Swahili meaning

swä-hē'lē
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.
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An inhabitant of coastal eastern Africa for whom Swahili is the mother tongue.
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A member of a people living on Zanzibar and the nearby mainland.
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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 the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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An agglutinative language widely spoken in East Africa. Born of the hybridization of the Arabic and Bantu cultures, it was the language of the traders in East Africa, and spread along the routes of trade.
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Origin of swahili

Swahili from Arabic sawāḥilī of the coasts from sawāḥil pl. of sāḥil coast active participle of saḥala to scrape off, smooth šḥl in Semitic roots

Sentence Examples

  • On the Swahili coast the south-east monsoon begins in April and the northeast monsoon in November.

  • The surrounding region has been overrun by Arabs and Swahili from the East African coast.

  • The Swahili (q.v.) are a mixed Bantu and Semitic race inhabiting the seaboard.

  • Lindi (Swahili for The Deep Below) Bay runs inland 6 m.

  • This well-known Arab term for coast-belt (which in the plural form reappears as the familiar "Swahili" of Zanzibar) is applied to a third division of Tunisia, viz.

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Words near swahili in the Dictionary