What countries have Swahili as an official language?
Swahili language
The exact number of Swahili speakers, be it native or second-language speakers, is unknown and a matter of debate. Various estimates have been put forward and they vary widely, from 50 million to over 100 million. Swahili serves as a national language of four nations: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and the DRC. Shikomor, the official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte (), is related to Swahili. Swahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community. South Africa legalized the teaching of Swahili in South African schools as an optional subject beginning in 2020.
Mwani language
The Mwani language, or Kimwani (pronounced ) is a Bantu language spoken on the coast of the Cabo Delgado Province of Mozambique, including the Quirimbas Islands. Although it shares high lexical similarity (60%) with Swahili, it is not intelligible with it. It is spoken by around 120,000 people (including 20,000 who use it as their second language). Speakers of "Kimwani" also use Portuguese, (the official language of Mozambique), Swahili and Makhuwa language. "Kiwibo", the dialect of the Island of Ibo is the prestige dialect. "Kimwani" (sometimes spelled as "Quimuane") is also called "Mwani" (sometimes spelled as: "Mwane, Muane") and "Ibo". According to Anthony P. Grant: 'Kimwani of northern Mozambique appears to be the result of imperfect shift towards Swahili several centuries ago by speakers of Makonde, and Arends et al. suggest it might turn out to be a Makonde–Swahili mixed language.
Languages of Tanzania
Tanzania's various ethnic groups typically speak their mother tongues within their own communities. The two official languages, English and Swahili, are used in varying degrees of fluency for communication with other populations. According to the official national linguistic policy announced in 1984, Swahili is the language of the social and political sphere as well as primary and adult education, whereas English is the language of secondary education, universities, technology, and higher courts. The government announced in 2015 that it would discontinue the use of English as a language of education as part of an overhaul of the Tanzanian schools system.
Tanzania
Swahili is used in parliamentary debate, in the lower courts, and as a medium of instruction in primary school. English is used in foreign trade, in diplomacy, in higher courts, and as a medium of instruction in secondary and higher education, The Tanzanian government, however, has plans to discontinue English as a language of instruction. In connection with his Ujamaa social policies, President Nyerere encouraged the use of Swahili to help unify the country's many ethnic groups. Approximately 10 percent of Tanzanians speak Swahili as a first language, and up to 90 percent speak it as a second language. Many educated Tanzanians are trilingual, also speaking English. The widespread use and promotion of Swahili is contributing to the decline of smaller languages in the country. Young children increasingly speak Swahili as a first language, particularly in urban areas. Ethnic community languages (ECL) other than Kiswahili are not allowed as a language of instruction. Nor are they taught as a subject, though they might be used unofficially in some cases in initial education. Television and radio programmes in an ECL are prohibited, and it is nearly impossible to get permission to publish a newspaper in an ECL. There is no department of local or regional African Languages and Literatures at the University of Dar es Salaam.
Senegal
With it being a multiethnic and secular nation, Senegal is predominantly Sunni Muslim with Sufi and animist influences. French is the official language, although many native languages are spoken and recognized. Since April 2012, Senegal's president has been Macky Sall. Senegal has been a member of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie since 1970.
Zaramo language
While the ethnic population of the Zaramo people reaches about 200,000, today there are only a few elderly speakers of Zaramo language. Most Zaramo people speak Swahili as their first language today and have adopted Swahili-Arabic names. They favor the Swahili over their endangered dialect for its broad use in communication and trade.
Swahili grammar
Swahili is a pro-drop language. As the verb usually already includes prefixes to indicate the subject and object, personal pronouns aren't strictly needed, and are mostly used for emphasis. The exceptions to this include cases when the copula "ni" (or its negative counterpart "si") is used, as well as with the habitual form of the verb, which lacks subject prefixes.
Swahili language
Maho (2009) considers these to be distinct languages:
The rest of the dialects are divided by him into two groups:
List of countries where Spanish is an official language
Spanish has no official recognition in the Central American nation of Belize, a Commonwealth realm where English is the official national language. However, the country shares land borders with Spanish-speaking Mexico and Guatemala and, per the 2010 Belizean census, Spanish is spoken by a sizable portion of the population; 30% claim Spanish as a mother tongue and about 50% of the population has working knowledge of the language.
List of countries where Spanish is an official language
There are a number of Spanish-based creole languages. Chavacano is spoken in Zamboanga City in the Philippines and is a regional language. Papiamento is the official language in Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao; it has been classified as either a Spanish-based or a Portuguese-based creole.
Languages of Tanzania
Tanzania is a multilingual country. There are many languages spoken in the country, but no one language is spoken natively by a majority or a large plurality of the population. The Bantu Swahili language and English, the latter of which was inherited from colonial rule ("see Tanganyika Territory"), are widely spoken as lingua francas. They serve as working languages in the country, with Swahili being the official national language. There are more speakers of Swahili than of English in Tanzania.
Languages of Eswatini
Chewa (or Nyanja), the national language of Malawi, and Sotho (Sesotho or Southern Sotho), spoken mainly in Lesotho and Free State, South Africa, are immigrant languages with 5,700 and 4,700 speakers, respectively, in Eswatini. Shimaore is also an immigrant language, and is spoken by 600 inhabitants of the country.
Official names of South Africa
There are eleven official names of South Africa, one in each of its eleven official languages. The number is surpassed only by India. These languages include English, Afrikaans, the Nguni languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, and Swazi), as well as the Sotho languages, which include Tswana, Sotho and Northern Sotho. The remaining two languages are Venda and Tsonga.
Swahili literature
Swahili literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the Swahili language, particularly by Swahili people of the East African coast and the neighboring islands. It may also refer to literature written by people who write in the Swahili language. It is an offshoot of the Bantu culture.
Swahili literature
One of the main characteristics of Swahili literature is the relative heterogeneity of the Swahili language. One can find works written in Kiamu, Kimvita, Kipemba, Kiunguja, Kimrima, Kimtang'ata, Ki-Dar es Salaam and Ki-Nairobi which are considered varieties of Swahili.
Kenya
Kenya's various ethnic groups typically speak their mother tongues within their own communities. The two official languages, English and Swahili, are used in varying degrees of fluency for communication with other populations. English is widely spoken in commerce, schooling and government. Peri-urban and rural dwellers are less multilingual, with many in rural areas speaking only their native languages.
Maasai language
The loss of the Maasai language, while not rapid, is happening as a result of close contact with other tribal groups in East Africa and the rise of Swahili and English as the dominant languages. In Tanzania, former President Nyerere encouraged the adoption of Swahili as an official language to unite the many different ethnic groups in Tanzania, as well as English to compete on a global scale. Although the Maasai language, often referred to as Maa, has survived despite the mass influx of English and Swahili education systems, economic plans, and more, the socioeconomic climate that the Maasai people face in East Africa keeps them, and their language, as an underrepresented minority.
Languages of Uganda
In Uganda, as in many African countries, English, the language of the colonising power, was introduced in government and public life by way of missionary work and the educational system. During the first decades of the twentieth century, Swahili gained influence as it was not only used in the army and the police, but was also taught in schools. The Ganda viewed the introduction of Swahili as a threat to their political power and partly through their influence, English remained the only official language at that time.
Slovak language
Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by approximately 5.51 million people (2014). Slovak speakers are also found in the United States, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Serbia, Ireland, Romania, Poland, Canada, Hungary, Germany, Croatia, Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Ukraine, Norway and many other countries worldwide.
Languages of South Africa
There are eleven official languages of South Africa: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, SiSwati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu. Fewer than two percent of South Africans speak a first language other than an official one. Most South Africans can speak more than one language. Dutch and English were the first official languages of South Africa from 1910 to 1925. Afrikaans was added as a part of Dutch in 1925, although in practice, Afrikaans effectively replaced Dutch, which fell into disuse. When South Africa became a republic in 1961, the official relationship changed such that Afrikaans was considered to include Dutch, and Dutch was dropped in 1984, so between 1984 and 1994, South Africa had two official languages: English and Afrikaans.
Swahili language
Swahili is currently written in an alphabet close to English, except it does not use the letters Q and X. There are two digraphs for native sounds, "ch" and "sh"; "c" is not used apart from unassimilated English loans and, occasionally, as a substitute for "k" in advertisements. There are also several digraphs for Arabic sounds not distinguished in pronunciation outside of traditional Swahili areas.
List of countries where Spanish is an official language
Spanish is the majority language in 20 sovereign states and several dependent territories, totaling around 442 million people. It is additionally the main official language in Equatorial Guinea.
Swahili people
The Swahili speak as their native tongue the Swahili language, which is a member of the Bantu subgroup of the Niger-Congo family. Its closest relatives include Comorian spoken on the Comoros Islands, and the Mijikenda language of the Mijikenda people in Kenya.
Swahili language
Modern standard Swahili is based on "Kiunguja," the dialect spoken in Zanzibar Town, but there are numerous dialects of Swahili, some of which are mutually unintelligible, such as the following:
Swahili people
Large numbers of Swahili undertake the Hajj and Umrah from Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique. Traditional Islamic dress such as the jilbab and thob are also popular among the Swahili. The Swahili also are known for their use of divination, which has adopted some syncretic features from underlying traditional indigenous beliefs, they believe in djinn and many men wear protective amulets with verses from the Qu'ran.
Spanish Wikipedia
Among the countries where Spanish is an official language, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Spain and Venezuela have established local chapters of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Swahili people
The Swahili people originate from Bantu inhabitants of the coast of Southeast Africa, in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. These Bantu-speaking agriculturalists settled the coast at the outset of the first millennium. Archaeological finds at Fukuchani, on the north-west coast of Zanzibar, indicate a settled agricultural and fishing community from the 6th century CE at the latest. The considerable amount of daub found indicates timber buildings, and shell beads, bead grinders, and iron slag have been found at the site. There is evidence for limited engagement in long-distance trade: a small amount of imported pottery has been found, less than 1% of total pottery finds, mostly from the Gulf and dated to the 5th to 8th century. The similarity to contemporary sites such at Mkokotoni and Dar es Salaam indicate a unified group of communities that developed into the first center of coastal maritime culture. The coastal towns appear to have been engaged in Indian Ocean trade at this early period, and trade rapidly increased in importance and quantity between the mid-8th and the 11th century.
Kenyan Sign Language
KSL is not generally used in the classrooms of Kenya's 35 residential boarding schools for deaf students, despite it being their main language, and reportedly literacy in English and Swahili is very low among the deaf community. Since the first deaf schools were established in the 1960s, the teaching staff rarely (if ever) included a deaf person, until a government program in the 1990s (spearheaded by the Kenya National Association of the Deaf) saw two deaf individuals trained and employed as teachers. However, the program is now continued by Global Deaf Connection chaired by Nickson Kakiri. It is based at Machakos Teachers College.
List of lingua francas
Lingala is used by over 10 million speakers throughout the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a large part of the Republic of the Congo, as well as to some degree in Angola and the Central African Republic, although it has only about two million native speakers. Its status is comparable to that of Swahili in eastern Africa.
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Lingala was made the official language of the army under Mobutu, but since the rebellions, the army has also used Swahili in the east. With the transition period and the consolidation of different armed groups into the Congolese Army, the linguistic policy has returned to its previous form and Lingala is again the official language of the Army.
African Union
According to the Constitutive Act of the African Union, its working languages are Arabic, English, French and Portuguese, and African languages "if possible". A protocol amending the Constitutive Act, adopted in 2003 but as of June 2016 not yet ratified by a two-thirds majority of member states, would add Spanish, Swahili and "any other African language" and declare all "official" (rather than "working") languages of the African Union. The Executive Council shall determine the process and practical modalities for the use of official languages as working languages.
Sabaki languages
The Sabaki languages are the Bantu languages of the Swahili Coast, named for the Sabaki River. In addition to Swahili, they include Ilwana (Malakote) and Pokomo on the Tana River in Kenya, Mijikenda, spoken on the Kenyan coast; and Comorian, in the Comoro Islands. In Guthrie's geographic classification, Swahili is in Bantu zone G, whereas the other Sabaki languages are in zone E70, commonly under the name "Nyika."In addition, there are several Swahili creoles and pidgins: Cutchi-Swahili, Kisetla (Settler Swahili), Engsh, Sheng, Shaba Swahili (Katanga Swahili, Lubumbashi Swahili), Ngwana (Congo Swahili), Kikeya.
South Africa
South Africa has 11 official languages: Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English, Northern Sotho, Tswana, Southern Sotho, Tsonga, Swazi, Venda, and Southern Ndebele (in order of first language speakers). In this regard it is fourth only to Bolivia, India, and Zimbabwe in number. While all the languages are formally equal, some languages are spoken more than others. According to the 2011 census, the three most spoken first languages are Zulu (22.7%), Xhosa (16.0%), and Afrikaans (13.5%). Despite the fact that English is recognised as the language of commerce and science, it is ranked fourth, and was listed as the first language of only 9.6% of South Africans in 2011; but it remains the de facto lingua franca of the nation.
Swahili people
The modern Swahili people speak the Swahili language as a mother tongue, which belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo family. The language contains loan words from Arabic and Persian.
Stereotypes of Africans
Similarly, a common misbelief of the Western world is that Africans speak 'African' and that 'African' is an official language. In reality, African as a language does not exist. There are over 2000 distinct languages currently spoken throughout the African continent, the most common of these being Swahili.
Uganda
Swahili, a widely used language throughout the African Great Lakes region, was approved as the country's second official national language in 2005. English was the only official language until the constitution was amended in 2005. Although Swahili has not been favoured by the Bantu-speaking populations of the south and south-west of the country, it is an important "lingua franca" in the northern regions. It is also widely used in the police and military forces, which may be a historical result of the disproportionate recruitment of northerners into the security forces during the colonial period. The status of Swahili has thus alternated with the political group in power. For example, Idi Amin, who came from the north-west, declared Swahili to be the national language.
Official languages of the United Nations
In 1996, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights was presented to UNESCO but has yet to be officially ratified. Many international linguistics still expect that the UN will eventually add new official languages such as Hindi, Swahili, and Malay to represent Asian and African populations and put more resources into assisting endangered languages.
Somalia
English is widely spoken and taught. It used to be a working language in the British Somaliland protectorate. Italian was an official language in Italian Somaliland and during the trusteeship period, but its use significantly diminished following independence. It is now most frequently heard among older generations. Other minority languages include Bravanese, a variant of the Bantu Swahili language that is spoken along the coast by the Bravanese people, as well as Kibajuni, a Swahili dialect that is the mother tongue of the Bajuni minority ethnic group.
List of territorial entities where English is an official language
The majority of states where English is an official language are former territories of the British Empire. Notable exceptions include Rwanda, which was formerly a Belgian territory, Cameroon, where only part of national territory were under British mandate, and Liberia, the Philippines, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau, which were under American rule. English is the sole official language of the Commonwealth of Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. English is one of the official languages of the United Nations, the European Union, NAFTA, African Union, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Caribbean Community, Union of South American Nations and many other international organisations. Although English is "de jure" not an official language at the national level in the United States, most states and territories within the United States have English as an official language. Only Puerto Rico uses a language other than English as a primary working language.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Approximately 242 languages are spoken in the country, but only four have the status of national languages: Kituba ("Kikongo ya leta"), Lingala, Tshiluba, and Swahili. Although some people speak these regional, or trade languages as first languages, most of the population speak them as a second language after their own tribal language. Lingala was the official language of the colonial army, the "Force Publique", under Belgian colonial rule, and remains to this day the predominant language in the armed forces. Since the recent rebellions, a good part of the army in the East also uses Swahili where it is prevalent.
List of official languages
English (see also List of countries where English is an official language):
Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa
Swahili has 17 dialects. The Interterritorial Language Committee in 1930 under British colonial rule in East Africa tasked with creating a standardized form of the language. The Kiujuga dialect spoken in Zanzibar was chosen as the base. The committee was also involved in standardizing the spelling as well as coining new words. The committee was reorganized into a purely academic institution as "Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili" (TATAKI) in 1964 and integrated into the University of Dar es Salaam in 1970.
Mtinko
Swahili is the national language and 95% of the residents can speak Swahili. The main spoken language is Nyaturu. 90% of Mtinko people speak Nyaturu of the Ki-rwana dialect. This dialect is spoken by Northern Singida people. the Southern people speak Nyaturu of Ki-ahi dialect. They have no problem of understanding each other. The 10% are immigrants from Southern Singida, Iramba and other parts of the country.
Swahili language
The language used to be written in the Arabic script. Unlike adaptations of the Arabic script for other languages, relatively little accommodation was made for Swahili. There were also differences in orthographic conventions between cities and authors and over the centuries, some quite precise but others different enough to cause difficulties with intelligibility.
List of linguistic rights in African constitutions
Chapter 1, Article 3 of the constitution of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic stipulates that the sole official language of Western Sahara shall be standard Arabic. In practice, Spanish is used as a working language by some Sahrawi media. The vernacular language spoken by nearly all Sahrawis, however, is Hassaniya Arabic.
Swahili language
Swahili in;Swahili is a Bantu language of the Sabaki branch. In Guthrie's geographic classification, Swahili is in Bantu zone G, whereas the other Sabaki languages are in zone E70, commonly under the name "Nyika." Local folk-theories of the language have often considered Swahili to be a mixed language because of its many loan words from Arabic, and the fact that Swahili people have historically been Muslims. However, historical linguists do not consider the Arabic influence on Swahili to be significant enough to classify it as a mixed language, since Arabic influence is limited to lexical items, most of which have only been borrowed after 1500, while the grammatical and syntactic structure of the language is typically Bantu.
Chinua Achebe
Achebe also found in his travels that Swahili was gaining prominence as a major African language. Radio programs were broadcast in Swahili, and its use was widespread in the countries he visited. Nevertheless, he also found an "apathy" among the people toward literature written in Swahili. He met the poet Sheikh Shaaban Robert, who complained of the difficulty he had faced in trying to publish his Swahili-language work.
List of territorial entities where Afrikaans and Dutch are official languages
Afrikaans and/or Dutch are the official language of five sovereign countries, which lie in the Americas, Africa and Europe. These countries are referred to as the Nederlands taalgebied (Dutch language area). The Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname are member states of the Dutch Language Union; South Africa refuses to become a member state although Afrikaans is integrated in the task statement of the Dutch Language Union.
English in the Commonwealth of Nations
In countries such as Kenya - particularly in Nairobi and other cities where there is an expanding middle class - English is increasingly being used in the home as the first language, albeit often with significant influences from Bantu languages such as Swahili.
David Gordon Hines
At a typical initial meeting, he would speak in English with multiple interpreters speaking the local languages. After a while, the meeting would agree to switch to Swahili, despite Ugandans being wary of Swahili, the language used by earlier Arab slavers. Fortunately Hines spoke fluent Swahili.
Languages of Rwanda
Swahili is used by some people, in commerce, and is taught as a subject in schools.
Maritime archaeology of East Africa
Today, the East African coast has become almost synonymous with the term "Swahili coast", the Swahili coast being denoted by peoples of the Swahili culture which is a combination of Arabic language and culture and the language and culture of the native peoples of Africa. Much of the land range is the same, but the Swahili culture extends into the northern coast of Madagascar and into northern Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea.
Swazi language
The Swazi, Swati or siSwati language () (pronounced ) is a Bantu language of the Nguni group spoken in the Kingdom of eSwatini and South Africa by the Swazi people. The number of speakers is estimated to be in the region of 12 million. The language is taught in eSwatini and some South African schools in Mpumalanga, particularly former KaNgwane areas. Swazi is an official language of eSwatini (along with English), and is also one of the eleven official languages of South Africa.
William Frederick Gowers
As governor of Uganda, Gowers pointed out the local importance of Swahili, a Bantu language also spoken in Kenya and Tanganyika and the eastern Congo. He was perhaps anticipating the need for a common language in a federation of territories in the African Great Lakes region.
Demographics of Eswatini
The country's official languages are Siswati (a language related to Zulu) and English. Government and commercial business is conducted mainly in English. Asians, Afrikaners, Portuguese, and black Mozambicans speak their own languages.
Eswatini
At no more than north to south and east to west, Eswatini is one of the smallest countries in Africa; despite this, its climate and topography are diverse, ranging from a cool and mountainous highveld to a hot and dry lowveld. The population is primarily ethnic Swazis, whose language is siSwati. They established their kingdom in the mid-18th century under the leadership of Ngwane III; the present boundaries were drawn up in 1881 in the midst of the Scramble for Africa. After the Second Boer War, the kingdom, under the name of Swaziland, was a British protectorate from 1903 until it regained its independence on 6 September 1968. On 19 April 2018, by a proclamation made by king Mswati III, the official name was changed from "Kingdom of Swaziland" to "Kingdom of Eswatini", mirroring the name commonly used in siSwati.
African French
Code-switching, or the alternation of languages within a single conversation, takes place in both Senegal and Congo-Kinshasa, the latter having four "national" languages – Kikongo, Lingala, Ciluba and Swahili – which are in a permanent opposition to French. Code-switching has been studied since colonial times by different institutions of linguistics. One of these, located in Dakar, Senegal, already spoke of the creolization of French in 1968, naming the result "franlof": a mix of French and Wolof (the language most spoken in Senegal) which spreads by its use in urban areas and through schools, where teachers often speak Wolof in the classroom despite official instructions.
Kilinux
Swahili is a Bantu language spoken by about 100 million people in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique and other areas in or near the African Great Lakes region. Most users are using Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, but since that is not available in Swahili, they have to use English or French. Kilinux tried to reduce the threshold by localizing Open Office. In June 2004 Microsoft announced a Swahili version of Windows.
Tsonga language
Tsonga is an official language in South Africa. It has been suggested to be made official in Zimbabwe according to the new constitution. All Tswa-Ronga languages are recognised in Mozambique. It is not official in Eswatini
Languages of Zimbabwe
Many languages are spoken, or historically have been spoken, in Zimbabwe. Since the adoption of its 2013 Constitution, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, namely Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, and Xhosa. The country's main languages are Shona, spoken by roughly 70% of the population, and Ndebele, spoken by roughly 20%. English is the country's lingua franca, used in government and business and as the main medium of instruction in schools. English is the first language of most white Zimbabweans, and is the second language of a majority of black Zimbabweans. Historically, a minority of white Zimbabweans spoke Afrikaans, Greek, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese, among other languages, while Gujarati and Hindi could be found amongst the country's Indian population. Deaf Zimbabweans commonly use one of several varieties of Zimbabwean Sign Language, with some using American Sign Language. Zimbabwean language data is based on estimates, as Zimbabwe has never conducted a census that enumerated people by language.
History of Tanzania
Remains of those towns' material culture demonstrate that they arose from indigenous roots, not from foreign settlement. And the language that was spoken in them, Swahili (now Tanzania's national language), is a member of the Bantu language family that spread from the northern Kenya coast well before significant Arab presence was felt in the region. By the beginning of the second millennium CE the Swahili towns conducted a thriving trade that linked Africans in the interior with trade partners throughout the Indian Ocean. From c. 1200 to 1500 CE, the town of Kilwa, on Tanzania's southern coast, was perhaps the wealthiest and most powerful of these towns, presiding over what some scholars consider the "golden age" of Swahili civilization. In the early 14th century, Ibn Battuta, a Berber traveller from North Africa, visited Kilwa and proclaimed it one of the best cities in the world. Islam was practised on the Swahili coast as early as the eighth or ninth century CE.
Settler Swahili
British colonization in the region—largely in what is now Kenya and Zambia—created a complex relationship between English and the native languages of the countries where Settla is spoken.
ISO 639 macrolanguage
is the ISO 639-3 language code for Swahili (macrolanguage). Its ISO 639-1 code is sw. There are two individual language codes assigned:
Culture of Uganda
Uganda is ethnologically diverse, with at least 40 languages in usage. Luganda is the most common language. English and Swahili are the official languages of Uganda, even though only a relatively small proportion of the population speak English. Access to economic and political power is almost impossible without having mastered that language. Swahili, the East African lingua franca, is relatively widespread as a trade language and was made an official national language in September 2005. Luganda, a language widespread in central Uganda, has been the official vernacular language in education for central Uganda for a long time.
Languages of Eswatini
Swazi language education is present in all national schools, and literacy in Swati, defined as the ability to read and write the language, is "very high" in Eswatini. Swazi is also used in mass media.
Multinational state
South Africa has eleven official languages (Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu) and formally recognises several other languages spoken by minority nations. Speakers of each language may be of a different nationality—for example, some members of the Ndebele and Tswana nations speak Zulu, and groups such as the Thembu and Hlubi speak Xhosa.
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Swahili is the most widespread "lingua franca" spoken in Eastern Equatorial Africa. Many variations of Swahili are spoken in the country but the major one is Kingwana, sometimes called "Copperbelt Swahili", especially in the Katanga area.
Dhaiso people
Because many Dhaiso people have intermarried with people of different languages, the language is not being passed on to newer generations (most primary-school age children do not speak Dhaiso) as there is a need for wider communication. Because of this need, most Dhaiso are fluent in Swahili. Swahili is the national language and the language of trade along the coast. For a majority of Dhaiso, Swahili is their mother tongue. and many also say they can speak other neighboring languages like Digo or Sambaa. In 1999, with 5,000 speakers, Dhaiso was considered by UNESCO to be a "definitely endangered" language.
Southeast Africa
People include the San people. The Swahili language is spoken here, both as an official language and "lingua franca" by millions of people.
Cutchi-Swahili
Kutchi-Swahili, or Cutchi-Swahili, is a Swahili-based creole spoken among the Indian population of East Africa. It is the native language of some Gujarati families from Zanzibar that have settled in the larger cities of mainland Tanzania and Kenya, and is used as a second language by others of the Indian community. It is derived from the Kutchi language of the Kutch district in Gujarat.
Gender neutrality in genderless languages
Swahili is a Bantu language spoken in many parts of Africa such as Kenya and Tanzania. It is largely gender neutral in specific nouns. Words such as actor/actress (mwigaji wa hadithi) and waiter/waitress (mtumishi mezani) are gender neutral among most others in the language. The words he, him, she, her translate to a single word in Swahili, yeye.
Settler Swahili
Settla ("Kisetla"), or Settler Swahili, is a Swahili pidgin mainly spoken in large European settlements in Kenya and Zambia. It is used mainly by native English speaking European colonists for communication with the native Swahili speakers.
Mozambique
The Bantu-group languages of Mozambique that are indigenous to the country vary greatly in their groupings and in some cases are rather poorly appreciated and documented. Apart from its lingua franca uses in the north of the country, Swahili is spoken in a small area of the coast next to the Tanzanian border; south of this, towards Moçambique Island, Kimwani, regarded as a dialect of Swahili, is used. Immediately inland of the Swahili area, Makonde is used, separated farther inland by a small strip of Makhuwa-speaking territory from an area where Yao or ChiYao is used. Makonde and Yao belong to a different group, Yao being very close to the Mwera language of the Rondo Plateau area in Tanzania.
Swahili literature
Fiction in Swahili literature mainly consisted of oral narrative traditions. It was not until the 1940s that Swahili started to have a written fiction. Modern Swahili literature is a direct result of the standardization of Swahili. Previously, writers would write in a particular dialect to show their attachment to a certain dialect, such as Lamu, Tanga or Mombasa. The normalization of Swahili motivated writers, such as George Mhina and Lyndon Harries to promote the development of Swahili by creating a literary corpus.
Swahili language
Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three African Great Lakes countries (Tanzania, Kenya, and the DRC) where it is an official or national language. In 1985, with the 8-4-4 system of education, Swahili was made a compulsory subject in all Kenyan schools. Swahili and closely related languages are spoken by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Comoros, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia and Rwanda. The language was still understood in the southern ports of the Red Sea in the 20th century.
East African Community
English is designated as the official language of the EAC, with Kiswahili, often known as Swahili, designated for development as the lingua franca of the community. Within the EAC, there are two countries whose official language is French: Rwanda and Burundi. Numerous local languages are also spoken: for example, there are 56 local languages spoken in Uganda and 42 local languages in Kenya. Kinyarwanda is spoken in Rwanda and Uganda. In Kenya and Uganda, the medium of instruction in all schools is English.
List of countries where Spanish is an official language
Spanish was an official language of the Philippines from the beginning of the Hispanic period in 1565 and through independence until a constitutional change in 1973. 
However, President Ferdinand Marcos had Spanish redesigned as an official language under Presidential Decree No. 156, dated 15 March 1973 and Spanish remained official until 1987, when it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language.
Official language
According to an undated chart by the American pro-English-only organization known as U.S. English, 178 countries have an official language at the national level. Among those, English is the most common with 67 nations giving it official status. French is second with 29 countries, Arabic is third with 26 countries and Spanish is fourth with 19 countries, Portuguese is the official language of 9 countries and German is official in 6. Some countries—like Australia, United Kingdom and the United States—have no official language recognized as such at national level. On the other extreme, Bolivia officially recognizes 37 languages, the most by any country in the world. Second to Bolivia is India with 23 official languages. South Africa is the country with the most official languages, all at equal status to one another, in the world. As Bolivia gives primacy to Spanish and India gives primacy to Hindi.
History of Kenya
Swahili, a Bantu language with many Arabic loan words, developed as a "lingua franca" for trade between the different peoples. A Swahili culture developed in the towns, notably in Pate, Malindi, and Mombasa. The impact of Arabic and Persian traders and immigrants on the Swahili culture remains controversial. During the Middle Ages,
the East African Swahili coast [including Zanzibar] was a wealthy and advanced region, which consisted of many autonomous merchant cities. Wealth flowed into the cities via the Africans' roles as intermediaries and facilitators of Indian, Persian, Arab, Indonesian, Malaysian, African and Chinese merchants. All of these peoples enriched the Swahili culture to some degree. The Swahili culture developed its own written language; the language incorporated elements from different civilisations, with Arabic as its strongest quality. Some Arab settlers were rich merchants who, because of their wealth, gained power—sometimes as rulers of coastal cities.
The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reached Mombasa in 1498. The Portuguese did not intend to found settlements, but to establish naval bases that would give Portugal control of the Indian Ocean. After decades of small-scale conflict, Arabs from Oman defeated the Portuguese in Kenya. Under Seyyid Said, the Omani sultan who moved his capital to Zanzibar in 1840, the Arabs set up long-distance trade routes into the interior. The dry reaches of the north were lightly inhabited by seminomadic pastoralists. In the south, pastoralists and cultivators bartered goods and competed for land as long-distance caravan routes linked them to the Kenyan coast on the east and to the kingdoms of Uganda on the west.
The Portuguese became the first Europeans to explore the region of current-day Kenya: Vasco da Gama visited Mombasa in April 1498. Da Gama's voyage successfully reached India (May 1498), and this permitted the Portuguese to trade with the Far East directly by sea, thus challenging older trading-networks over mixed land and sea routes, such as the Spice trade routes that utilised the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and caravans to reach the eastern Mediterranean. The Republic of Venice had gained control over much of the trade routes between Europe and Asia. After the Ottoman Turks had closed traditional land routes to India, Portugal hoped to use the sea route pioneered by Gama to break the Venetian trading monopoly. Portuguese rule in East Africa focused mainly on a coastal strip centred in Mombasa. The Portuguese presence in East Africa officially began after 1505, when flagships under the command of Dom Francisco de Almeida conquered Kilwa, an island located in what is now northern Tanzania.
Demographics of Uganda
"noun:"
Ugandan
"adjective:"
Ugandan
English (official national language, taught in grade schools, used in courts of law and by most newspapers and some radio broadcasts), Swahili (recently made second official language, important regionally but spoken by very few people in Uganda) Luganda (most widely used of the Niger–Congo languages, preferred for native language publications in the capital and may be taught in school), other Bantu languages, Nilo-Saharan languages, and Arabic.
List of lingua francas
Tamil is an official language in Sri Lanka and Singapore. It is also the official language of the Indian states and territories of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Tamil is also recognized as minority language in countries like Malaysia, Mauritius and South Africa. Tamil historically must be served as a lingua franca throughout the majority of India and Sri Lanka.
Languages of Somalia
Other minority languages include Bravanese (also known as Chimwiini or Chimbalazi), a variant of the Bantu Swahili language that is spoken along the southern coast by the Bravanese people. Kibajuni is a Swahili dialect that is the mother tongue of the Bajuni ethnic minority group. Additionally, a number of Bantus speak Mushunguli as a mother tongue.
Unguja
People of Unguja mostly speak "kiunguja" ("the language of Unguja"), which is the dialect of the Swahili language that was used as the main model for the definition of standard Swahili.
Chewa language
Chewa is the most widely known language of Malawi, spoken mostly in the Central and Southern Regions of that country. "It is also one of the seven official African languages of Zambia, where it is spoken mostly in the Eastern Province and Lusaka Province (the Lusaka Nyanja dialect). It is also spoken in Mozambique, especially in the provinces of Tete and Niassa, as well as in Zimbabwe where, according to some estimates, it ranks as the third-most widely used local language, after Shona and Northern Ndebele." It was one of the 55 languages featured on the Voyager spacecraft.
Guthrie classification of Bantu languages
Kenya, apart from Swahili
Romance languages
Outside Europe, French is spoken natively most in the Canadian province of Quebec, and in parts of New Brunswick and Ontario. Canada is officially bilingual, with French and English being the official languages. In parts of the Caribbean, such as Haiti, French has official status, but most people speak creoles such as Haitian Creole as their native language. French also has official status in much of Africa, but relatively few native speakers. In France's overseas possessions, native use of French is increasing.
List of official languages
Swahili:
List of territorial entities where Chinese is an official language
Today, Chinese has an official language status in five countries/regions or territories. In China it is the sole official language as Mandarin, while in Singapore (as Mandarin) it is one of the four official languages, while in Taiwan (as Mandarin) it is a co-official language alongside with Taiwanese Hakka and Formosan languages. In Hong Kong and Macau it is a co-official language as Cantonese, alongside English and Portuguese respectively. Chinese is also an official language in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and also one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Chinese was added as an official language in the United Nations in 1973, when the General Assembly made Chinese a working language.
Demographics of Kenya
Kenya's various ethnic groups typically speak their mother tongues within their own communities.The two official languages, English and Swahili, serve as the main lingua franca between the various ethnic groups. English is widely spoken in commerce, schooling and government. Peri-urban and rural dwellers are less multilingual, with many in rural areas speaking only their native languages.
Swahili people
With its original speech community centered on Zanzibar and the coastal parts of Kenya and Tanzania, a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast, Swahili became the tongue of the urban class in the African Great Lakes region, and eventually went on to serve as a lingua franca during the post-colonial period.
Deaf education in Kenya
Kenya’s official languages are English and Kiswahili, though KSLI is making efforts to give Kenyan Sign Language and Braille official status as well.
While not Kenya’s official languages, Braille and KSL are mentioned in the 2009 Constitution, Article 7, in which it is stated that the State will protect these two Kenyan languages along with Kenya’s indigenous languages.
South Sudan
On 6 July 2017; South Sudan choose to adopt Swahili as an additional official language, was seeking Tanzania's help to send Swahili teachers to the country as it introduces the language in school curriculum ahead of its adoption as an official language.
Namibia
Up to 1990, English, German and Afrikaans were official languages. Long before Namibia's independence from South Africa, SWAPO was of the opinion that the country should become officially monolingual, choosing this approach in contrast to that of its neighbour South Africa (which granted all 11 of its major languages official status), which was seen by them as "a deliberate policy of ethnolinguistic fragmentation." Consequently, SWAPO instituted English as the sole official language of Namibia though only about 3% of the population speaks it as a home language. Its implementation is focused on the civil service, education and the broadcasting system. Some other languages have received semi-official recognition by being allowed as medium of instruction in primary schools. It is expected of private schools to follow the same policy as state schools, and "English language" is a compulsory subject. Some critics however argue that, as in other postcolonial African societies, the push for monolingual instruction and policy has resulted in a high rate of school drop-outs and of individuals whose academic competence in any language is low.
African Great Lakes
The Bantu Swahili language is the most commonly spoken language in the African Great Lakes region. It also serves as a national or official language of four nations in the region: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Swahili people
Although most Swahili live with living standards far below that of upper hierarchy of the wealthiest nations, the Swahili are generally considered a relatively economically powerful group due to their history of trade. They are comparatively well-off; According to the United Nations, Zanzibar has a 25% higher per capita GDP than the rest of Tanzania. This economic influence has led to the continued spread of their culture and language throughout East Africa.
Swahili language
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in Kilwa in 1711 in the Arabic script that were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India.
Culture of Tanzania
A total of 130 languages are spoken in Tanzania; most of them are from the Bantu family. Swahili and English are the two official languages of Tanzania. However, Swahili is the national language.
Settler Swahili
Settla's lexicon is considered to be on a continuum between the two official languages of Kenya: standard Swahili and English. The lexicon is also heavily influenced by geographical, social, and emotional factors. Although geography factors into the lexicon, it is unknown if Settla has different geographical dialects.
Seychelles community in the EU
It is estimated there are some 1500 Seychellois or Seychellez in Swahili (as they are known in East African today) across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
Eswatini
"SiSwati" (also known as "Swati", "Swazi" or "Siswati") is a Bantu language of the Nguni Group, spoken in Eswatini and South Africa. It has 2.5 million speakers and is taught in schools. It is an official language of Eswatini, along with English, and one of the official languages of South Africa. English is the medium of communication in schools and in conducting business including the press.
Uganda
The official languages are English and Swahili, although "any other language may be used as a medium of instruction in schools or other educational institutions or for legislative, administrative or judicial purposes as may be prescribed by law." Luganda, a central language, is widely spoken across the country, and several other languages are also spoken including Runyoro, Runyankole, Rukiga, Luo and Lusoga.