JOHANNESBURG - With more than 200 million speakers, Kiswahili has grown far beyond East Africa.
For centuries, it has served as a vital official language and cultural bridge in various African countries.
The language even has its official day, which is 7 July.
Fay Shao, Swahili Africa director, said the Miriam Makeba Foundation and Swahili Africa have partnered to celebrate that legacy, particularly at a time when migration and identity have become increasingly contested.
“KiSwahili is the one true heritage of the continent because when it started, it started as the language for trade when people were trading among themselves, people from the central part of the continent to the eastern part of the continent.
“Then they came up with this dialect, which later became like a common language that can be used. And it was formalised.
“Now that you have this language that everyone can understand, then let's make it official. And that's when it started. Someone somewhere - there's someone from the Zulu tribe or Hausa tribe contributed to the building up of Kiswahili.
“In South Africa, I always refer to it as the "Fana Kalo" because it's just that a language that develops in a specific community where they want to trade, they want to do things together, but they don't wanna lose their culture or lose their language, but they want to communicate.”