Swahili
Swahili, or Kiswahili, is a Bantu language of the Sabaki subgroup of the Northeastern
Coast Bantu languages. It is spoken by an estimated 50 million people and, after
Arabic, is the most widely understood language in Africa. Although the number
of native speakers is quite small (2 million), it is commonly learned as a second
language in Eastern Africa, where it serves as a lingua franca, and is the official
language of Tanzania and Kenya. Although English is still an important language
in post independence East Africa, Swahili plays an increasingly vital role in
the daily commercial, political, cultural, and social life of the region at
every level of society. This is especially true in Tanzania, where the language
is used throughout the country in government offices, the courts, schools and
mass media. In Kenya, this is less the case, and English still enjoys virtual
equal status with Swahili.
Swahili spread through eastern Africa beginning in the nineteenth century when
Arab/Swahili trade expanded along the East African coast, on Zanzibar, and in
trading centers in the interior. A thousand years of contact between Indian
Ocean peoples and Swahili resulted in a large number of borrowed words entering
the language from Arabic, Persian and various Indian languages. At different
periods Swahili also borrowed vocabulary from Portuguese and English. The oldest
surviving documents written in Swahili date from the early 1700s. They are written
in an Arabic script, reflecting the influence of Islamic culture on Swahili
society. Today, a Roman-based alphabet has replaced the Arabic-based orthography.
A large number of dialects are distinguished among Swahili speakers and scholars.
They are almost all mutually intelligible, differing primarily in certain phonological
and lexical features. The dialect of Swahili referred to as Standard Swahili
was established in 1930 by the Inter Territorial Language Committee and was
based on the coastal dialect of Zanzibar, called Kiunguja, or Kisanifu in Tanzania.
Unlike other Bantu languages, it is not a tone language.
Sources:
UCLA Language Materials Project
Independent Study Courses Available at UCSD:
Other Local Resources:
UCSD International Center
Mingei museum of folk art
International web radio