KiSwahili is spoken by an estimated 50-100 million people in East and Central Africa, in particular in the African Great Lakes region (Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malawi).
KiSwahili is a national language of several African countries including the DRC, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. KiSwahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It is officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community and countries in other region such as South Africa and Botswana have introduced KiSwahili as an option course in schools.
This website provides some basic information for English speakers with any level of interest, especially to people who may want to visit Eastern Africa. Note that, kiSwahili, originating from the East African coast, is purest in those areas since they speak it more frequently, rarely mixing it with other languages.
The following guide will let you try out some basic KiSwahili:
