swahili
French, noun/swa.i.li/
swahili is spelled S-W-A-H-I-L-I (7 letters) and appears about once in every 2 million words in written French, the 46,078th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Swahili is a French masculine noun meaning “Swahili (language)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Langue bantoue parlée en Afrique orientale, et influencée par l’arabe”.
What does swahili mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculineSwahili (language)
adjective
- 1
Swahili
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Homme qui appartient à l’ethnie des Swahilis.
noun: 1. Langue bantoue parlée en Afrique orientale, et influencée par l’arabe. 2. Eacus. Peuple de la côte orientale de l’Afrique, EACU, du Sud de la Somalie au Nord du Mozambique.
adjective: 1. Relatif à la langue swahili, au kiswahili. 2. Relatif aux habitants de la côte d’Afrique orientale parlant le kiswahili.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of swahili
- souahéli alternative
- swahilie feminine
- swahilis masculine plural
- swahilies feminine plural
- Swahilis plural
- Swahilie feminine
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce swahili?
- /swa.i.li/
- \swa.i.li\
- [swa.i.li]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is swahili in French?
swahili appears about once in every 2 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).