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Swahili

The Swahili language or Kiswahili is a Bantu language and the first language of the Swahili people (WaSwahili). It has up to 15 million (2007) native (mother tongue). Although only around 15 million people speak Swahili as their first language, it is used as a lingua franca in much of Southeast Africa. Estimates of the total number of Swahili speakers vary widely, from 60 million to over 140 million.The name Kiswahili comes from the plural sawāḥil (سواحل) of the Arabic word sāḥil (ساحل), meaning “boundary” or “coast”, used as an adjective meaning “coastal dwellers”. With the prefix ki-, it means “coastal language”

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. It is also spoken in  Rwanda, Burundi and Mozambique

One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an inter-territorial conference took place at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711 A.D. in the Arabic script. They were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India. Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka (The History of Tambuka); it is dated 1728. However, the Latin script later became standard under the influence of European colonial powers.

In the Swahili coast (from Swahili city-states) Arab and Persian traders/migrates settled around the Swahili coast and eventually inter-married with the dominated Bantu population. Overall Swahili has words of Arabic origin between 30-40% ,Persian/Farsi and also Hindi.Due to European colonialism people have Incorporated German, Portuguese, English and French words. (The Swahili in Kenya and Tanzania would have more English and German influence, the Swahili in Congo would generally have more French and to some extent Portuguese and also the Swahili in Mozambique would have more Portuguese influences)

The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711 A.D. in the Arabic script. They were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India. Another ancient written document is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka (The History of Tambuka); it is dated 1728. However, the Latin script later became standard under the influence of European colonial powers.

After Germany attacked the region known as Tanganyika (present-day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide prevalence of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony-wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction.

At the present time, some 90 percent of approximately 39 million Tanzanians speak Swahili in addition to their first languages

Kenya’s population is comparable as well, with a greater part of the nation being able to speak Swahili. 

The five eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo are Swahili-speaking. Nearly half the 66 million Congolese reportedly speak it and it is starting to rival Lingala 

In Uganda, the Baganda and residents of Buganda generally do not speak Swahili, but it is in common use among the 25 million people elsewhere in the country and is currently being implemented in schools nationwide

Dialects

There are two extinct dialects: Sidi, in Gujarat, India and Socotra Swahili in Socotra Island in Yemen

There are about 15 main Swahili dialects, as well as several pidgin forms in use. The three most important dialects are kiUnguja (or Kiunguja), spoken on Zanzibar and in the mainland areas of Tanzania; kiMvita (or Kimvita), spoken in Mombasa and other areas of Kenya; and kiAmu (or Kiamu), spoken on the island of Lamu and adjoining parts of the coast. Standard Swahili is based on the kiUnguja dialect. 

In Somalia, where the Afro-Asiatic 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

Another Swahili dialect known as Kibajuni also serves as the mother tongue of the Bajuni minority ethnic group, the latter of whom inhabit the tiny Bajuni Islands as well as the southern Kismayo region

In Oman, an estimated 22,000 people speak Swahili. Most are descendants of those who repatriated after the fall of the Sultanate of Zanzibar.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo: Ituri Kingwana, Katanga Swahili (previously known as Shaba Swahili), Kivu Swahili, Lualaba Kingwana. Kingwana is a pidgin Swahili which functions sociolinguistically as a dialect. There are several regional dialects, with that of the formerly Arabized areas (Eastern Congo) have most similar to Swahili of Kenya and Tanzania.

The statement has often been made that the Swahili traders in the Democratic Republic of Congo spoke the dialect of Swahili known as Kingwana, but this term applies more rightly to the lingua franca as spoken by the Congo peoples. The distinction should clearly be made, for even today in the Swahili settlements the people of Swahili (in DR Congo) origin speak a form of the language much more closely related to standard Swahili East African Swahili than of the ethnic groups (in DR Congo) who only use the language as a lingua franca

The Congo peoples became used to calling them ‘Bangwana’, and the Swahili language they called ‘Kingwana’. Europeans in the Congo sometimes refer to Swahili as ‘Kingwana’, making no distinction. Others recognize the difference between Kingwana, spoken by the Congolese ethnic groups and Swahili spoken by the Swahili in Congo

Comorian is the most widely used language on the Comoros and Mayotte. It is a set of Sabaki dialects but with more Arabic influence than standard Swahili. Each island has a different dialect

Swahili is spoken in a small area of the coast next to the Tanzanian border; south of this, towards Moçambique Island, Kimwani, regarded as a dialect of Swahili, is used. 

The language was still understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea and along the coasts of southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf in the 20th

Kenya

Tanzania

Congo

Uganda

2,000 year old tree in South Africa called The Tree of Life. The boabab tree.

Some hollowed out trunks have been used to provide shelter to as many as 40 people, it can hold up to 4,500 liters of water, fibers from the bark can be turned into rope and cloth and fresh leaves are often eaten to boost the immune system.

The medicinal properties of the boabab fruit are amaze balls: 3 times as much Vitamin C as an orange , 50% more Calcium than spinach, and it has a plentiful source of antioxidants which are disease fighting molecules credited with helping reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease.

Yoruba

Yoruba language, one of a small group of languages that comprise the Yoruboid cluster of the Defoid subbranch. Yoruba is a member of the Kwa branch of the Niger Congo family of languages. Yoruba, like other Niger-Congo languages, is a tonal language. This means that distinctions in the pitch of a single syllable may be used to change the meaning of words.

Yoruba is classified within the Edekiri languages, which together with Itsekiri and the isolate Igala form the Yoruboid group of languages within the Volta-Niger branch of the Niger-Congo family. The linguistic unity of the Niger-Congo family dates to deep prehistory, estimates ranging around 15 kya (the end of the Upper Paleolithic)

The Yoruba dialect continuum itself consists of several dialects. The various Yoruba dialects in the Yorubaland of Nigeria can be classified into three major dialect areas: Northwest, Central, and Southeast. Of course, clear boundaries can never be drawn and peripheral areas of dialectal regions often have some similarities to adjoining dialects.