Link Centre Dictionary

Swahili

swa·hili

UK/swəˈhiːli/ US/swɑˈhili/ uncommon

noun

1.

the most widely spoken Bantu languages; the official language of Kenya and Tanzania and widely used as a lingua franca in east and central Africa

Origin

Borrowed from Swahili Mswahili / Kiswahili, from Arabic سَوَاحِلِيّ (sawāḥiliyy, “(people) of the coasts”), from سَوَاحِل (sawāḥil, “coasts”), broken plural of سَاحِل (sāḥil, “coast”).

Related words

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.