by Daniel Onyango

Created on: April 21, 2010   Last Updated: April 22, 2010

Swahili or more specifically, Kiswahili (language or the speech of the Swahili people) is an African language now spoken widely by the people of the Eastern and Central African region. The word Swahili is in fact derived from an arabic term sâhils-awâhil, which means ‘people of the coast' . Swahili’s recognition, development by some of the world’s higher institutions of learning, and its certification as one of the official languages of the African Union (AU) underscores its growing influence.

Although Kiswahili may be classified as mainly Bantu (a sub-group of the Niger-Congo, the largest language classification in Africa) it has borrowed mainly from Arabic (35%), Persian, Portuguese, Hindi and English. A few German words like hela ‘German coin’ have found their way in the language. All these groups had an influence on the language as traders and coloniser of the Coastal region of Africa . Kiswahili’s historical and linguistic origin may be traced to Persian/Arabic influence at the the East African coast at the turn of the 1st millennium. The earliest inhabitants of the East African coast were Cushitic herdsmen. The Cushitic people were later joined by Bantu speaking tribes, including the Mijikenda, with whom the Arabs and Persians freely inter-married.

There are linguistic and archaeological evidence which support this influence. The earliest known written document in Kiswahili are a letter written in Kilwa to the Portuguese dated 1711, and and an epic poem(Utendi wa Tambuka) in 1728 all in Arabic script (Nurse and Hinnesbusch 1985, 1993). Historical accounts document that as early as 2 AD Arabs were trading along the coastal region of Africa. They inter-married with the natives who spoke Bantu languages. Some trade words borrowed from Arabic are the names of numeric words (i.e sita ‘six’; saba ‘seven’; tisa ‘nine’). Words borrowed from Persian include chai 'tea’ serikali 'government’ diwani 'councillor’. Around 1500-1700 AD the Portuguese traded and colonised the East African coastal region, and some Portuguese words found and kiswahili are leso ‘hankerchief’, meza ‘table’,and gereza ‘prison' (Nurse & Hinnesbusch 1993).

Towards the end of the 19th century German and British influence increased at the East African coast. The Germans colonised Tanganyika (mainland of Republic of Tanzania) while the British ruled

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>