Editing Swahili language (section)

===Overview===
Estimates of the total number of first- and second-language Swahili speakers vary widely, from as low as 50 million to as high as 200 million, but generally range from 60 million to 150 million.<ref name="speakers">The ''Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities'' (ed. Carl Skutsch; publ. Taylor & Francis; 2013), pages 183–184: "The most important single [Bantu language] is Swahili as a primary or secondary language (50 million speakers)."
* John M. Mugane, ''The Story of Swahili'' (2015), page 1: "In terms of speakers, [Swahili] is peer to the dozen or so languages of the world that boast close to 100 million users" [footnoted to page 287:] "The World Bank estimates that 120 to 150 million people speak Swahili as a second language; William J. Frawley (2003, 181) puts the number at a minimum of 75 million, and Ethnologue has it as 40 million. This book takes the higher number as closer to the reality, given that Swahili is well known as a lingua franca in countries whose populations far exceed 150 million." (Page 227: "Africa's Swahili-speaking region, in which 100 million people who speak it as a second language have created a diverse array of [varieties]".)
* [https://clp.arizona.edu/courses/languages/swahili University of Arizona Critical Languages Program]: "[estimates] vary widely, from 60 million to over 150 million".
* {{cite web |date=5 November 2021 |title=World Kiswahili Language Day |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379702 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220523105024/https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379702 |archive-date=23 May 2022 |access-date=4 November 2023 |publisher=UNESCO |quote=Kiswahili is one of the most widely used languages of the African family, and the most widely spoken in sub-Saharan Africa. It is among the 10 most widely spoken languages in the world, with more than 200 million speakers.}}</ref>

Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions of people in the five [[African Great Lakes]] countries ([[Kenya]], [[Democratic Republic of the Congo|DRC]], [[Rwanda]], [[Uganda]], and [[Tanzania]]), where it is an official or national language. It is also the first language for many people in Tanzania, especially in the coastal regions of Tanga, Pwani, Dar es Salaam, Mtwara and Lindi. In the inner regions of Tanzania, Swahili is spoken with an accent influenced by other local languages and dialects. There, it is a first language for most of the people who are born in the cities, whilst being spoken as a second language in rural areas. Swahili and closely related languages are spoken by relatively small numbers of people in [[Burundi]], [[Comoros]], [[Malawi]], [[Mozambique]], [[Zambia]] and [[Rwanda]].<ref>Nurse & Thomas Spear (1985) ''The Swahili''</ref> The language was still understood in the southern ports of the [[Red Sea]] in the 20th century.<ref name="Kharusi">{{Cite journal |last=Kharusi |first=N. S. |date=2012 |title=The Ethnic Label Zinjibari: Politics and Language Choice Implications Among Swahili Speakers in Oman |journal=[[Ethnicities (journal)|Ethnicities]] |language=en |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=335–353 |doi=10.1177/1468796811432681 |s2cid=145808915}}</ref><ref>Adriaan Hendrik Johan Prins (1961) ''The Swahili-speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast.'' ''[[Ethnologue]]''</ref> The [[East African Community]] created an institution called the East African Kiswahili Commission (EAKC) which began operations in 2015. The institution currently serves as the leading body for promoting the language in the [[East Africa|East African region]], as well as for coordinating its development and usage for regional integration and sustainable development.<ref name="Press Release on EAKC"/>

Swahili is among the first languages in Africa for which [[language technology]] applications have been developed. [[Arvi Hurskainen]] is one of the early developers. The applications include a [[spelling checker]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Zana za Uhakiki za Microsoft Office 2016 – Kiingereza|url=http://www.microsoft.com/sw-ke/download/details.aspx?id=52668|website=Microsoft Download Center|access-date=23 October 2019|archive-date=6 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190306044655/http://www.microsoft.com/sw-KE/download/details.aspx?id=52668|url-status=live}}</ref> [[part-of-speech tagging]],<ref name="auto">{{cite web|title=Salama|url=http://77.240.23.241/|website=77.240.23.241|access-date=23 October 2019}}</ref> [[language learning software]],<ref name="auto" /> an analysed Swahili [[text corpus]] of 25 million words,<ref>{{cite web|title=Helsinki Corpus of Swahili 2.0 (HCS 2.0) – META-SHARE|url=http://metashare.csc.fi/repository/browse/helsinki-corpus-of-swahili-20-hcs-20/d544fe38184411e291cf005056be118e78589842c66b4efda6ad46f4034679c9/|website=metashare.csc.fi|access-date=23 October 2019|archive-date=23 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191023142138/http://metashare.csc.fi/repository/browse/helsinki-corpus-of-swahili-20-hcs-20/d544fe38184411e291cf005056be118e78589842c66b4efda6ad46f4034679c9/|url-status=live}}</ref> an [[electronic dictionary]],<ref name="auto" /> and [[machine translation]]<ref name="auto" /> between Swahili and English. The development of language technology also strengthens the position of Swahili as a modern medium of communication.<ref>Hurskainen, Arvi. 2018. Sustainable language technology for African languages. In Agwuele, Augustine and [[Adams Bodomo|Bodomo, Adams]] (eds), The Routledge Handbook of African Linguistics, 359–375. London: Routledge Publishers. {{ISBN|978-1-138-22829-0}}</ref> 

[[File:Swahili 2024.png|thumb|402x402px|Swahili in East Africa]]