Swahili Language & Swahili Translation

Information and resources on Swahili language & Swahili language translation. The Swahili are not an ethnic unit but the coastal dwellers of a number of East African countries. They speak dialects of the Swahili tongue, structurally a Bantu language but with many borrowings from Arabic. The name 'Swahili', derived from an Arabic word meaning "coast," can be applied to nearly half a million East Africans whose culture, trading economy, and language developed with the spread of Islam after Arab traders arrived among them. The language is a lingua franca across East Africa to Zambia and the Congo and in places as distant as south Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and Pakistan. Below are links that provide information about the Swahili language.