Swahili
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Swahili (called Kiswahili in the language itself) is the first language of
the Swahili people (Waswahili), who inhabit several large stretches of the Indian
Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros
Islands.1 The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural of the Arabic word
sāhel ساحل: sawāhil سواحل meaning "boundary" or "coast". Adding the “Ki” to the
word gives the meaning "coastal language".
Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language,2
Swahili is a language of business and government in much of East Africa and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations,
and is the only African language among the official working languages of the African
Union.
Swahili is spoken natively by various groups traditionally inhabiting about 1,500
miles of the East African coastline. About 25% of the Swahili vocabulary derives
from the Arabic language, resulting from the fact that the language evolved through
centuries of contact between Arabic-speaking traders and many different Bantu-speaking
peoples inhabiting Africa's Indian Ocean coast. It also has incorporated Persian,
German, Indian and English words into its vocabulary due to contact with these different
groups of people. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions
in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Congo (DRC), where it is an official
or national language. Swahili, or other closely related languages, is also used
by relatively small numbers of people in Burundi, Rwanda, Mozambique, Somalia, and
Zambia, and nearly the entire population of the Comoros.
The oldest surviving documents written in Swahili date back to the early part of
the 18th century. They were transcriptions of oral Swahili epic poetry and were
written in the Arabic script, reflecting the influence of Islam in East Africa.
The Latin alphabet has since become standard under the influence of European colonial
powers.
In the United States, 1 of every 7,151 people age five and older speaks Swahili
at home. Of the 20 counties with the greatest number of Swahili speakers, Georgia
and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area are home to three apiece. The largest
populations of Swahili speakers are in Los Angeles County; Harris County, (Houston)
TX; and Montgomery County, MD.3
Swahili is classified by the Defense Language Institute as a “category one” (out
of four) language in regard to difficulty of mastery by native English speakers
4,5 , and requires learners to devote an estimated 780 hours
of intensive instruction to reach a proficiency score of 2 on the Federal Interagency
Language Roundtable proficiency scale. . Swahili is not classified on the Foreign
Service Institute language difficulty scale but it is related to Xhosa and Zulu,
both of which are considered to be “Category Two” (out of three) languages in terms
of difficulty for speakers of English.6
Swahili is one of the ten NLSC Pilot Program languages.
Swahili is designated as one of the ten pilot languages that the NLSC is recruiting
during its pilot year. The languages chosen were selected based upon the following:
- They meet short- and long-term requirements with emphasis on high-level expertise in languages critical to our national security.
- These languages generally meet the requirements for a pilot such as this based on the number of persons residing in the United States who are proficient in these languages.
- The list of languages includes some whose populations are difficult to locate and recruit.
- Each of these languages has multiple proficiency tests available.
Interesting Resources on Swahili
- Prins 1961
- L Marten, (Swahili), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2005, Elsevier
- U.S. English Foundation Swahili Data Sheet
- http://lloyd.emich.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0604&L=lgpolicy-list&D=1&P=15780
