Definition
Bantu inhabitants on the coast of East Africa, in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. They are mainly united under the mother tongue of Kiswahili, a Bantu language. This also extends to Arab, Persian, and other migrants who reached the coast some believe as early as the 7th or 8th century AD, and mixed with the local people there, providing considerable cultural infusion and numerous loan words from Arabic and Persian. Archaeologist Felix Chami notes the presence of Bantu settlements straddling the East African coast as early as the beginning of the 1st millennium. They evolved gradually from the 6th century onward to accommodate for an increase in trade (mainly with Arab merchants), population growth, and further centralized urbanization; developing into what would later become known as the Swahili City-States.
Read more about this topic: Swahili People
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