Swahili

Swahili, or Kiswahili, is a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo language family. It is spoken as a first language by coastal communities and as a second language by hundreds of millions across East Africa. Estimates place total speakers well over 100 million, making it one of Africa’s most widely used languages. Swahili functions as a regional lingua franca in the East African and Great Lakes regions, including along the Swahili coast of Tanzania and Kenya and inland areas of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mozambique.

Swahili developed on the East African coast through long-standing contact between Bantu-speaking communities and Arab traders. This contact introduced extensive Arabic loanwords and maritime vocabulary, while the grammar remains Bantu. Historically, Swahili was written in the Arabic script (Ajami) in religious and literary contexts; today it is written in the Latin alphabet. The standard form, Kiswahili Sanifu, is used in education, media, and official contexts, while numerous regional dialects exist.

Key varieties include Coastal Swahili (closest to the standard) and urban slang such as Sheng, spoken in Kenyan and Tanzanian cities. The language has absorbed loanwords from Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, English, and other languages due to centuries of trade and colonization.

Official status: In Tanzania, Swahili is the national language and lingua franca; in Kenya it is an official language alongside English. It is widely taught in schools, used in government and media, and promoted as a regional language for cross-border communication.