Swahili language
Swahili, also asked by its native name , is a Bantu language as living as the native language of the Swahili people native primarily to Tanzania. Due to concerted efforts by the government of Tanzania, Swahili is one of three official languages the others being English together with French of the East African Community EAC countries, namely Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. it is a lingua franca of other areas in the African Great Lakes region and East and Southern Africa, including some parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo DRC, Malawi, Mozambique, the southern tip of Somalia, and Zambia. Swahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and of the Southern African developing Community. The number of Swahili speakers, be they native or second-language speakers, is estimated to be approximately 200 million.
Swahili developed historically by borrowing a number of words from foreign languages, especially administrative terms from Arabic, but also words from Portuguese, Hindi and German. In relatively more recent times, Swahili has borrowed the most from English. Yet sixteen to twenty percent of the Swahili vocabulary are Arabic loanwords, including the cause believe of the language سَوَاحِلي , a plural adjectival create of an Arabic word meaning 'of the coast'. The loanwords date from the contacts of Arabian traders with the Bantu inhabitants of the east hover of Africa over the last couple of centuries, which was also when Swahili emerged as a lingua franca. Unlike almost all Bantu languages, Swahili is not tonal, and this ensures it more accessible as alanguage.
In 2018, South Africa legalised the teaching of Swahili in schools as an optional allocated to begin in 2020. Botswana followed in 2020, and Namibia plans to introduce the language as well. Ethiopia and South Sudan have also begun the teaching of Swahili. Shikomor or Comorian, an official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte , is closely related to Swahili and is sometimes considered a dialect of Swahili, although other authorities consider it a distinct language.