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Congo Swahili
Native to	Democratic Republic of the Congo
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu Northeast Bantu Northeast Coast Bantu Sabaki Swahili language Congo Swahili
Dialects	Katanga Swahili Kivu Swahili Lualaba Swahili Ituri Kingwana Swahili
Writing system	Latin script (Roman Swahili alphabet) Arabic script (Arabic Swahili alphabet) Swahili Braille
Language codes
ISO 639-3	swc
Glottolog	cong1236
The area where Congo Swahili is spoken is highlighted in light yellow.

Congo Swahili, formerly sometimes known as Zaïre Swahili, are the varieties of the Swahili language spoken in the Democratic Republic of The Congo.

Overview

Congo Swahili differs greatly from Standard Swahili. There is a common saying among Swahili speakers that goes: "Swahili was born in Zanzibar, grew up in Tanzania, fell sick in Kenya, died in Uganda and was buried in Congo", which highlights how speakers of other dialects often find Congo Swahili incomprehensible. One of the main reasons for the differences is that, unlike Standard Swahili, Congo Swahili is strongly influenced by French, rather than Arabic. It has also borrowed words from the local languages spoken in the DRC, which are not found in other varieties of Swahili.

Grammar

These are some of the grammatical innovations of Congo Swahili that do not exist in Standard Swahili:

• A distinction between near past and remote past.
• A distinction between near future and remote future.
• A distinction between present progressive and present habitual.
• Loss of locatives in -ni (Katanga dialect)

Dialects

The Katanga dialect is particularly noted for being extremely divergent and mutually unintelligible with other Swahili dialects and some consider it a creole language.

Publications

The Jehovah's Witnesses (Mashahidi wa Yehova) regularly publish religious articles, videos and booklets in Congo Swahili. Translations of the Bible into Congo Swahili have also been published: the first partial translation of the New Testament was published in the Ituri Kingwana dialect in 1921, followed by a full translation in 1937.

See also

• Swahili language
• Swahili literature
• Languages of Africa
• Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

References

1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Congo Swahili". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
2. ISO 639-3, entry for Congo Swahili
3. Ethnologue, entry for Congo Swahili
4. ^ Okamura, Toru; Kai, Masumi (2020). Indigenous Language Acquisition, Maintenance, and Loss and Current Language Policies. IGI Global. p. 58. ISBN 9781799829614.
5. "The genesis of Swahili language". The New Times. 2008. Retrieved June 30, 2024.
6. ^ Nilsson, Ulf L. (2020). Swahili - A Family Chronicle. RoseDog Books. p. 249. ISBN 9781646104369.
7. ^ Hymes, Dell (1971). Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. International Conference On Pidgin And Creole Languages. Mona, Jamaica: Cambridge University Press. pp. 57–59.
8. Gibson, Michael Luke (2018-03-28). What Counts as Swahili in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Field researchers' attitudes in language-in-education research. Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) 2018 Annual Conference. Mexico City, Mexico: SIL International.
9. Mashahidi wa Yehova (Jehovah's Witnesses)
10. Mojola, Aloo Osotsi (2020). God Speaks My Language - A History of Bible Translation in East Africa. Langham Creative Projects. ISBN 9781783688241.

• Swahili language
• Swahili culture
• Languages written in Latin script
• Northeast Coast Bantu languages
• Non-tonal languages in tonal families
• Agglutinative languages
• Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo