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The traditional centre of the language has been Zanzibar, and Swahili is an official language of Tanzania and Kenya. The Swahili spoken in Nairobi incorporates significantly more English loanwords than that spoken on the coast, and in Tanzania Swahili is the most widely used language. The language is also spoken in regions that border these three countries, such as far northern MalawiMalawi (also spelt Malawi is a nation in east Africa. It is bordered by Tanzania, Zambia, and Mozambique. Republic of Malawi ( In Detail) ( Full size) National motto Official language English (official), Chichewa (official), others Capital Lilongwe Presid and Mozambique, eastern Democratic Republic of the CongoThe Democratic Republic of the Congo called Zaire between 1971 and 1997, is a nation in central Africa. It is sometimes called Congo-Kinshasa after its capital, to distinguish it from the Republic of Congo, or Congo-Brazzaville''. It borders on Republic o, UgandaThe Republic of Uganda is a country in east central Africa. It is bordered in the east by Kenya, in the north by Sudan, by the Democratic Republic of Congo in the west, Rwanda in the southwest and Tanzania in the south. The southern part of the country in, RwandaRwanda is a country in central Africa. It is bordered by Uganda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. The indigenous population consists of three ethnic groups. The Hutus, who comprise the majority of the population, are farmers of Bant and BurundiBurundi is a small landlocked nation in the Great Lakes region of Africa. It is bordered by Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. History Main article: History of Burundi Burundi existed as an independent kingdom from the sixteenth centur, and southern EthiopiaThe Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ityop'iya Amharic ) is a country of northeastern Africa. It has one of the most extensive known histories as an independent nation in the continent. Unique among African countries, the Ethiopian monarchy maintai. The Zanzibar dialect is known as Kiunguja.
Swahili belongs to the Sabaki subgroup of the Northeastern coast Bantu languages. It is closely related to the Miji Kenda group of languages, Pokomo, Ngazija etc. Over at least a thousand years of intense and varied interaction with the Middle EastThe Middle East is a geographical and cultural area comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. The Middle East is a subregion of Afr, ArabiaArabia is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia. It lies north of Ethiopia and northern Somalia; south of Israel, the disputed Palestinian territories, and Jordan; and southwest of Iran. The coastal limits of Arabia comprise: on, Persia, India and China has given Swahili a rich infusion of loanwords from a wide assortment of languages.
Despite the substantial number of loanwords present in Swahili, the language is in fact Bantu. In the past, some have held that Swahili is variously a derivative of Arabic, that a distinct Swahili people do not exist, or that Swahili is simply an amalgam of Arabic and African language and culture, though these theories have now been largely discarded. The distinct existence of the Swahili as a people can be traced back over a thousand years, as can their language. In structure and vocabulary Swahili is distinctly Bantu and shares far more culturally and lingustically with other Bantu languages and peoples than it does with Arabic, Persian, Indian etc. In fact, it is estimated that the proportion of non-African language loanwords in Swahili is comparable to the proportion of French, Latin, Portuguese, and Greek loanwords in the English language.