Masai Kenya dancing, singing and making fire
Maasai Mara and the
Serengeti. The Swahilis, one of
Africa's most prominent tribes. The
Swahili are a people and culture found on the east coast of Africa, mainly the coastal regions and the islands of Kenya and
Tanzania, and north
Mozambique. The name Swahili is derived from the
Arabic word Sawahil, meaning "coastal dwellers", and they speak the
Swahili language. They also speak the official languages of their respective countries:
English in Tanzania and Kenya,
Portuguese in Mozambique,
Somali in
Somalia, and
French in
Comoros.
Note that only a small fraction of those who use Swahili are first language speakers and even fewer are ethnic Swahilis.
The Masai are an indigenous
African ethnic group of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya and northern Tanzania. Due to their distinctive customs and dress and residence near the many game parks of
East Africa, they are among the most well-known
African ethnic groups internationally. They speak Maa, which is a part of the
Nilo-Saharan language family — similar languages include
Dinka, Nuer, Turkana — and
Songhai, and are also educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania: Swahili and English. The Maasai population has been variously estimated as 377,089 from the
1989 Census or as 453,
000 language speakers in Kenya in
1994[2] and 430,000 in Tanzania in
1993 with a total estimated as "approaching 900,000" Estimates of the respective Maasai populations in both countries are complicated by the remote locations of many villages, and their semi-nomadic nature.
Although the
Tanzanian and
Kenyan governments have instituted programs to encourage the Maasai to abandon their traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle, the people have clung to their age-old customs
- published: 13 Jan 2009
- views: 181562