The Bantu languages are a language family of about 600 languages that are spoken by the Bantu peoples of Central, Southern, Eastern and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.
Swahili, also known by its local name Kiswahili, is a Bantu language spoken by the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique.
Tanzanian Hip-hop, which is sometimes referred to Bongo Flava by many outside of Tanzania's hip hop community, encompasses a large variety of different sounds, but it is particularly known for heavy synth riffs and an incorporation of Tanzanian pop.
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.
The Daily Nation is one of the leading newspapers in Kenya.
The Yao people are a major Bantu ethnic and linguistic group living at the southern end of Lake Malawi. They played an important role in the history of Southeast Africa, notably in the 19th century. The Yao are a predominantly Muslim-faith group of about two million, whose homelands encompass the countries of Malawi, the north of Mozambique, and the Ruvuma and Mtwara Regions of Tanzania. The Yao have a strong cultural identity, transcending national borders.
Lamu Island is a port, city, and island just off the shore of Kenya in the Indian Ocean approximately 150 miles from Mombasa. It is a part of the East African country of Kenya. Lamu was founded in the 12th century. Lamu is one of the longest-established and best-preserved remaining settlements of the Swahili tradition in east Africa that remains today. The island has continually been inhabited for over seven hundred years, and continues to be an important center in eastern Africa.
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.
The Rangi are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group of mixed Bantu and Cushitic heritage in the Dodoma Region of central Tanzania. In 2022, the Rangi population was estimated to number 880,000.
The Alagwa are a Cushitic ethnic group mostly based in the Kondoa District of the Dodoma Region in central Tanzania, an area well known for rock art. Smaller numbers of Alagwa reside in the Hanang district of the Manyara Region in Tanzania, as well. They speak the Alagwa language as a mother tongue, which belongs to the South Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. In 2022, the Alagwa population was estimated to number 52,816 individuals, and Mous (2016) estimates the number of speakers to be slightly over 10,000.
Swahili culture is the culture of the Swahili people inhabiting the Swahili coast. This littoral area encompasses Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique, as well as the adjacent islands of Zanzibar and Comoros along with some parts of Malawi and the eastern part of Democratic Republic of Congo. They speak Swahili as their native language, which belongs to the Bantu language family. Graham Connah described Swahili culture as at least partially urban, mercantile,and literate.
Swahili literature is literature written in the Swahili language, particularly by Swahili people of the East African coast and the neighboring islands. It may also refer to literature written by people who write in the Swahili language. It is an offshoot of the Bantu culture.
The Swahili coast is a coastal area of the Indian Ocean in East Africa inhabited by the Swahili people. It includes Sofala ; Mombasa, Gede, Pate Island, Lamu, and Malindi ; Dar es Salaam and Kilwa. In addition, several coastal islands are included in the Swahili coast such as Zanzibar and Comoros.
Swahilization or Swahilisation refers to one of two practices:
The Shirazi people, also known as Mbwera, are a Bantu ethnic group inhabiting the Swahili coast and the nearby Indian ocean islands. They are particularly concentrated on the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba and Comoros.
The Bantu peoples are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct native African ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. The languages are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa. There are several hundred Bantu languages. Depending on the definition of "language" or "dialect", it is estimated that there are between 440 and 680 distinct languages. The total number of speakers is in the hundreds of millions, ranging at roughly 350 million in the mid-2010s. About 60 million speakers (2015), divided into some 200 ethnic or tribal groups, are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone.
The official languages of the Comoros are Comorian, French and Arabic, as recognized under its 2001 constitution. Although each language holds equal recognition under the constitution, language use varies across Comorian society. Unofficial minority languages such as Malagasy and Swahili are also present on the island with limited usage. According to Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer, a professor of anthropology at Kansas State university, the linguistic diversity of the Comoros is the result of its rich history as part of the Indian maritime trade routes and its periods of Malagasy and French colonial rule.
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.
Shungwaya is an origin myth of the Mijikenda peoples. Traditions known collectively as the "Shungwaya myth" describe a series of migrations of Bantu peoples dating to the 12th-17th centuries from a region to the north of the Tana River. These Bantu migrants were held to have been speakers of Sabaki Bantu languages. Other Bantu ethnic groups, smaller in number, are also suggested to have been part of the migration. From Shungwaya, the Mount Kenya Bantu are then proposed to have broke away and migrated from there some time before the Oromo onslaught. Shungwaya appears to have been, in its heyday, a multi-ethnic settlement with extensive trade networks. Between perhaps the 12th and 15th centuries, this settlement was subjected to a full scale invasion of Cushitic speaking Oromo peoples from he Horn of Africa. From the whole corpus of these traditions, it has been argued that Shungwaya comprised a large, multi-ethnic community.
