Swahili, also known by its local name Kiswahili, is a Bantu language originally spoken by the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique .The number of current Swahili speakers, be they native or second-language speakers, is estimated to be over 200 million.
Mijikenda are a group of nine related Bantu ethnic groups inhabiting the coast of Kenya, between the Sabaki and the Umba rivers, in an area stretching from the border with Tanzania in the south to the border near Somalia in the north. Archaeologist Chapuruka Kusimba contends that the Mijikenda formerly resided in coastal cities, but later settled in Kenya's hinterlands to avoid submission to dominant Portuguese forces that were then in control. Historically, these Mijikenda ethnic groups have been called the Nyika or Nika by outsiders. It is a derogatory term meaning "bush people."
The Swahili people comprise mainly Bantu, Afro-Arab and Comorian ethnic groups inhabiting the Swahili coast, an area encompassing the Zanzibar archipelago and mainland Tanzania's seaboard, littoral Kenya, northern Mozambique, the Comoros Islands and Northwest Madagascar.
Nyika is a Swahili word meaning "bush" or "hinterland". More specifically, it can refer to:
Kenya is a multilingual country. The two official languages of Kenya, Swahili and English are widely spoken as lingua francas; however, including second-language speakers, Swahili is more widely spoken than English. Swahili is a Bantu language native to East Africa and English is inherited from British colonial rule.
Wasini Island lies off the coast of southeast Kenya 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) in the Indian Ocean, 75 kilometres (47 mi) south of Mombasa, and 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) opposite the harbour of the village of Shimoni. It is approximately 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) long and 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) across. The name "wasini mpunguti" came from the early inhabitants. The island has only footpaths of sharp old coral or sand. There are no cars, carts or bicycles. Cargo is transported by foot or by a wheelbarrow with a solid tyre. Transport is over the paths, or via the beaches, mainly consisting of coral and only passable with low tide, or by boat over the sea. Before 1963, in the British colonial time, there was an airstrip in the lagoon situated longitudinally south on the island; only small pieces of tarmac now remain.
The Digo are a Bantu ethnic and linguistic group based near the Indian Ocean coast between Mombasa in southern Kenya and northern Tanga in Tanzania. In 1994 the Digo population was estimated to total 305,000, with 217,000 ethnic Digo living in Kenya and 88,000 in Tanzania. Digo people, nearly all Muslims, speak the Digo language, called Chidigo by speakers, a Bantu language.
The Segeju are a Bantu ethnolinguistic group mostly based in Tanzania's Tanga Region and Kenya's Kwale County. Most Segeju reside in the small coastal strip between the Tanzanian city of Tanga and the Kenyan-Tanzanian border. However, some Segeju have migrated to urban areas in other parts of Tanzania or Kenya, in hopes of better employment opportunities and quality of life. Segeju migration to urban areas often results in severance of community ties, leading to a lack of transmission of important cultural traditions and language.
Gweno is a Bantu language spoken in the North Pare Mountains in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. The people known as the Gweno are a Chaga ethnic and linguistic group. Since the Chaga people are Bantu speakers, the adopted language contains dialects similar to that of the Kenyan language Kamba. Gweno shares about 54% to 56% of its vocabulary with other Chaga dialects and 46% with Taita dialects. However, a large percentage of its vocabulary is not seen in the other dialects. Also at the start of the 11th century, the Chaga people descended and migrated from the Bantu group in which they migrated to the foothills of mount Kilimanjaro. The Gweno language is today spoken mostly by older adults, with younger generations having shifted to Asu and Swahili. Ethnologue considers Gweno to be moribund; the language is not being passed down because children have not been exposed to Gweno since the 1970s. The generational shift from Gweno to either Asu or Swahili has certainly created shifts in dialect, however Gweno speakers do not see this as a threat.
The Bajuni people are a Bantu ethnic group who live primarily in the Bajuni Islands of Somalia and coastal areas between the port city of Kismayo and the city of Mombasa in Kenya. They relocated from Shungwaya (Somalia) to their current location due to war with Cushitic groups, who drove them out from their ancestral territory.
The Taita people are an ethnic group in Kenya's Taita-Taveta County. They speak Kidawida or Kitaita, which belongs to the Bantu language family. The West-Bantu migrated to the Taita-Taveta County around 1000-1300.
Bravanese, also called Chimwiini or Chimbalazi, is a Bantu language related to Swahili spoken by the Bravanese people, who are the predominant inhabitants of Barawa, or Brava, in Somalia. Maho (2009) considers it a distinct dialect, and it has been classified as a Northern Dialect of Swahili. However, it strongly distinguishes itself from standard Swahili under all linguistic considerations.
The Sabaki languages are the Bantu languages of the Swahili Coast, named for the Sabaki River. Sabaki is a Pokomo word for Large Fish. In addition to Swahili, Sabaki languages include Ilwana (Malakote) and Pokomo on the Tana River in Kenya, Mijikenda, spoken on the Kenyan coast; Comorian, in the Comoro Islands; and Mwani, spoken in northern Mozambique. In Guthrie's geographic classification, Swahili is in Bantu zone G, whereas the other Sabaki languages are in zone E70, commonly under the name Nyika.
The Northeast Coast Bantu languages are the Bantu languages spoken along the coast of Tanzania and Kenya, and including inland Tanzania as far as Dodoma. In Guthrie's geographic classification, they fall within Bantu zones G and E.
Bajuni (Kibajuni), also known as Tikulu (Tikuu), is a Bantu language related to Swahili spoken by the Bajuni people who inhabit the tiny Bajuni Islands and coastal Kenya, in addition to parts of southern Somalia, where they constitute a minority ethnic group. Maho (2009) considers it a distinct dialect. Nurse & Hinnebusch (1993) classify it as a Northern Dialect of Swahili.
Mijikenda is a Bantu dialect cluster spoken along the coast of East Africa, mostly in Kenya, where there are 2.6 million speakers but also in Tanzania, where there are 166,000 speakers. The name Mijikenda means "the nine settlements" or "the nine communities" and refers to the multiple language communities that make up the group. An older, derogatory term for the group is Nyika which refers to the "dry and bushy country" along the coast.
Kenyan English is a local dialect of the English language spoken by several communities and individuals in Kenya, and among some Kenyan expatriates in other countries. The dialect contains features unique to it that were derived from local Bantu languages, such as Swahili.
Taita Cushitic is an extinct pair of South Cushitic languages, spoken by Cushitic peoples inhabiting the Taita Hills of Kenya, before they were assimilated into the Bantu population after the Bantu Migration into East Africa. Evidence for the languages is primarily South Cushitic loanwords in the Bantu languages Dawida and Saghala, as well as oral traditions of the Dawida and Saghala.
The Degere are a Mijikenda-speaking group of former hunter-gatherers of Kenya and Tanzania, now settled along the Ramisi, Mwena and Umba rivers, with a few along the coast. They may number no more than a few hundred to at most a few thousand. They are believed to be related to, possibly descended from, the Oromo-speaking Waata. They are variously reported to speak Duruma, Digo, a similar Mijikenda dialect of their own, or to speak Mijikenda with grammatical errors much as the Waata do when they speak Mijikenda.
The boundaries of this corridor can be defined within the Maasai territory. The corridor stretches from the Arusha Region, through the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania to the Taita-Taveta County of Kenya. To varying degrees, the people in this corridor are essentially a mixture of similar Bantu, Nilotic and Cushitic branches of the African people. The groups were dynamic, fluid and flexible. They shared a common history characterised by constant movement between the different areas for trade, battles, migration as well as social reasons. They were categorised arbitrarily by Europeans into the following culturally, linguistically and/or genetically related groups:
