Svan South Caucasian svarabhakti [Old Indic ‘vowel part’]

Bantu language of the East African coast and off-shore islands, official language of Tanzania and Kenya. Used as a lingua franca for the East African slave and spice trade, Swahili incorporated numerous Arabic and later English words, but has still maintained the typical grammatical structure of a Bantu language. Documents (in Arabic script) since about 1700; from 1890 in Latin alphabet.