East Africa: Al Inkishafi, Swahili manuscript in Arabic script. Poem by Sayyid Abdalla bin Sayyid Ali bin Nasir (19th century. The Swahili language or Kiswahili is a Bantu language and the mother tongue of the Swahili people. It is spoken by various communities inhabiting the African Great Lakes region and other parts of Southeast Africa, including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The closely related Comorian language, spoken in the Comoros Islands, is sometimes considered a Swahili dialect.

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The Swahili language or Kiswahili is a Bantu language and the mother tongue of the Swahili people. It is spoken by various communities inhabiting the African Great Lakes region and other parts of Southeast Africa, including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The closely related Comorian language, spoken in the Comoros Islands, is sometimes considered a Swahili dialect. Swahili is currently written in a slightly changed alphabet using the Latin script. The language had previously been written in the Arabic script. Unlike adaptations of the Arabic script for other languages, relatively little accommodation was made for Swahili.

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Photo credit: © Pictures From History / Alamy / Afripics
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