Je suis curieux d'apprendre pourquoi le swahili est considéré comme une langue bantoue alors que son vocabulaire contient beaucoup de mots arabes. Est-ce que sa grammaire est vraiment différente de l'arabe ?
Bantu expansion

Between 2500 and 3000 years ago, Bantu -speaking peoples began a millennia-long series of migrations eastward from their homeland around southern Cameroon. This Bantu expansion introduced agriculture into much of the African Great Lakes region. During the following fifteen centuries, the Bantu slowly intensified farming and grazing over all suitable regions of East Africa, in the process making contact with Austronesian - and Arabic -speaking settlers on southern coastal areas. The latter also spread Islam to the coastal belt, but most Bantu remained African Traditional Religion adherents.

Over a period of many centuries, most hunting-foraging peoples were displaced and absorbed by incoming Bantu communities, as well as by later Nilotic communities. The Bantu expansion was a long series of physical migrations, a diffusion of language and knowledge out into and in from neighboring populations, and a creation of new societal groups involving inter-marriage among communities and small groups moving to communities and small groups moving to new areas.

After their movements from their original homeland in West Africa, Bantus also encountered in central east Africa peoples of Cushitic origin. As cattle terminology in use amongst the few modern Bantu pastoralist groups suggests, the Bantu migrants would acquire cattle from their new Cushitic neighbors. Linguistic evidence also indicates that Bantus most likely borrowed the custom of milking cattle directly from Cushitic peoples in the area.

On the coastal section of the African Great Lakes region, another mixed Bantu community developed through contact with Muslim Arab and Persian traders, leading to the development of the mixed Arab, Persian and African Swahili City States. The Swahili culture that emerged from these exchanges evinces many Arab and Islamic influences not seen in traditional Bantu culture, as do the many Afro-Arab members of the Bantu Swahili people. With its original speech community centered on the coastal parts of Tanzania (particularly Zanzibar) and Kenya —a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast —the Bantu Swahili language contains many Arabic loan-words as a consequence of these interactions. Its important to note that Kiswahili grammar and structure are purely African and Bantu even if its vocabulary has non African influence in the same way English remains a Germanic language regardless of its vocabulary being heavily influenced by Latin and French among other languages.

The earliest Bantu inhabitants of the east coast of Kenya and Tanzania encountered by these later Arab and Persian settlers have been variously identified with the trading settlements of Rhapta, Azania and Menouthias referenced in early Greek and Chinese writings from 50 CE to 500 CE, ultimately giving rise to the name for Tanzania. These early writings perhaps document the first wave of Bantu settlers to reach central east Africa during their migration.

Between the 14th and 15th centuries, large African Great Lakes kingdoms and states emerged, such as the Buganda and Karagwe kingdoms of Uganda and Tanzania.
Classification

Le swahili est une langue bantoue de la branche sabakie. Dans la classification géographique de Guthrie, le swahili se situe dans la zone G bantoue, tandis que les autres langues sabakies se trouvent dans la zone E70, communément appelées Nyika. Les linguistes historiques considèrent l'influence de l'arabe sur le swahili comme significative, car il emprunte environ 15 % de son vocabulaire directement à l'arabe, et s'est initialement répandu grâce aux marchands d'esclaves arabes le long de la côte est-africaine.
### Query ###
Je suis curieux d'apprendre pourquoi le swahili est considéré comme une langue bantoue alors que son vocabulaire contient beaucoup de mots arabes. Est-ce que sa grammaire est vraiment différente de l'arabe ?

### Main Text ###
Bantu expansion

Between 2500 and 3000 years ago, Bantu -speaking peoples began a millennia-long series of migrations eastward from their homeland around southern Cameroon. This Bantu expansion introduced agriculture into much of the African Great Lakes region. During the following fifteen centuries, the Bantu slowly intensified farming and grazing over all suitable regions of East Africa, in the process making contact with Austronesian - and Arabic -speaking settlers on southern coastal areas. The latter also spread Islam to the coastal belt, but most Bantu remained African Traditional Religion adherents.

Over a period of many centuries, most hunting-foraging peoples were displaced and absorbed by incoming Bantu communities, as well as by later Nilotic communities. The Bantu expansion was a long series of physical migrations, a diffusion of language and knowledge out into and in from neighboring populations, and a creation of new societal groups involving inter-marriage among communities and small groups moving to communities and small groups moving to new areas.

After their movements from their original homeland in West Africa, Bantus also encountered in central east Africa peoples of Cushitic origin. As cattle terminology in use amongst the few modern Bantu pastoralist groups suggests, the Bantu migrants would acquire cattle from their new Cushitic neighbors. Linguistic evidence also indicates that Bantus most likely borrowed the custom of milking cattle directly from Cushitic peoples in the area.

On the coastal section of the African Great Lakes region, another mixed Bantu community developed through contact with Muslim Arab and Persian traders, leading to the development of the mixed Arab, Persian and African Swahili City States. The Swahili culture that emerged from these exchanges evinces many Arab and Islamic influences not seen in traditional Bantu culture, as do the many Afro-Arab members of the Bantu Swahili people. With its original speech community centered on the coastal parts of Tanzania (particularly Zanzibar) and Kenya —a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast —the Bantu Swahili language contains many Arabic loan-words as a consequence of these interactions. Its important to note that Kiswahili grammar and structure are purely African and Bantu even if its vocabulary has non African influence in the same way English remains a Germanic language regardless of its vocabulary being heavily influenced by Latin and French among other languages.

The earliest Bantu inhabitants of the east coast of Kenya and Tanzania encountered by these later Arab and Persian settlers have been variously identified with the trading settlements of Rhapta, Azania and Menouthias referenced in early Greek and Chinese writings from 50 CE to 500 CE, ultimately giving rise to the name for Tanzania. These early writings perhaps document the first wave of Bantu settlers to reach central east Africa during their migration.

Between the 14th and 15th centuries, large African Great Lakes kingdoms and states emerged, such as the Buganda and Karagwe kingdoms of Uganda and Tanzania.

### Supplementary Text ###
Classification

Le swahili est une langue bantoue de la branche sabakie. Dans la classification géographique de Guthrie, le swahili se situe dans la zone G bantoue, tandis que les autres langues sabakies se trouvent dans la zone E70, communément appelées Nyika. Les linguistes historiques considèrent l'influence de l'arabe sur le swahili comme significative, car il emprunte environ 15 % de son vocabulaire directement à l'arabe, et s'est initialement répandu grâce aux marchands d'esclaves arabes le long de la côte est-africaine.

### Draft ###

Query: "swahili as Bantu language despite Arabic vocabulary - grammatical differences from Arabic?"

Translation check: ● "swahili est considéré comme une langue bantoue" = standard classification
● "vocabulaire contient beaucoup de mots arabes" = ~15% Arabic lexicon confirmed
◐ "sa grammaire est vraiment différente" = core question about structural difference

### 1. Classification Foundation

Bantu language family → Niger-Congo phylum
Swahili specifically: Sabaki branch within Bantu ● 
Geographic zone G in Guthrie's classification ●

∴ Arabic vocabulary ≠ Arabic grammar
Like English: Germanic base + Latin/French borrowings

### 2. Historical Contact Mechanisms

⟨H≈0.8⟩ Coastal trade routes → Arabic merchants → Zanzibar, Mombasa → Islamic influence → lexical borrowing but structural preservation... Swahili grammar remains intact despite surface Arabic influence... contact situation: vocabulary adoption, grammar retention...

→ Primary contact: Arab/Persian merchants, Islamic traders
→ Timeframe: ~14th-15th centuries onward ●
→ Mechanism: lexical borrowing (15% Arabic words) ●

### 3. Grammatical Structure Analysis

Core claim: Swahili = Bantu grammatical structure ●

Evidence:
- Subject-verb-object base order
- Complex verb morphology 
- Nominal classes (18 noun classes)
- Tone systems
- Temporal/aspect marking

≠ Arabic (VSO order, root-pattern morphology, different nominal structure)

### 4. Comparative Verification

English analogy:
- Germanic syntax + Latin/French lexicon
- Vocabulary borrowing ≠ grammatical system adoption

Swahili parallel:
- Bantu grammar + Arabic lexicon
- Sabaki branch maintains core Bantu structure ●

### 5. Conclusion

☑ Swahili = Bantu language confirmed
☑ Arabic influence = lexical borrowing only  
☑ Grammar remains distinct from Arabic
☑ Classification based on structural properties, not vocabulary

∴ Historical contact → vocabulary adoption
∴ Structural properties → family classification
∴ Swahili maintains Bantu identity despite Arabic influence

NB: User's intuition correct - Arabic vocabulary doesn't make Swahili Arabic grammatically.

### Answer###
Votre question touche à un aspect fondamental de la classification linguistique. Le swahili est effectivement considéré comme une langue bantoue de la branche sabakie, classé dans la zone G bantoue selon la classification géographique de Guthrie. Cette appartenance à la famille bantu repose sur sa structure grammaticale et non sur sa composition lexicale.

Le swahili a effectivement emprunté environ 15% de son vocabulaire à l'arabe, principalement à travers les contacts avec les marchands arabes et perses qui fréquentaient la côte orientale africaine depuis les XIVe et XVe siècles. Cette influence arabe s'est manifestée dans le développement des villes-états swahili sur la côte orientale du Kenya et de la Tanzanie, notamment Zanzibar.

Cependant, la grammaire du swahili demeure purement africaine et bantoue. Cette situation est comparable à celle de l'anglais, qui malgré son riche vocabulaire d'origine latine et française, reste une langue germanique. De même, le swahili conserve sa structure grammaticale bantoue fondamentale malgré l'importante influence arabe sur son lexique.

Cette distinction entre vocabulaire et structure grammaticale explique pourquoi le swahili est classé comme langue bantoue malgré ses emprunts arabes - sa grammaire et sa structure appartiennent intégralement à la famille bantu africaine.