Where is swahili spoken in the world

British Broadcasting Corporation Home. Check the Swahili-only version. Swahili has official language status in Tanzania and Kenya and is also widely spoken in Uganda , the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Comoros Islands. The word for the Swahili language is Kiswahili.

The name comes from the plural sawahili of the Arabic word sahil , which means boundaries or coast. With ki- at the beginning of the word, Kiswahili means coastal language.

Other than Arabic, Swahili has been influenced and taken some words from English, for example: polisi , police boksi , box hoteli , hotel televisheni , television baiskeli , bicycle hospitali , hospital soksi , socks picha , picture muziki , music redio , radio. The word safari means journey in Swahili. In English it means an expedition to observe, hunt animals in their natural habitats e.

National Parks in Africa or even Australia. The word chai means tea. Swahili is said to be the easiest African language for an English speaker to learn. Someone who speaks Arabic may find it easier to learn Swahili because Swahili is a combination of words from Arabic and the Bantu-speaking communities of East Africa.

One of the main differences with English is that Swahili uses particles at the beginning of the word to indicate verb tense present, past, future and person I, you, we, they, etc. For example, from the verb kwenda , to go , I am going is nina-kwenda. Ni indicates I and na the present tense.

Wale wari wa Liwale wala wali wa Liwali Those from Liwale eat the rice of chief Liwale Here Liwale is both a district in Tanzania and the name of a chief. These spelling forms are not far from those in isiXhosa, isiZulu and other South African native languages. If South Africans are enabled to speak a variety of languages from their own continent, they will then be better able to take part in building not only their own country but also building Africa as a continent.

I cannot identify any — if the process is carefully managed. This can all be done. South Africa needs to invest in textbooks, curriculum experts and researchers who can help guide the policy around Kiswahili. The only area that might be a struggle is the provision of qualified teachers. The country must look to places like Kenya and Tanzania, which graduates tens of thousands of teachers annually who cannot find work in their home countries.

They can be the first source of teachers. The Swahili language is spoken in several African countries. Historically, Swahili has been a lingua franca in East Africa, or a language used as a way of communicating across different nationalities and tribal groups who speak different languages as their mother tongue.

Swahili was a language that relatively few spoke as their first language, but which a significant amount of people speak as a second language. This is still the case today, despite the growing influence of English. In other Swahili-speaking countries the difference is even bigger. This makes for around 5,5 million native speakers. The origin of Swahili, however, was a little more to the north, namely in Kenya , where the Swahili language developed from a Bantu language called Pokomo.

One would assume that since Swahili had its origins in Kenya, this country would have a large community of native Swahili speakers. In The Democratic Republic of Congo , Swahili is spoken widely as a second language, but people who speak Swahili as their native language are very few. Most native speakers of Swahili — about 15 million — are concentrated in Tanzania, where the tongue is a national language.

The dialects of Swahili cover a fairly broad swath of eastern and central Africa. Try Babbel. Toggle Menu.