Swahili is now spoken by more than 200 million speakers, claims Quartz Africa. From “obscure dialect”, it has thus become the most widely spoken language in Africa.
This has been able to impose itself thanks to internal travel on the continent and its use by “Traders from Asia” but also by “Arab and European occupiers, European and Indian settlers, colonial rulers and individuals from various post-colonial nations”, shells the site. All knew how to use Swahili and adapted it to their own needs.
Wherever they went in Africa, these speakers took this language, now spoken “over a third of the continent, from South to North and from East to West”. To the heart of Africa, specifies the economic information site.
Recognized as an official language by the AU in 2004
The origin of this language takes root on the east coast of Africa, this long strip of land that runs “from Mogadishu, Somalia, to Sofala, Mozambique”, as well as in the Comoros and the Seychelles.
A crossroads region