Does everyone in Africa speak Swahili?
It is one of two official languages (the other being English) of the East African Community (EAC) countries, namely Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda….Swahili language.
| Swahili | |
|---|---|
| Ethnicity | Waswahili |
| Native speakers | Estimates range from 2 million (2003) to 18 million (2012) L2 speakers: 90 million (1991–2015) |
How common is Swahili in Africa?
There are about 16 million people throughout the world who speak a dialect of Swahili as a native language. As a second language, it has about 82 million speakers. The language is considered to be the lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and southeastern Africa.
Do Africans speak Swahili?
The exact number of Swahili speakers is unknown, but it is often accepted as one of the most widely spoken languages in Africa and is recognized as an official language in Kenya, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda and Tanzania. Africa’s new lingua franca?
Which country speaks the best Swahili in Africa?
Tanzania
In fact, Tanzania is the country with the highest percentage of Swahili speakers. This is why it often the first answer to the question “What countries speak Swahili?” Tanzanians often speak Swahili when trading with merchants from Kenya, Uganda, and other East African nations.
What is Swahili a mix of?
Swahili is predominantly a mix of local Bantu languages and Arabic. Decades of intensive trade along the East African coast resulted in this mix of cultures. Besides Arabic and Bantu, Swahili also has English, Persian, Portuguese, German and French influences due to trade contact.
Is Bantu a Swahili?
Swahili is a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo family and has a typical, complicated Bantu structure.
Can Swahili unite Africa?
According to him, a language like Swahili can unite Africans. So the Swahili language is widely spoken in Africa with more than 100 million speakers. Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, DR Congo, northern Mozambique, northern Zambia all speak this language. Linnete Bahati explains more.
Which country speaks fluent Swahili?
Swahili has official language status in Tanzania and Kenya and is also widely spoken in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Comoros Islands. It’s also spoken by smaller numbers in Burundi, Rwanda, Northern Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.
What African language should I learn?
Arguably, the most useful, indigenous African languages for Americans to learn are Yoruba (primarily spoken in Nigeria), Xhosa (South Africa), Swahili (Kenya, Tanzania, and much of East Africa), and Amharic (mainly Ethiopia).