Don't Just Sit There! Start Getting More History Of The Kiswahili Language

 The language originated approximately 800-1000 years ago in the context of coastal trading centers where traders from Arabia, Persia and India met African natives. The main international language of the trade was Arabic.

It seems that a new language emerged when the coastal inhabitants, who were Bantu language speakers, received many Arabic words in their communication. Thus the basis of Kiswahili is Bantu grammar and vocabulary as well as many Arabic words. It is estimated that about a third of Swahili words have Arabic origin.

Apart from Arabic from ancient times there is also the influence of various languages ​​such as Persian, Hindi and Portuguese.

From the 20th century until now many words have been received from English, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo French, but also from other languages, Arabic being one of them.

For centuries it was written in Arabic characters (سواحلي verbs or لغة سواحيلية vernacular).

The first grammar and dictionary were written in 1848 by Dr. Ludwig Krapf in New Rabai / Mombasa.

Kiswahili had many dialects due to the various Bantu languages ​​that contributed to the area.

From the 19th century onwards the language began to spread on the continent through trade.

During British colonialism the language was standardized by the Regional Kiswahili Language Committee based on the Unguja dialect.

Speakers

There is no certainty about the number of speakers of the language; the numbers mentioned vary. We think it is 150 million speakers [1].

The number of speakers using it as a first language is not less than 15-25 million and the number of speakers who use it as a second language is over 125 million.

The number of speakers of the first language is growing rapidly, as the language is spreading in areas where other languages ​​were the main language, and especially in the cities of Tanzania has become the main language, rather than ethnic languages, due to the mix of people even in the same house, such as when they marry people of different ethnicities, something that has become especially common in Tanzania, which leads to the use of Kiswahili. For many children, it has become the mother tongue.

Among the countries where Kiswahili is spoken in Kenya, Uganda, Congo-Kinshasa, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, Somalia, and the Indian Ocean islands such as Ngazija Islands