Language/Swahili-individual-language

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Hi Polyglots! 😃

Welcome to the Swahili (individual language) learning page!

You will find below many free resources to learn and practice this language.

Enjoy your learning journey with Polyglot Club! 😊

Facts about Swahili (individual language)[edit | edit source]

Language code (ISO 639-3): swh
Autonyms (how to write "Swahili (individual language)" in Swahili (individual language)): Kiswahili / كِسوَهِل
Other names for "Swahili (individual language)": Kiswahili, Arab-Swahili, Kisuahili, Kiswaheli, Suahili, Kisuaheli
The Swahili (individual language) language is spoken in: Tanzania

Swahili, also known by its native name Kiswahili, is a Bantu language and the native language of the Swahili people. It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of East and Southern Africa, including Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, some parts of Malawi, Somalia, Zambia, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Comorian and Swahili[edit | edit source]

Comorian, spoken in the Comoros Islands, is sometimes considered a dialect of Swahili, although other authorities consider it a distinct language.

Arabic loanwords[edit | edit source]

Sixteen to twenty percent of Swahili vocabulary is Arabic loanwords, including the word swahili, from Arabic sawāḥilī. The Arabic loanwords date from the contacts of Arabian traders with the Bantu inhabitants of the east coast of Africa over many centuries. Under Arab trade influence, Swahili emerged as a lingua franca used by Arab traders and Bantu peoples of the East African Coast.

Sources[edit | edit source]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language

Swahili Dictionaries[edit | edit source]

• Swahili.it: Swahili-Italian dictionary & Swahili-English

• Slc: useful Swahili words (+ audio)

• 17 minute languages: Swahili-English common phrases (+ audio)

• Defense language institute: basic vocabulary (+ audio) - civil affairs - medical

• Swahili etymological dictionary by András Rajki (2005)

• An anthology of proverbs in Kiswahili & translation into English & German, by Claudia Dal Bianco & Johanna Emig (2009)

• Swahili-English dictionary by Charles Rechenbach (1967)

• Swahili-English dictionary by Arthur Cornwallis Madan (1903)

• English-Swahili (1902)

• Dictionary of the Suahili language by Johann Ludwig Krapf (1882)

• Dictionnaire swahili-français [PDF] Swahili-French dictionary, by Charles Sacleux (1939)

• Dictionnaire français-swahili (1891)

• Vocabulaire français-kisouahili: French-Swahili vocabulary published by the État indépendant du Congo (1894)

• Suaheli-Dragoman: Swahili-German dictionary by topics, by Friedrich von Nettelbladt (1891)

• Wörterbuch der Suahelisprache: Swahili-German & German-Swahili dictionary, by Carl Gotthilf Büttner (1890)

• African aphorisms or Saws from Swahili Land, by William Ernest Taylor (1891)

• Expanding the Swahili vocabulary: newly adopted words in Swahili in the field of information and communication technology, by Malin Petzell (2005)

• The adaptation of Swahili loanwords from Arabic, by Leonard Chacha Mwita, in Journal of Pan African studies (2009)

• A brief lexico-semantic study of French and Kiswahili by Lester Mtwana Jao, in Mambo (2015)

• Epenthetic vowels in Swahili loanwords by Andrew Harvey, in Journal of linguistics and language in education (2014)

• Phonological and semantic change in language borrowing: the case of Arabic words borrowed into Kiswahili, by Mohamed Abdulmajid Akidah, in International journal of education and research (2013)

• Historical inferences from Swahili etymologies by Thilo Schadeberg (1989)

• Lugha ya mitaani in Tanzania: the poetics and sociology of a young urban style of speaking, with a dictionary comprising 1100 words and phrases, by Uta Reuster-Jahn & Roland Kießling, in Swahili Forum (2006)