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The areas where Swahili is the indigenous language (dark green), official or national language (medium green), and trade language (light green). As a trade language, it extends some distance further to the northwest. In the Guthrie non-genetic classification of Bantu languages, Swahili is included under Bantoid/Southern/Narrow Bantu/Central/G. The name 'Kiswahili' comes from the plural of the Arabic word sahil ???? sawahil ????? meaning "boundary" or "coast" (used as an adjective to mean "coastal dwellers" or, by adding 'ki-' ["language"] to mean "coastal language"). (The word "sahel" is also used for the border zone of the Sahara ("desert")). The incorporation of the final "i" is likely to be the nisba (adjectival form) in Arabic (of the coast "sawahalii" ??????), although some state it is for phonetic reasons. One of the earliest known documents in Swahili is an epic poem in the Arabic script titled Utendi wa Tambuka ("The History of Tambuka"); it is dated 1728. The Latin alphabet has since become standard under the influence of European colonial powers.
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