Swahili (also called Kiswahili; see below for derivation) is a Bantu language. It is the most widely spoken language of sub-Saharan Africa. Since only 5-10 million of the 80 million speakers speak it as their native language Swahili has become a lingua franca in much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and is now the only African language among the official working languages of the African Union. Swahili is also taught in the major universities in the world, and several international media outlets, such as the BBC, Voice of America and Xinhua have Swahili programs.

Overview
"Kiswahili" is the Swahili word for the Swahili language, and this is also sometimes used in English. 'Ki-' is a prefix attached to nouns of the noun class that includes languages (see Noun classes below). Kiswahili refers to the 'Swahili Language'; Waswahili refers to the people of the 'Swahili Coast'; and Swahili refers to the 'Culture' of the Swahili People. (A common colloquialism, Uswahili, has been used for years in Tanzania as a derogatory term for "base" behaviour or attitude. Its relationship to actual Swahili culture is unclear and somewhat controversial.) See Bantu languages for a more detailed discussion of the grammar of nouns.

Name
Swahili is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone (with the exception of the Mijikenda dialect group that includes the numerically important Mvita dialect, the dialect of Kenya's second city, the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa).

Sounds
Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: /ɑ/, /ɛ/, /i/, /ɔ/, and /u/. They are very similar to the vowels of Spanish and Italian, though /u/ stands between /u/ and /o/ in those languages. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
Swahili has no diphthongs; in vowel combinations, each vowel is pronounced separately. Therefore the Swahili word for "leopard", chui, is pronounced /tʃu.i/, with hiatus.

/ɑ/ is pronounced like the "a" in father
/ɛ/ is pronounced like the "e" in bed
/i/ is pronounced like the "i" in ski
/ɔ/ is pronounced like the first part of the "o" in American English home, or like a tenser version of "o" in British English "lot"
/u/ is pronounced between the "u" in rude and the "o" in rote. Vowels
Notes:

The nasal stops are pronounced as separate syllables when they appear before a plosive (mtoto [m.to.to] "child", nilimpiga [ni.li.m.pi.ɠa] "I hit him"), and prenasalized stops are decomposed into two syllables when the word would otherwise have one (mbwa [m.bwa] "dog"). However, elsewhere this doesn't happen: ndizi "banana" has two syllables, [ndi.zi], as does nenda [ne.nda] (not *[nen.da]) "go".
The fricatives in parentheses, th dh kh gh, are borrowed from Arabic. Many Swahili speakers pronounce them as [s z h r], respectively.
Swahili orthography does not distinguish aspirate from tenuis consonants. When nouns in the N-class begin with plosives, they are aspirated (tembo [tembo] "palm wine", but tembo [tʰembo] "elephant") in some dialects. Otherwise aspirate consonants are not common.
Swahili l and r are confounded by many speakers, and are often both realized as /ɺ/ Consonants
In common with all Bantu languages, Swahili grammar arranges nouns into a number of classes. The ancestral system had 22 classes, counting singular and plural as distinct according to the Meinhof system, with most Bantu languages sharing at least ten of these. Swahili employs sixteen: six classes that usually indicate singular nouns, five classes that usually indicate plural nouns, a class for abstract nouns, a class for verbal infinitives used as nouns, and three classes to indicate location.
Nouns beginning with m- in the singular and wa- in the plural denote animate beings, especially people. Examples are mtu, meaning 'person' (plural watu), and mdudu, meaning 'insect' (plural wadudu). A class with m- in the singular but mi- in the plural often denotes plants, such as mti 'tree', miti trees. The infinitive of verbs begins with ku-, e.g. kusoma 'to read'. Other classes are harder to categorize. Singulars beginning in ki- take plurals in vi-; they often refer to hand tools and other artifacts. This ki-/vi- alteration even applies to foreign words where the ki- was originally part of the root, so vitabu "books" from kitabu "book" (from Arabic kitāb "book"). This class also contains languages (such as the name of the language Kiswahili), and diminutives, which had been a separate class in earlier stages of Bantu. Words beginning with u- are often abstract, with no plural, e.g. utoto 'childhood'.
A fifth class begins with n- or m- or nothing, and its plural is the same. Another class has ji- or no prefix in the singular, and takes ma- in the plural; this class is often used for augmentatives. When the noun itself does not make clear which class it belongs to, its concords do. Adjectives and numerals commonly take the noun prefixes, and verbs take a different set of prefixes.
The same noun root can be used with different noun-class prefixes for derived meanings: human mtoto (watoto) "child (children)", abstract utoto "childhood", diminutive kitoto (vitoto) "infant(s)", augmentative toto (matoto) "big child (children)". Also vegetative mti (miti) "tree(s)", artifact kiti (viti) "stool(s)", augmentative jiti (majiti) "large tree", kijiti (vijiti) "stick(s)", ujiti (njiti) "tall slender tree".
Although the Swahili noun class system is technically grammatical gender, there is a difference from the grammatical gender of European languages: In Swahili, the class assignments of nouns is still largely semantically motivated, whereas the European systems are mostly arbitrary. However, the classes cannot be understood as simplistic categories such as 'people' or 'trees'. Rather, there are extensions of meaning, words similar to those extensions, and then extensions again from these. The end result is a semantic net that made sense at the time, and often still does make sense, but which can be confusing to a non-speaker.
Take the ki-/vi- class. Originally it was two separate genders: artifacts (Bantu class 7/8, utensils & hand tools mostly) and diminutives (Bantu class 12). Examples of the first are kisu "knife"; kiti "chair, stool", from mti "tree, wood"; chombo "vessel" (a contraction of ki-ombo). Examples of the latter are kitoto "infant", from mtoto "child"; kitawi "frond", from tawi "branch"; and chumba (ki-umba) "room", from nyumba "house". It is the diminutive sense that has been furthest extended. An extension common to many languages is approximation and resemblance (having a 'little bit' of some characteristic, like -y or -ish is English). For example, there is kijani "green", from jani "leaf" (compare English 'leafy'), kichaka "bush" from chaka "clump", and kivuli "shadow" from uvuli "shade". A 'little bit' of a verb would be an instance of an action, and such instantiations (usually not very active ones) are also found: kifo "death", from the verb -fa "to die"; kiota "nest" from -ota "to brood"; chakula "food" from kula "to eat"; kivuko "a ford, a pass" from -vuka "to cross"; and kilimia "the Pleiades, from -limia "to farm with", from its role in guiding planting. A resemblance, or being a bit like something, implies marginal status in a category, so things that are marginal examples of their class may take the ki-/vi- prefixes. One example is chura (ki-ura) "frog", which is only half terrestrial and therefore marginal as an animal. This extension may account for disabilities as well: kilema "a cripple", kipofu "a blind person", kiziwi "a deaf person". Finally, diminutives often denote contempt, and contempt is sometimes expressed against things that are dangerous. This might be the historical explanation for kifaru "rhinoceros", kingugwa "spotted hyena", and kiboko "hippopotamus" (perhaps originally meaning "stubby legs").
Another class with broad semantic extension is the m-/mi- class (Bantu classes 3/4). This is often called the 'tree' class, because mti, miti "tree(s)" is the prototypical example, but that doesn't do it justice. Rather, it seems to cover vital entities which are neither human nor typical animals: trees and other plants, such as mwitu 'forest' and mtama 'millet' (and from there, things made from plants, like mkeka 'mat'); supernatural and natural forces, such as mwezi 'moon', mlima 'mountain', mto 'river'; active things, such as moto 'fire', including active body parts (moyo 'heart', mkono 'hand, arm'); and human groups, which are vital but not themselves human, such as mji 'village', perhaps msikiti 'mosque', and, by analogy, mzinga 'beehive'. From the central idea of tree, which is thin, tall, and spreading, comes an extension to other long or extended things or parts of things, such as mwavuli 'umbrella', moshi 'smoke', msumari 'nail'; and from activity there even come active instantiations of verbs, such as mfuo "hammering", from -fua "to hammer", or mlio "a sound", from -lia "to make a sound". Words may be connected to their class by more than one metaphor. For example, mkono is an active body part, and mto is an active natural force, but they are also both long and thin. Things with a trajectory, such as mpaka 'border' and mwendo 'journey', are classified with long thin things in many languages. This may be further extended to anything dealing with time, such as mwaka 'year' and perhaps mshahara 'wages'. Also, animals which are exceptional in some way and therefore don't fit easily in the other classes may be placed in this class.
The other classes have foundations that may at first seem similarly counterintuitive.

Noun classes
Swahili verbs consist of a root and a number of affixes (mostly prefixes) which can be attached to express grammatical persons, tense and many clauses that would require a conjunction in other languages (usually prefixes). As sometimes these affixes are sandwiched in between the root word and other affixes, some linguists have mistakenly assumed that Swahili uses infixes which is not the case.
Most verbs, the verbs of Bantu origin, will end in '-a'. This is vital to know for using the Imperative, or Command, conjugation form.
In most dictionaries, verbs are listed in their root form, for example -kata meaning 'to cut/chop'. In a simple sentence, prefixes for grammatical tense and person are added, e.g. ninakata. Here ni- means 'I' and na- indicates present tense unless stated otherwise.
Verb Conjugation

ni-	-na-	kata
1sg	DEF. TIME	cut/chop

'I am cutting (it)'
Now this sentence can be modified either by changing the subject prefix or the tense prefix, for example:

u-	-na-	kata
2sg	DEF. TIME	cut/chop

'You are cutting'

u-	-me-	kata
2sg	PERFECT	cut/chop

'You have cut'
The simple present is more complicated and learners often take some of the phrases for slang before they discover the proper usage. Nasoma means 'I read'. This is not short for ninasoma ('I am reading'). -A- is the indefinite (gnomic tense) prefix, used for example in generic statements such as "birds fly", and the vowel of the prefix ni- is assimilated. It may be simpler to consider these to be a single prefix:

na-	soma
1sg:GNOM	read

'I read'

mwa-	soma
2pl:GNOM	read

'You (pl) read'
The complete list of basic subject prefixes is (for the m-/wa- or human class):

	SINGULAR	PLURAL
1st PERSON	Ni-	Tu-
2nd PERSON	U-	M-
3rd PERSON	A-	Wa-

The most common tense prefixes are:

a-	gnomic (indefinite time)
na-	definite time (often present progressive)
me-	perfect
li-	past
ta-	future
hu-	habitual

However it is not only tenses in the sense the word is used in English that can be expressed by tense prefixes: conjunctions can be used in this context as well. For example ki- is the prefix for <conditional> - the sentence "nikinunua nyama wa mbuzi sokoni, nitapika leo" means 'If I buy goat meat at the market, I'll cook today'. The conjunction 'if' in this sentence is simply represented by -ki.
A third prefix can be added, the object prefix. It is placed just before the root and can either refer to a person, replace an object or emphasize a particular one, e.g.:

a-	na-	mw-	ona
3sg	DEF.T.	3sg.OBJ	see

'He (is) see(ing) him/her'

ni-	na-	mw-	ona	mtoto
1sg	DEF.T.	3sg.OBJ	see	child

'I (am) see(ing) the child'
There are not just prefixes. The root of a word is not really the one proposed by most dictionaries - the final vowel is an affix too. The suffix provided by dictionaries means <indicative>. Other forms occur for instance with negation, e.g. sisomi (the "-" in this case means null morpheme, i.e. it represents an empty space):

si-	-	som-	-i
1sg.NEG	TENSE	read	NEG

'I am not reading/ I don't read'
Other instances of this change of the final vowel include the conjunctive, where an -e is implemented. This goes only for Bantu verbs ending with -a, ones derived from Arabic follow more complex rules.
Other suffixes, which once again look suspiciously like infixes, are placed before the end vowel, e.g.

wa-	na-	pig	-w	-a
3pl	DEF.T.	hit	PASSIVE	IND.

'They are being hit'

Verb affixation
(East African) Swahili time runs from dawn to dusk, rather than midnight to midday. 7am and 7pm are therefore both one o'clock while midnight and midday are six o'clock. Words such as asubuhi 'morning', jioni 'evening' and usiku 'night' can be used to demarcate periods of the day, for example:
More specific time demarcations include adhuhuri 'early afternoon', alasiri 'late afternoon', usiku wa manane 'late night/past midnight', 'sunrise' macheo and sunset machweo.
At certain times there is some overlap of terms used to demarcate day and night, e.g. 7:00 p.m. can be either saa moja jioni or saa moja usiku.
Other relevant phrases include na robo 'and a quarter', na nusu 'and a half', kasarobo/kasorobo 'less a quarter', and dakika 'minute(s)':
Swahili time derives from the fact that the sun rises at around 6am and sets at around 6pm everyday in most of the areas where Swahili speakers reside.

saa moja asubuhi   ('hour one morning')   7:00 a.m.
saa tisa usiku   ('hour nine night')  3:00 a.m.
saa mbili usiku   ('hour two evening')   8:00 p.m.
saa nne na nusu   ('hour four and a half')   10:30
saa tatu na dakika tano   ('hour three and minutes five')   five past nine
saa mbili kasorobo   ('hour two less a quarter')   7:45
saa tatu kasoro   ('a few minutes to nine')
Modern standard Swahili is often considered to be based on Kiunguja, the dialect spoken in Zanzibar town, whereas its linguistic basis is thought to have originated from Kingozi, the language of the inhabitants of the ancient town of "Ngozi" in Burundi

Kiunguja: spoken in Zanzibar town and environs on Zanzibar island. Other dialects occupy the bulk of the island.
Kitumbatu and Kimakunduchi: the countryside dialects of the island of Zanzibar. Kimakunduchi is a recent renaming of "Kihadimu"; the old name means "serf", hence it is considered pejorative.
Kimrima: spoken around Pangani, Vanga, Dar es Salaam, Rufiji and Mafia Island.
Kimgao: spoken around Kilwa and to the south.
Kipemba: local dialect of the island of Pemba.
Mijikenda, a group of dialects spoken in and around Mvita island. Includes Kimvita, the other major dialect alongside Kiunguja.
Kingare: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
Chijomvu: subdialect of the Mombasa area.
Chi-Chifundi: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
Kivumba: dialect of the southern Kenya coast.
Kiamu: spoken in and around the island of Lamu (Amu).
Kingozi: this is a special case as it was the language of the inhabitants of the ancient town of "Ngozi" in Burundi and is perhaps the basis of the Swahili language.
Sheng: a sort of street slang, this is a blend of Swahili, English, and some ethnic languages spoken in and around Nairobi in informal settings. Sheng originated in the Nairobi slums and is considered fashionable and cosmopolitan among a growing segment of the population. Dialects of Swahili

Kimwani: spoken in the Kerimba Islands and northern coastal Mozambique.
Kingwana: spoken in the eastern and southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially the variety spoken in the south.
Comorian language, the language of the Comoros Islands, which form a chain between Tanzania and the northern tip of Madagascar.
Chimwiini was traditionally spoken around the Somali town of Barawa. In recent years, most of its speakers have fled to Kenya to escape civil war. Whether Chimwiini is Swahili or a distinct language is a question that provokes division within each of the following groups: linguists specializing in Swahili, Chimwiini speakers, and speakers of other Swahili dialects. Languages similar to Swahili
There is as yet insufficient historical or archaeological evidence to allow one to state with confidence when and where either the Swahili language or the Swahili ethnicity emerged. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the Swahili speaking people have occupied their present territories, hugging the Indian Ocean, since well before AD 1000. Arab invaders from the Oman conquered and Islamicized much of the Swahili territories, in particular the twin islands of Zanzibar and Pemba to the south and the port towns to the north (Mombasa, etc.). Historically, Swahili literature first flowered in the northern half, even though in our time Zanzibar's fame as a center of Swahili culture is greater.
Starting about 1800, the rulers of Zanzibar organized trading expeditions into the interior of the mainland, up to the various lakes in the continent's Great Rift Valley. They soon established permanent trade routes and Swahili speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process did not lead to genuine colonization. But colonisation did occur west of Lake Malawi, in what is now Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, giving rise to a highly divergent dialect.
After Germany seized the region known as Tanganyika (present day mainland Tanzania) for a colony in 1886, it took notice of the wide (but shallow) dissemination of Swahili, and soon designated Swahili as a colony wide official administrative language. The British did not do so in neighbouring Kenya, even though they made moves in that direction. The British and Germans both were keen to facilitate their rule over colonies with dozens of languages spoken by selecting a single local language that hopefully would be well accepted by the natives. Swahili was the only good candidate in these two colonies.
In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I, it was dispossessed of all its overseas territories. Tanganyika fell into British hands. The British authorities, with the collaboration of British Christian missionary institutions active in these colonies, increased their resolve to institute Swahili as a common language for primary education and low level governance throughout their East African colonies (Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Kenya). Swahili was to be subordinate to English: university education, much secondary education, and governance at the highest levels would be conducted in English.
One key step in spreading Swahili was to create a standard written language. In June 1928, an interterritorial conference was held at Mombasa, at which the Zanzibar dialect, Kiunguja, was chosen to be the basis for standardizing Swahili. Kenya's population is about equal, but apparently, the prevalence of Swahili there is less, although still large. The usage of Swahili in other countries is commonly overstated, but with the second language speakers in just the two nations of Kenya and Tanzania (possibly exceeding 50 million combined), Swahili now far outpaces Hausa in West Africa as the sub-Saharan indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers. At the same time, it must be realized that in fact no indigenous sub-Saharan language is widely spoken, relative to the total population of that part of the world. The number of speakers of Swahili is well under ten percent of that region's population.


In Civilization IV, the title music is a rearrangement of the Lord's Prayer in Swahili, sharing the same name - "Baba Yetu" ("Our Father"). [1]
In Michael Jackson's 1987 single "Liberian Girl" the repeated intro is the swahili phrase "Nakupenda pia, nakutaka pia, mpenzi wee!" which translates "I love you too, and I want you too, my love!"
Bungie Studios uses this language in some of its games (Halo 2).

See also