How many countries in Africa speak Swahili?

4 Comments

1. HCCLIB says:

   October 3, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   http://oncampus.richmond.edu/~kkasongo/LinguisticMap.htm

   According to purists, there are no more than two million Kiswahili speakers who live essential along the along the east African coast of southern Somalia. They would be located in Kenya, Tanzania, northern Mozambique, and on the off shore islands of Lamu, Zanzibar, and Pemba. .Go here for more information. It is the opinion of many scholars of Kiswahili that beyond the area described in this map, other Kiswahili usage is nothing but pidginized versions, often derogatorily referred to as Kingwana. One Zanzibar Homepage states that the "Swahili is the most extensively spoken language in sub-Saharan Africa and is used in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda as well as certain parts of Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi and Mozambique." Several socio-linguistic would hardly warrant the exclusion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Such unfortunate claims dismissing without good explanation ignore the hard fact that there are more Kiswahili speakers in the Congo Kivu povince alone than in Rwanda and Burundi combined where its usage is rather limited and confined to the capitals.

   As a user of that form and having studied it, it is only wrong to exclude it, but is actually part of the Kiswahili language. Although this form may be comprehended by many Sarufi speakers, the so-called most Kingwana users have a competent understanding of the Sarufi. Not only this version is studied in schools, but it is the form used in churches, in the written and spoken media and even in entertainment. The most common thing in the usage of Kiswahili in this area is the ability of such people living in a multilingual context to code-switch. It is therefore proper and even overdue that the map of Kiswahili be extended as far as the middle of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to Northern Zambia where a sizeable number of exchange and migration has been taken place in the last fifty years.

   http://research.yale.edu/cgi-bin/swahili/main.cgi?right_frame_src=http%3A//research.yale.edu/swahili/serve_pages/questions_en.php
   Where is Swahili spoken?

   Swahili is spoken throughout a wide swath of East and Central Africa. Swahili is the most widely spoken African language, with somewhere between 50 and 100 million speakers in East Africa and Central Africa, particularly in Tanzania (including Zanzibar) and Kenya. Many people speak some version of Swahili as a first or second language in Oman, Uganda, Somalia, Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, and Congo (formerly Zaire). The "Swahili Coast" — where "standard" Swahili is generally agreed to have originated and where many argue you will today find the "pure" form of the language — is an area that extends along the Indian Ocean from roughly central Tanzania to central Kenya, including the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba.

   http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=17&menu=004
   LANGUAGE VARIATION
   A large number of dialects are distinguished among Swahili speakers and scholars. They are almost without exception all mutually intelligible, differing primarily in certain phonological and lexical features. The dialect of Swahili referred to as Standard Swahili was established in 1930 by the Inter Territorial Language Committee and was based on the coastal dialect of Zanzibar, Kiunguja. The standard language spoken in Tanzania is often referred to as Kisanifu.

   Besides Kiunguja, other Swahili linguistic variants (or dialects) are Kimakunduchi (or Kihadimu) and Kitumbatu (both spoken in the rural parts of Zanzibar); Kipemba (Pemba Island); Kimtang’ata (Tanga Town and environs); Kimrima (along the coast of Tanzania, opposite Zanzibar); Kimvita and other related dialects (Mombasa and environs); Kiamu, Kipate and Kisiu, etc. (the Lamu Archipelago); Kitikuu (the Lamu Archipelago and along the coasts of northern Kenya into southern Somalia); Kivumba (Wasini Island and Vanga); Kingwana (Congo and Zaire); and Kingozi, a literary dialect used in classical Swahili poetry.

   Of all the Sabaki languages, Kimwani (the Kerimba Islands and northern coast of Mozambique) is most closely related to Swahili proper and may be considered a Swahili dialect. There are also pidginized versions of Swahili that developed during colonial times mainly in Kenya, but these are being progressively replaced by the Standard dialect. In fact, all the coastal Swahili dialects are coming under increasing pressure from Standard Swahili; some are surely to disappear. The literature also speaks of other Swahili dialects spoken in the Comoros and Madagascar, but the predominant languages there are separate languages and distinct from Swahili, except for ever diminishing and fast disappearing communities of Swahili speakers. For instance, the Bantu languages of the Comoro Islands (Ngazija, Nzwani, Mwali and Maore), often erroneously identified as Swahili dialects, are not understood by Swahili speakers and are different enough from Swahili to be considered separate languages. In Madagascar, Comorian communities there have often been referred to as "Swahili," but in fact are distinct from the remaining Swahili communities that were established during the height of Swahili nineteenth century expansion; all of these are gradually giving way to Malagasy. In Somalia, in the coastal town of Brava (Barawa), Chimwiini is spoken; while it is very similar to the northern coastal dialects of Swahili, most scholars do not consider it as Swahili, nor do its own speakers and most Swahili speakers.
2. Rod C says:

   October 3, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   I believe it’s mostly in Kenya.Batwatsu is the language of the south.
3. Dennis J says:

   October 3, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   The countries that I know of include Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. It is possible that in one or more of these countries, Swahili is only spoken as a lingua franca. The language is, however, the most widely spoken and known language in East Africa.
4. Billy says:

   October 3, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   Swahili is spoken by an estimated 50 million people and, after Arabic, is considered one of the most widely understood languages in Africa. In spite of its large number of speakers and the huge area in which the language is spoken, Swahili has less than five million native speakers.
   Swahili is the official language of Tanzania and Kenya and is used extensively in Uganda and the eastern provinces of Zaire. Other countries where Swahili is spoken include: Burundi, Rwanda, Zaire, Comorro, Oman, Congo, Madagascar, United Arab Emirates, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and the Central African Republic.
   A large number of dialects are distinguished among Swahili speakers and scholars. They are almost without exception all mutually intelligible, differing primarily in certain phonological and lexical features.
   The dialect of Swahili referred to as standard Swahili was established in 1930 by the Inter-territorial Language Committee and was based on the coastal dialect of Zanzibar.