Swahili

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See also: swahili

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Etymology

From Swahili swahili, from Arabic سَوَاحِلِيّ (sawāḥiliyy, “(people) of the coasts”), from سَوَاحِل (sawāḥil, “coasts”), plural of سَاحِل (sāḥil, “coast”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /swəˈhiːli/
  • (US) IPA(key): /swɑˈhili/, /swəˈhili/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)

Proper noun

Swahili

  1. An agglutinative language of the Bantu branch widely spoken in East Africa. Born in its modern form from the hybridization of the Arabic and Bantu cultures, it was the language of the traders in East Africa, and spread along the routes of trade.

Synonyms

Translations

Noun

Swahili (plural Swahilis or Swahili)

  1. A member of various ethnic groups — mainly Bantu, Afro-Arab and Comorian — inhabiting the Swahili coast.
    Synonym: (plural) Waswahili
    • 2000, Arye Oded, Islam and Politics in Kenya, page 12:
      The Swahilis are a unique and important community that began to form before the arrival of Islam, as a result of intermarriage between Arab traders who came to the coast and women from local ethnic groups.
    • 2017, Derek Nurse, Thomas Spear, The Swahili, page 29:
      The final sources for the early history of the Swahili are the oral traditions related by them about their own past.

See also

Further reading

Dutch

Dutch Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia nl

Etymology

Borrowed from English Swahili.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˌsʋaːˈɦi.li/
  • Audio(file)
  • Hyphenation: Swa‧hi‧li
  • Rhymes: -ili

Proper noun

Swahili n

  1. Swahili (language)
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