Swahili

Swahili (WA-SAHILI, "Coast People," from Arabic sahel = "coast"), the mixed Arabo-Bantu Mohammedan populations of Zanzibar and neighbouring mainland from Mombasa nearly to Mozambique. Amongst upper classes the Arab type is more pronounced, and many even claim pure Arab descent. But all the rest are a hybrid people, the outcome of continuous interminglings with all the tribes of the interior represented by the convoys of slaves for ages brought down to the coast and gradually absorbed in the Mohammedan families. Their language also, although preserving its original Bantu structure, is largely affected by the Arabic element, and is written both with the Arabic and the Roman alphabet, the Mohammedans using the former, the Christian missionaries the latter. Thanks to the enterprising spirit of the Wa-Swaheli, who traverse the interior in all directions as trader-slave hunters, caravan leaders, and carriers in the service of the Europeans, this Ki-Swahili language has become the chief medium of intercourse throughout a great part of the continent as far west as the Upper Congo and from Uganda to Nyassaland.