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Revision as of 18:02, 4 December 2002 by Gritchka (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Swahili (also "Kiswahili") is a agglutinative language widely spoken in East Africa. It originated between 1500 and 1600 as a auxilary language for the traders of the east African coast and the Middle East, particularly Oman. Swahili is the mother tongue for many inhabitants of the central east African coast (particularly in Zanzibar, Mombasa, Pemba and Lamu), and it is a lingua franca for up to 50 million others.
The traditional centre of the language is Zanzibar, and Swahili is an official language of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The Swahili spoken in Nairobi incorporates significantly more English loan words than that spoken on the coast. The language is also spoken in regions that border these three countries, such as far northern Malawi and Mozambique, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and southern Ethiopia. The Zanzibar dialect is known as Kiunguja.
While structurally and grammatically it is a member of the Bantu family of languages, its vocabulary reflects in part its origins as a language of traders. 20% or more of the vocabulary is directly adopted from Arabic (eg. kitabu for book). It is not a Semitic (i.e. Afro-Asiatic) language. A lesser percentage of the vocabulary is adopted from English, reflecting the colonial influence.
The most salient feature of its grammar is its division of nouns into a number of classes. Words beginning with m- whose plural changes it to wa- denote persons, e.g. mtoto 'child', plural watoto. The infinite of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are harder to categorize. Singulars beginning ki- take plurals in vi-: this even applies to foreign words where the ki- is originally part of the root, not a prefix, so vitabu 'books'. This class also contains diminutives, and languages. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another m- class takes plurals in mi-, e.g. mti 'tree', miti trees. Another class usually has no ending in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
- Mtoto mmoja anasoma One child is reading
- Watoto wawili wanasoma Two children are reading
- Kitabu kimoja kinatosha One book suffices
- Vitabu viwili vinatosha Two books suffice
- Ndizi moja inatosha One banana suffices
- Ndizi mbili zinatosha Two bananas suffice