Swahili
noun
- pl. Swahilis or Swahili a member of a people living on Zanzibar and the nearby mainland
- the Northern Bantu language of this people, characterized by a vocabulary with many Arabic roots and used as a lingua franca in EC Africa and parts of Democratic Republic of the Congo
See Swahili in American Heritage Dictionary 4
Swa·hi·li
noun pl. Swahili Swahili or
Swa·hi·lis - A Bantu language of the coast and islands of eastern Africa from Somalia to Mozambique. It is an official language of Tanzania and is widely used as a lingua franca in eastern and east-central Africa. Also called Kiswahili.
- An inhabitant of coastal eastern Africa for whom Swahili is the mother tongue.
Origin: Swahili, from Arabic sawāḥilī, of the coasts, from sawāḥil, pl. of sāḥil, coast, active participle of saḥala, to scrape off, smooth; see šḥl in Semitic roots.
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