a-, wa- and m-, wa-, and non-human
subjects and objects trigger a variety of gender-concord prefixes.

Swahili noun-class concord

Semantic Noun Adjective

NC Subj. Obj -a
field -C, -V -C, -i, -e[* 1]
- I (mimi) ni-
- we (sisi) tu-
- thou (wewe) u- ku-
- you (ninyi) m- wa-
1 person m-, mw- a- m- wa m-, mwi-, mwe-
2 people wa-, w- wa- wa wa-, we-, we-
3 tree m- u- wa m-, mwi-, mwe-
4 trees mi- i- ya mi-, mi-, mye-
5 group, AUG ji-/Ø, j- li- la ji-/Ø, ji-, je-
6 groups, AUG ma- ya- ya ma-, me-, me-
7 tool, DIM ki-, ch- ki- cha ki-, ki-, che-
8 tools, DIM vi-, vy- vi- vya vi-, vi-, vye-
9 animals, 'other', i- ya
N- N-, nyi-, nye-
10 loanwords zi- za
11 extension u-, w-/uw- u- wa m-, mwi-, mwe-
10 (plural of 11) N- zi- za N-, nyi-, nye-
m-, mwi-, mwe-
14 abstraction u-, w-/uw- u- wa
or u-, wi-, we-

15 infinitives ku-, kw-[* 2] ku- kwa- ku-, kwi-, kwe-

16 position -ni, mahali pa- pa pa-, pe-, pe-

17 direction, around -ni ku- kwa ku-, kwi-, kwe-
18 within, along -ni mu- (NA) mwa mu-, mwi-, mwe-

1. Most Swahili adjectives begin with either a consonant or the vowels i- or e-, listed separately above. The few
adjectives beginning with other vowels do not agree with all noun classes since some are restricted to humans. NC 1
m(w)- is mw- before a and o, and reduces to m- before u; wa- does not change; and ki-, vi-, mi- become ch-, vy-, my-

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before o but not before u: mwanana, waanana "gentle", mwororo, waororo, myororo, chororo, vyororo "mild, yielding",
mume, waume, kiume, viume "male".
2. In a few verbs: kwenda, kwisha

Dialects and closely related languages

This list is based on Swahili and Sabaki: a linguistic history.

Dialects
Modern standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar Town, but there are numerous dialects of Swahili, some
of which are mutually unintelligible, such as the following:[47]

Old dialects
Maho (2009) considers these to be distinct languages:

Kimwani 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 (the northern part of the Lamu archipelago) and is also called Kitikuu and Kigunya.
Socotra Swahili (extinct)
Sidi, in Gujarat (extinct)
The rest of the dialects are divided by him into two groups:

Mombasa–Lamu Swahili

Lamu

Kiamu is spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).

Kipate is a local dialect of Pate Island, considered to be closest to the original dialect of Kingozi.
Kingozi is an ancient dialect spoken on the Indian Ocean coast between Lamu and Somalia and is sometimes
still used in poetry. It is often considered the source of Swahili.
Mombasa

Chijomvu is a subdialect of the Mombasa area.

Kimvita is the major dialect of Mombasa (also known as "Mvita", which means "war", in reference to the many
wars which were fought over it), the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
Kingare is the subdialect of the Mombasa area.
Kimrima is spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
Kiunguja is spoken in Zanzibar City and environs on Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. Kitumbatu (Pemba) dialects
occupy the bulk of the island.
Mambrui, Malindi
Chichifundi, a dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
Chwaka
Kivumba, a dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
Nosse Be (Madagascar)
Pemba Swahili

Kipemba is a local dialect of the Pemba Island.

Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi are the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent
renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf" and so is considered pejorative.
Makunduchi
Mafia, Mbwera
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Kilwa (extinct)
Kimgao used to be spoken around Kilwa District and to the south.

Maho includes the various Comorian dialects as a third group. Most other authorities consider Comorian to be a Sabaki language,
distinct from Swahili.[48]

Other regions
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.[49] Another Swahili dialect known as Kibajuni also serves as
the mother tongue of the Bajuni minority ethnic group, which lives in the tiny Bajuni Islands as well as the southern Kismayo
region.[49][50]

In Oman, there are an estimated 22,000 people who speak Swahili.[51] Most are descendants of those repatriated after the fall of the
Sultanate of Zanzibar.[52][53]

Swahili poets
Shaaban bin Robert
Mathias E. Mnyampala
Euphrase Kezilahabi
Christopher Mwashinga
Tumi Molekane

See also
Mandombe script
Swahili literature
UCLA Language Materials Project
Languages of Africa

References
1. Thomas J. Hinnebusch, 1992, "Swahili", International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Oxford, pp. 99–106
David Dalby, 1999/2000, The Linguasphere Register of the World's Languages and Speech Communities,
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Benji Wald, 1994, "Sub-Saharan Africa", Atlas of the World's Languages, Routledge, pp. 289–346, maps 80, 81, 85
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001/acref-9780195139778-e-1058). In William J. Frawley (ed.). International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2 ed.).
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Congo Swahili (https://www.ethnologue.com/21/language/swc) at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018)
Coastal Swahili (https://www.ethnologue.com/21/language/swh) at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018)
Makwe (https://www.ethnologue.com/21/language/ymk) at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018)
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4. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Swahili (G.40)" (http://glottolog.org/resourc
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6. Prins 1961
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Arabic, Swahili is the most widely used African language but the number of its speakers is another area in which there
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9. Nurse and Hinnebusch, 1993
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13. See pp. 11 and 52 in Ghil'ad Zuckermann (2003). Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew,
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California Press
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800-1500. University of Pennsylvania Press
16. Thomas Spear. 2000. Early Swahili History Reconsidered. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol.
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2017-09-30.
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article/viewFile/918/437). Lexikos. pp. 126–7. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
23. Wanambisi, Laban (5 December 2016). "International schools must teach Kiswahili, Kenya's history – Matiang'i" (http
s://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2016/12/international-schools-must-teach-kiswahili-kenyas-history-matiangi/). Capital
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(Ethnologue)
27. Brock-Utne 2001: 123
28. Kambale, Juakali (10 August 2004). "DRC welcomes Swahili as an official AU language" (http://www.mg.co.za/article
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31. "Salama Tagger" (http://77.240.23.241).
32. "Salama Language Learner" (http://77.240.23.241).
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34. "Salama Dictionary" (http://77.240.23.241).
35. "Salama Translator" (http://77.240.23.241).
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Adams (eds), The Routledge Handbook of African Linguistics, 359–375. London: Routledge Publishers. ISBN 978-1-
138-22829-0
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Retrieved 2018-03-26.
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39. Contini-Morava, Ellen. 1997. Swahili Phonology. In Kaye, Alan S. (ed.), Phonologies of Asia and Africa 2, 841-860.
Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
40. Modern Swahili Grammar East African Publishers, 2001 Mohamed Abdulla Mohamed p. 4
41. https://sprak.gu.se/digitalAssets/1324/1324063_aspiration-in-swahili.pdf
42. https://sprak.gu.se/digitalAssets/1324/1324063_aspiration-in-swahili.pdf, p. 157.
43. "A Guide to Swahili - The Swahili alphabet" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/swahili/guide/alphabet.shtml).
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Society, 800-1500 (https://books.google.com/books?id=7uJmgsq37dMC&pg=PA65&dq=Comorian+sabaki+language
&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik1Ifxt6rNAhVFt48KHS5bCB4Q6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=Comorian%20sabaki%20lan
guage&f=false). p. 65.
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50. Mwakikagile, Godfrey (2007). Kenya: identity of a nation (https://books.google.com/books?id=lsqjN-t6mP4C). New
Africa Press. p. 102. ISBN 0-9802587-9-0.
51. "Oman" (http://www.ethnologue.com/country/OM). Ethnologue. 1999-02-19. Retrieved 2015-11-15.
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Ashton, E. O. Swahili Grammar: Including intonation. Longman House. Essex 1947. ISBN 0-582-62701-X.
Irele, Abiola and Biodun Jeyifo. The Oxford encyclopedia of African thought, Volume 1. Oxford University Press US.
New York City. 2010. ISBN 0-19-533473-6
Blommaert, Jan: Situating language rights: English and Swahili in Tanzania revisited (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c
6/01/42/29/paper23.pdf) (sociolinguistic developments in Tanzanian Swahili) – Working Papers in Urban Language &
Literacies, paper 23, University of Gent 2003
Brock-Utne, Birgit (2001). "Education for all – in whose language?". Oxford Review of Education. 27 (1): 115–134.
doi:10.1080/03054980125577 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F03054980125577).
Chiraghdin, Shihabuddin and Mathias E. Mnyampala. Historia ya Kiswahili. Oxford University Press. Eastern Africa.
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Contini-Morava, Ellen. Noun Classification in Swahili (http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/swahili/). 1994.

Lambert, H.E. 1956. Chi-Chifundi: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
Lambert, H.E. 1957. Ki-Vumba: A Dialect of the Southern Kenya Coast. (Kampala)
Lambert, H.E. 1958. Chi-Jomvu and ki-Ngare: Subdialects of the Mombasa Area. (Kampala)
Marshad, Hassan A. Kiswahili au Kiingereza (Nchini Kenya). Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. Nairobi 1993. ISBN 9966-
22-098-4.
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California Publications in Linguistics, v. 121.
Ogechi, Nathan Oyori: "On language rights in Kenya (http://www.njas.helsinki.fi/pdf-files/vol12num3/ogechi.pdf) (on
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Prins, A.H.J. 1961. "The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (Arabs, Shirazi and
Swahili)". Ethnographic Survey of Africa, edited by Daryll Forde. London: International African Institute.
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Whiteley, Wilfred. 1969. Swahili: the rise of a national language. London: Methuen. Series: Studies in African History.

External links
UCLA report on Swahili (http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=17&menu=004/)
John Ogwana (2001) Swahili Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Factors of Its Development and Expansion (http://ww
w.inst.at/trans/11Nr/ogwana11.htm)
List of Swahili Dictionaries (http://www.glcom.com/hassan/dictionary/swahili_dictionary.html)
Arthur Cornwallis Madan (1902). English-Swahili dictionary (https://archive.org/details/englishswahilid00madagoog/pa
ge/n3). archive.org. Clarendon Press. p. 555. Archived (https://archive.is/Jz5JL) from the original on Oct 14, 2018.

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