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| VOCABULARY DATABASE > SWAHILI > INFORMATION |
Swahili is a Bantu language spoken by 5 million people as a first language. While it has official status in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, it has become the lingua franca for 50 million people living in Eastern Africa.
Literature in Swahili dates from the 18th c. In addition to a long pre-colonial literary tradition, use of the language was fostered first by German, then by British administration, and during the 20th c. Swahili publishing grew at a fast pace.
Swahili has a very regular morphology and makes extensive use of prefixes (for 22 noun classes) and a rich system of verb suffixes. Its vocabulary was influenced by Arabic over centuries, due to contacts of the population of the East coast of Africa with Arabian merchants.
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