Kivumba

Swahili
Kiswahili
Native to	Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Mozambique (mostly Mwani), Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda,Comoros, Mayotte, Zambia, Malawi, and Madagascar
Native speakers	3 million to 15 million. (2012) L2 speakers: 50 to 100 million
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Southern Bantoid Bantu Northeast Coast Bantu Sabaki Swahili
Writing system	Latin script (Roman Swahili alphabet), Arabic script (Arabic Swahili alphabet) Swahili Braille
Official status
Official language in	Tanzania, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, African Union, East African Community
Regulated by	Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa (Tanzania), Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa (Kenya)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	sw
ISO 639-2	swa
ISO 639-3	– inclusive code Individual codes:  – Congo Swahili  – Coastal Swahili  – Makwe  – Mwani
Glottolog	swah1254
Guthrie code	G.42–43; G.40.A–H (pidgins & creoles)
Linguasphere	99-AUS-m
areas where Swahili or Comorian is the indigenous language   official or national language   as a trade language
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Swahili, also known as Kiswahili (translation: coast language), is a Bantu language and the first language of the Swahili people. It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa, including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).Comorian, spoken in the Comoros Islands is sometimes considered to be a dialect of Swahili, though other authorities consider it a distinct language.

Estimates of the total number of Swahili speakers vary widely, from 50 million to over 100 million. Swahili serves as a national language of four nations: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and the DRC.Shikomor, the official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte (Shimaore), is related to Swahili. Swahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community.

A significant fraction of Swahili vocabulary derives from Arabic through contact with Arabic-speaking Muslim inhabitants. For example, the Swahili word for "book" is kitabu, traceable back to the Arabic word كتاب kitābu (from the root k.t.b. "write"). However, the Swahili plural form of this word ("books") is vitabu, following Bantu grammar in which ki- is reanalysed as a nominal class prefix, whose plural is vi-.