Swahili people

The Swahili (Waswahili), Bantu, Afro-Arab and Comorian peoples fused by the monsoon, people the East African coast from southern Somalia through Kenya and Tanzania to northern Mozambique, with Zanzibar, Lamu and the Comoros offshore. Their language, Kiswahili, a Bantu grammar dressed in Arabic, Persian and Portuguese loanwords, is Africa's greatest lingua franca. Coral-stone towns, Kilwa, Mombasa, Gedi, Pate, grew rich carrying gold, ivory and slaves between the interior and Arabia, Persia, India and China; Friday mosques, carved doors and taarab music ordered a cosmopolitan Islam. Portuguese forts, Omani sultans and European plantations each ruled the coast in turn. Stone Town alleys, Lamu donkeys, dhow sails and the taarab orchestras keep the monsoon civilisation sailing, and a hundred million speakers carry its words inland. Zanzibar, Lamu and Comoro children learn Kiswahili first. Southern Somali ports still speak the northernmost Swahili. Mozambican Swahili still trade with Comorian sailors. Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts share one Swahili radio.