Kiswahili (Swahili) is a major Bantu language spoken in East Africa. The term Bantu was created by a scholar in the 19th century as the reconstructed word for 'people' in the hypothetical ancestor language of the group. Swahili, or Kiswahili, belongs to the larger Benue-Congo branch of the Swahili has a relatively large number of mostly mutually intelligible varieties that are listed below (Ethnologue). Modifiers follow nouns.Below are some common words and phrases in Swahili.English has borrowed a few words and phrases from Swahili, several of them familiar from movies and TV. Approximately 2,000,000 people use Swahili as a home language. The Bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is Swahili; however, the majority of its speakers use it as a second language (L1: c. 16 million, L2: 80 million, as of 2015). There are an estimated 50,000,000 speakers, which makes it the most widely spoken language on the African continent. As the national language of Tanzania, Swahili brings a sense of identity and belonging to Tanzanians. The Swahili developed their own trade language which was a mixture of Bantu tribal languages and Arabic. They were transcriptions of oral Swahili epic poetry written in the Arabic script, the result of of Islamic influence on the culture of East Africa. A vowel is added to loanwords that end in a consonant, e.g., English Swahili has five vowel phonemes, i.e., sounds that can serve to differentiate word meaning. The status of Swahili as an international language results from its strategic location on the coast of East Africa. Besides its widespread use in Tanzania, Swahili is also spoken in neighboring countries of the East African community. The ethnic languages are mainly of Bantu and Nilotic origin. Its growth is most notable in the working class population of East African urban centers Notably, Swahili is the only African language among the official working languages of theSwahili has a long literary tradition dating back to the middle of the 17th century. Twelve Bantu languages are spoken by more than five million people, including Rundi, Rwanda, Shona, Xhosa, and Zulu. Swahili was originally written in the Arabic script that was replaced by a Roman-based alphabet in the mid-19th century. The language has been used alongside Swahili since independence as a medium of instruction in schools. Many works of Western writers have been translated into Swahili. History: The Swahili people came into existence after Bantu tribes along the coast of East Africa were invaded by and intermarried with Arab traders who settled permanently along the coast around the 11th century. While most schools for the deaf use sign language, others teach lip-reading. The general population has considerable knowledge of English, but their fluency in Swahili is more noticeable.Swahili is the official and most commonly used language in Tanzania. Various forms of sign languages have been used both in education and in communication since 1963. This can be explained by the fact that it is spoken in many different countries.The sound system of Swahili shares a number of features with other Niger-Congo languages. While English still plays an important role in post-colonial East Africa today, Swahili is becoming more important in politics, commerce, culture, education, and mass media. There are no diphthongs. Six classes usually indicate singular nouns, five usually indicate plural nouns, one class indicates abstract nouns, one class indicate verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes indicate location. © 2014 - 2020. The language has a simple syllable structure with syllables typically ending in a vowel with no consonant clusters and no final consonants. The Swahili community developed along the coast of East Africa when Arab and Persian traders looking for profitable markets began to settle there and intermarry with the local Bantu-speaking population.