Kwanza kabisa neno Kiswahili limetokana na neno la kiarabu suahel (sina uhakika na uandikwaji wake) na maana yake ni watu wa Pwani (Peoples of the coast) na jina la lugha halisemi kitu chochote kuhusu asili ya lugha yenyewe! Waarabu walivyokuja walikikuta kiswahili kinaongewa lkn hakikujulikana kwa jina la Kiswahili bali kiliitwa vingine na wakaamua kukipa jina la suehel wakimaanisha watu waishio Pwani, yaani watu wabantu waliowakuta pale huyo Scholar wako sijui chanzo cha Habari yake lakini hata common sense tu ya kawaida inakwambia kwamba Kiswahili ni lugha ya Kibantu na hii imeshathibitishwa Dunia nzima na Linguistcs na ethnologists na Kiarabu ni sehemu ya Afro semitic language sasa huo ukweli unafaa kuzika hoja yoyote ile inayosema ya kwamba Kiswahili ni Kiarabu common sense tu ya kawaida! Naambatnaisha hapa mmandiko kuhusu asili ya Kiswahili!
Origin
Although originally written with the
Arabic script, Swahili is now written in a
Latin alphabet that was introduced by
Christian missionaries and colonial administrators. The text shown here is the Catholic version of the
Lord's Prayer.[SUP]
[11][/SUP]
Swahili is traditionally regarded as being the language of coastal areas of
Tanzania and
Kenya, formalised after independence by presidents of the
African Great Lakes region. It was first spoken by natives of the coastal mainland and spread as a fisherman's language to the various islands surrounding the
Swahili Coast. Traders from these islands had extensive contact with the coastal peoples from at least the 2nd century A.D. and Swahili began to spread along the Swahili Coast from at least the 6th century.
There is also cultural evidence of early Zaramo people settlement on Zanzibar from Dar-es-salaam in present-day Tanzania. The African population of the island holds the tradition that it is descended from these early settlers.[SUP][
citation needed][/SUP]
Clove farmers from Oman[SUP][12][/SUP] and the Persian Gulf farmed the Zanzibar Archipelago, slowly spreading Islam and adding a few words to Swahili language and building forts and castles in major trading and cultural centers as far as
Sofala (Mozambique) and Kilwa (Tanzania) to the south,
Mombasa and
Lamu in Kenya, the Comoros Islands and northern Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, and
Barawa to the north in southern
Somalia. Demand for cloves soon established permanent trade routes, and Swahili-speaking merchants settled in stops along the new trade routes. For the most part, this process started the development of the modern Swahili language. However, the spread was hampered during the European colonial era and did not occur west of
Lake Malawi, in what was then called the Belgian Congo, and is now
Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, thus making it a secondary rather than a primary language in that region.[SUP][
citation needed][/SUP]
The earliest known documents written in Swahili are letters written in
Kilwa in 1711 A.D. in the
Arabic script. They were sent to the Portuguese of Mozambique and their local allies. The original letters are now preserved in the Historical Archives of Goa, India.[SUP]
[13][/SUP] Another ancient written document is an
epic poem in the Arabic script titled
Utendi wa Tambuka (
The History of Tambuka); it is dated 1728. However, the
Latin script later became standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
