Language Name (English) | Language Name (French) | 639-2 | 639-1 Swahili | swahili | swa | sw
Le "Swahililand" (ou "Wituland", "Witu", "Vitu") était un territoire de 3.000 km2 approximativement dans l'Afrique de l'Est centré sur la ville de "Witu", le port de l'île de Lamu, au nord de l'embouchure de la rivière Tana dans ce qui est aujourd'hui le Kenya.
SOUAHÉLI, SOUAHILI, SWAHILI, subst. masc.
Étymol. et Hist. 1873 "souhahili" (sic) subst. (Lar. 19et. 10, p. 158c, s.v. langue); 1875 "suaheli" subst. (Lar. 19e); 1881 "swahili" adj. (E. Cosquin ds Romania t. 10, p. 550); 1891 (Ch. Sacleux, Dict. fr. "swahili", Zanzibar ds Catal. gén. des l. imprimés de la BN); ca 1896 "suahili" subst. (Gde Encyclop. t. 22, p. 293a, s.v. linguistique); ca 1902 "souahéli" adj. et subst. (Gde Encyclop.); 1912 "swahili" subst. (G. Ferrand ds B. Soc. Ling. t. 17, p. 86). Empr. au "swahili" "Swahili" "la côte swahilie" (d'où "mswahili" "habitant de cette côte", "kiswahili" "la langue swahilie") et celui-ci à l'ar. "sawahili" "Swahili", littéral. "habitant de la côte", dér. au moyen du suff. ethnique "-i" de "sawahil", plur. de "sahil" "côte" (cf. sahel).
"Swahili", name of a Bantu people inhabiting the coast of South Africa, 1814, literally "coast-dwellers", from Arabic "sawahil", plural of "sahil" "coast" + ethnic suffix "-i".
UCLA Swahili Poetry Project
This is an experimental site devoted to the dissemination of information about Swahili poetry, to its collection and archiving, and for providing tools which will allow students and scholars to access, read, and understand this rich heritage. It is under construction and its content and design frequently change. It consists of a number of resources: a textbase of Swahili poetry, a dictionary/glossary, a grammar, and bibliography. Some facts about Swahili poetry are also available (Swahili and the Poetic Tradition).
The project is under the direction of Prof. Thomas J. Hinnebusch, Professor of Linguistics and African languages, Department of Linguistics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA. It is funded by the Committee on Research, Academic Senate, UCLA.
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The name "Swahili" comes from the plural of the Arabic word "sahel" or "sawahil" meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by extension, "coastal language"). Sahel is also the word used for the "border zone of the Sahara". The incorporation of the final "i" is likely for phonetic reasons as it is consistent with the tendency to end words with vowel sounds.
Swahili (Kiswahili)
Spoken in: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo (DRC), Somalia, Comoros Islands (including Mayotte), Mozambique, Malawi
Total speakers: First language: about 5 million
Second language: about 30-50 million
Swahili (also called Kiswahili; see below for a discussion of the nomenclature) is a Bantu language widely spoken in East Africa. Swahili is the mother tongue of the Swahili people who inhabit a 1500 km stretch of the East African coast from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique. There are approximately five million first-language speakers and thirty to fifty million second-language speakers. Swahili has become a lingua franca for East Africa and surrounding areas.
The name "Swahili" comes from the plural of the Arabic word "sahel" or "sawahil" meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by extension, "coastal language"). Sahel is also the word used for the "border zone of the Sahara". The incorporation of the final "i" is likely for phonetic reasons as it is consistent with the tendency to end words with vowel sounds.
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Contents
- 1 Name
- 2 Overview
- 3 Sounds
- 3.1 Vowels
- 3.2 Consonants
- 4 Noun classes
- 5 Verb affixation
- 6 Swahili time
- 7 Dialects
- 8 External links and references
- 9 References
