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Let Us Praise Swahili-kiswahili Kitukuzwe

A brief introduction to Kiswahili

Date : 02/12/2014

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Alex

Uploaded by : Alex
Uploaded on : 02/12/2014
Subject : General Studies

The Swahili language or Kiswahili is a Bantu language and the mother tongue of the Swahili people. It is spoken by various communities inhabiting the African Great Lakes region and other parts of Southeast Africa, including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.[6] The closely related Comorian language, spoken in the Comoros Islands, is sometimes considered a Swahili dialect.

Although only around fifteen million people speak Swahili as their mother tongue,it is used as a lingua franca in much of Southeast Africa. The total number of Swahili speakers exceeds 140 million.Swahili serves as a national or official language of four nations: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is also one of the official languages of the African Union.

Some Swahili vocabulary is derived from Arabic through contact with Arabic-speaking Muslim inhabitants of the Swahili Coast. It has also incorporated German, Portuguese, English, Hindi and French words into its vocabulary through contact with empire builders, traders and slavers during the past five centuries. ORIGIN Swahili is traditionally regarded as being the language of coastal areas of Tanzania and Kenya, formalised after independence by presidents of the African Great Lakes region. It was first spoken by natives of the coastal mainland and spread as a fisherman`s language to the various islands surrounding the Swahili Coast. Traders from these islands had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 2nd century A.D. and Swahili began to spread along the Swahili Coast from at least the 6th century. There is also cultural evidence of early Zaramo people settlement on Zanzibar from Dar-es-salaam in present-day Tanzania. The African population of the island holds the tradition that it is descended from these early settlers

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