Back Swahili (volk) Afrikaans السواحليون Arabic السواحليين ARZ سواحیلی خالق AZB Суахілі (народ) Byelorussian Suahili (grup humà) Catalan Swahili (folk) Danish Swahili (Gesellschaft) German Svahiloj Esperanto Suajili Spanish
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Waungwana وَؤُنْڠوَانَ | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Swahili Coast and archipelagos | c. 1.2 million |
 Tanzania | 996,000[citation needed] |
 Kenya | 56,074[2] |
 Mozambique | 22,000[3] |
 Somalia | ? |
 Comoros | 4,000[4] |
| Diaspora | c. 0.8 million |
 Saudi Arabia | 400,000 |
 Madagascar | 113,000[4] |
 Oman | 100,000[5] |
 United States | 90,000[6] |
| Languages | |
| Religion | |
| Islam (Sunni, Shia, Sufism, Ibadi) [7][8][9] | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
The Swahili people (Swahili: Waswahili, وَسوَحِيلِ) comprise mainly Bantu, Afro-Arab, and Comorian ethnic groups inhabiting the Swahili coast, an area encompassing the East African coast across southern Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and northern Mozambique, and various archipelagos off the coast, such as Zanzibar, Lamu, and the Comoro Islands.[10][11]: 9–11
The original Swahili distinguished themselves from other Bantu peoples by self-identifying as Waungwana (the civilised ones). In certain regions, such as Lamu Island, this differentiation is even more stratified in terms of societal grouping and dialect, hinting at the historical processes by which the Swahili have coalesced over time. More recently, through a process of Swahilization, this identity extends to any person of African descent who speaks Swahili as their first language, is Muslim, and lives in a town of the main urban centres of most of modern-day Tanzania and coastal Kenya, northern Mozambique, or the Comoros.[12]
The name Swahili originated as an exonym for the language derived from Arabic: سواحل, romanized: Sawāhil, lit. 'coasts', with Waungwana as the endonym. Modern Standard Swahili is derived from the Kiunguja dialect of Zanzibar. Like many other world languages, Swahili has borrowed a large number of words from foreign languages, particularly administrative terms from Arabic but also words from Portuguese, Persian, Hindi, Spanish, English, and German. Other, older dialects like Kimrima and Kitumbatu have far fewer Arabic loanwords, indicative of the language's fundamental Bantu nature. Swahili served as coastal East Africa's lingua franca and trade language from the ninth century onward. Zanzibari traders' intensive push into the African interior from the late eighteenth century induced the adoption of Swahili as a common language throughout much of East Africa. Thus, Swahili is the most spoken African language, used by far more than just the Swahili people themselves.[13]
- ^ "Swahili facts, information, pictures – Encyclopedia.com articles about Swahili". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
- ^ "2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census Volume IV: Distribution of Population by Socio-Economic Characteristics" (PDF). Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
- ^ "Swahili". Ethnologue. Retrieved 22 February 2025.
- ^ a b "Swahili – Worldwide distribution". Worlddata.info. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
- ^ Valeri, Marc (July 2007). "Nation-building and communities in Oman since 1970: The Swahili-speaking Omani in search of identity". African Affairs. 106 (424): 479–496. doi:10.1093/afraf/adm020.
- ^ Akorbi-Dev (23 March 2020). "Popular African Languages in the United States". Akorbi. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
- ^ "The People of the Swahili Coast". 23 March 2020.
- ^ Kusimba, Chapurukha M.; Walz, Jonathan R. (2024). "Africa, Tropical: Swahili Archaeology". Encyclopedia of Archaeology (Second ed.). pp. 226–233. doi:10.1016/B978-0-323-90799-6.00168-3. ISBN 978-0-323-91856-5.
- ^ Laviolette, Adria (2008). "AFRICA, EAST | Swahili Coast". Encyclopedia of Archaeology. pp. 19–21. doi:10.1016/B978-012373962-9.00302-2. ISBN 978-0-12-373962-9.
- ^ "The People of the Swahili Coast". education.nationalgeographic.org. Retrieved 7 January 2025.
- ^ Wynne-Jones, Stephanie; LaViolette, Adria (16 October 2017). The Swahili World. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-43016-2.
- ^ Spear, Thomas (2000). "Early Swahili History Reconsidered". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 33 (2): 257–290. doi:10.2307/220649. JSTOR 220649.
- ^ Horton & Middleton 2000, p. [page needed].
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