swahili · name — an agglutinative language of the Bantu branch widely spoken in East Africa. Born in its modern form from the hybridization of the Arabic and Bantu cultures, it was the language of the traders in East Africa, and spread along the routes of trade.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, swahili ranks #7,346 of 43,061 for Qualifying.
swahili is pronounced /swəˈhiːli/.
Etymology
Borrowed from Swahili Mswahili / Kiswahili, from Arabic سَوَاحِلِيّ (sawāḥiliyy, “(people) of the coasts”), from سَوَاحِل (sawāḥil, “coasts”), broken plural of سَاحِل (sāḥil, “coast”).
name
- An agglutinative language of the Bantu branch widely spoken in East Africa. Born in its modern form from the hybridization of the Arabic and Bantu cultures, it was the language of the traders in East Africa, and spread along the routes of trade.
noun
- A member of various ethnic groups — mainly Bantu, Afro-Arab and Comorian — inhabiting the Swahili coast.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).