What kind of language is Kiswahili?
Grammatically, Swahili belongs to the ” Bantu language family”. Bantu languages cover East and Central AfricaCentral AfricaAs far as Kiswahili is concerned, Central Africa is: Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo. Politically, Central Africa also includes: Central African Republic, Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville. as well as southern Africa (except Namibia). The lexis and the grammar are based upon these languages. However, a lot of words have been adapted especially from Arabic and English. Others originated from Portuguese, German, Hindi, Persian etc. As is the case with all Bantu languages, a lot of specific vocabulary in the fields of science, technology, politics, psychology etc does not have vernacular equivalents. But because Kiswahili is also used as a medium of instruction in many Tanzanian schools, there was a need for such vocabulary to be formulated. Thus the Institute of Swahili Research (known by its Swahili acronym as TUKI) at the University of Dar-es-Salaam, and the National Swahil
