Swahili

Swahili Kiswahili
Spoken in:	Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo (DRC), Somalia, Comoros Islands (including Mayotte)
Total speakers:	First language: about 800,000 Second language: over 45 million
Language family:	Niger-Congo  Atlantic-Congo   Volta-Congo    Benue-Congo     Bantoid      Southern       Narrow Bantu        Central         G          Swahili
Official status
Official language of:	Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda (since 2005)
Regulated by:	Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa (Tanzania)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	sw
ISO 639-2:	swa
ISO 639-3:	variously: swa — Swahili (generic) swc — Congo Swahili swh — Swahili (specific)
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Swahili (also called Kiswahili; see below for derivation) is a Bantu language. It is the most widely spoken language of sub-Saharan Africa. Swahili is the mother tongue of the Swahili people (or Waswahili) who inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastlines from southern Somalia as far south as Mozambique's border region with Tanzania. The number of native speakers is small, under 800,000. However, Swahili has become a lingua franca in much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural of the Arabic word sahel ساحل: sawahil سواحل meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")). The incorporation of the final "i" is likely to be the nisba in Arabic (of the coast سواحلي), although some state it is for phonetic reasons.