Swahili

Niger-Congo family · Bantu branch · Africa

Swahili is an SVO language, like 488 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.

On Position of Case Affixes, WALS codes Swahili as “Mixed morphological case strategies with none primary”, a value held by 9 of the 1,031 languages coded, Mangarrayi and Irish among them.

On Ordinal Numerals, 21 of 23 other Niger-Congo languages coded have the value “First, two-th, three-th”; Swahili has “First, second, three-th”.

Of its word-order pairings, the one Swahili shares with the fewest languages is Order of Genitive and Noun: “Noun-genitive (NGen)”, the value of 468 of the 1,249 languages coded.

The least common value coded for Swahili is “'Th' sounds” on Presence of Uncommon Consonants, held by 40 of the 567 languages coded.

The order Swahili uses in 8 pairings of a head word and its dependent. Bars: how all languages coded for each pairing split, before or after.

Contrast Swahili with Zulu or with any other language

Uncommon values

Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Swahili, rarest first.

Relativization on ObliquesNot possible10 of 112
Number of GendersFive or more24 of 257
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional MorphologyModerate preference for prefixing94 of 969
Other Roles of Applied ObjectsLocative18 of 183

Inside the Niger-Congo family

Swahili matches the most frequent Niger-Congo value on 96 of the 128 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (75%). Among the 27 Niger-Congo languages profiled here, that rate ranks third from the top.

Where Swahili breaks with a clear majority of its relatives
Feature	Swahili	Most relatives
The Past Tense	Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction	Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions (6 of 6, Bantu branch)
Tone	No tones	Simple tone system (8 of 9, Bantu branch)

Closest profiles

Languages that share the most coded values with Swahili; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.

Zulu Niger-Congo94 of 116
Luvale Niger-Congo79 of 101
Kongo Niger-Congo42 of 54
Nkore-Kiga Niger-Congo60 of 85
Diola-Fogny Niger-Congo55 of 78

Outside the Niger-Congo family, the best match is Arapesh (Mountain) (Torricelli), with 68 of 104 features alike.

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Swahili for 128 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 117 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Swahili shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 16

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Syllable Structure	Simple syllable structure	61 of 486
Consonant Inventories	Moderately large	94 of 563
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	Moderately high	102 of 564
Fixed Stress Locations	Penultimate	110 of 502
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives	Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives	158 of 567
The Velar Nasal	Velar nasal, also initially	147 of 469
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems	/p t k b d g/	255 of 567
Vowel Quality Inventories	Average vowel inventory (5-6)	287 of 564
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems	No weight, or weight factor unknown	261 of 500
Weight-Sensitive Stress	Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)	281 of 500
Lateral Consonants	/l/, no obstruent laterals	388 of 567
Glottalized Consonants	No glottalized consonants	409 of 567
Vowel Nasalization	Contrastive nasal vowels absent	180 of 244
Uvular Consonants	No uvulars	470 of 567
Absence of Common Consonants	All present	503 of 567
Front Rounded Vowels	None	525 of 562

Word structure 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Locus of Marking in the Clause	P is head-marked	71 of 236
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	Subject person/number marking is syncretic	60 of 198
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb	4-5 categories per word	52 of 145
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases	Possessor is dependent-marked	98 of 236
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives	No case	75 of 162
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology	Inconsistent marking or other type	121 of 236
Case Syncretism	Inflectional case marking is absent or minimal	123 of 198
Reduplication	Productive full and partial reduplication	278 of 368
Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives	Exclusively concatenative	125 of 165
Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection	monoexponential TAM	127 of 160
Zero Marking of A and P Arguments	Non-zero marking	219 of 235

Nouns and pronouns 22

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems	Non-sex-based gender system	28 of 257
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	3rd person only, but also non-singular	42 of 378
Definite Articles	Demonstrative word used as marker of definiteness	69 of 620
Coding of Nominal Plurality	Plural prefix	126 of 1,066
The Associative Plural	Special non-bound associative plural marker	47 of 236
Systems of Gender Assignment	Semantic and formal assignment	59 of 257
Indefinite Pronouns	Generic-noun-based indefinites	85 of 326
Asymmetrical Case-Marking	No morphological case-marking	81 of 261
Distributive Numerals	Marked by reduplication	85 of 251
Number of Cases	No morphological case-marking	100 of 261
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	Possessive suffixes	355 of 902
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	79 of 200
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person-number stem	114 of 261
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally differentiated	74 of 168
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality	Plural in all nouns, always obligatory	133 of 291
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives	Two-way contrast	126 of 234
Person Marking on Adpositions	Adpositions without person marking	209 of 378
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	120 of 200
Numeral Classifiers	Numeral classifiers are absent	260 of 400
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns	Second person pronouns encode no politeness distinction	136 of 207
Comitatives and Instrumentals	Differentiation	213 of 322
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives	Same forms	143 of 201

Noun phrases 6

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Action Nominal Constructions	Possessive-Accusative	29 of 168
Noun Phrase Conjunction	WITH-languages: 'and' and 'with' are identical	103 of 234
Possessive Classification	No possessive classification	125 of 243
Adjectives without Nouns	Adjective may occur without noun, and without marking	73 of 124
Obligatory Possessive Inflection	No obligatorily possessed nouns	201 of 244
Number of Possessive Nouns	None reported	233 of 243

Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 16

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes	Tense-aspect prefixes	153 of 1,131
Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives	Imperative	29 of 193
Situational Possibility	Affixes on verbs	63 of 234
The Prohibitive	Special imperative + special negative	146 of 496
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking	Overlap for either possibility or necessity	66 of 207
Epistemic Possibility	Affixes on verbs	84 of 240
Imperative-Hortative Systems	The language has a maximal system, but not a minimal one	133 of 375
The Perfect	Other perfect	80 of 222
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
Coding of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
The Future Tense	Inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction	110 of 222
The Morphological Imperative	Second singular and second plural	292 of 548
Perfective/Imperfective Aspect	No grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction	121 of 222
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect	No suppletion in tense or aspect	123 of 193
Verbal Number and Suppletion	No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples	159 of 193
The Optative	Inflectional optative absent	271 of 319

Word order 10

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Position of Polar Question Particles	Question particle at beginning of sentence	129 of 884
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase	Prepositions	511 of 1,184
Order of Demonstrative and Noun	Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem)	562 of 1,225
Order of Object and Verb	Object follows verb (VO)	705 of 1,518
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral follows noun (NNum)	608 of 1,154
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause	Initial subordinator word	398 of 659
Order of Adjective and Noun	Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj)	879 of 1,367
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions	Interrogative phrases not obligatorily initial	615 of 902
Order of Relative Clause and Noun	Relative clause follows noun (NRel)	579 of 824
Order of Subject and Verb	Subject precedes verb (SV)	1,192 of 1,496

Simple clauses 25

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Comparative Constructions	Exceed Comparative	33 of 167
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'	Double-object construction	84 of 378
Predicative Possession	Conjunctional Possessive	59 of 240
Order of Person Markers on the Verb	A precedes P	96 of 379
Predicative Adjectives	Predicative adjectives have mixed encoding	103 of 386
Applicative Constructions	Benefactive and other; both bases	49 of 183
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	In other grammatical categories: Subtype A/Cat	82 of 297
Nominal and Locational Predication	Identical	117 of 386
Negative Morphemes	Negative affix	395 of 1,157
Passive Constructions	There is a passive construction	162 of 373
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy	130 of 297
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Neutral	79 of 172
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking	No zero realization of third person S forms	181 of 380
Verbal Person Marking	Person marking of both the A and P arguments	193 of 378
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Neutral	98 of 190
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals	Zero copula is impossible	211 of 386
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking	Accusative alignment	212 of 380
Reciprocal Constructions	Distinct from reflexive	99 of 175
Periphrastic Causative Constructions	Purposive type but no sequential type	68 of 118
Polar Questions	Question particle	585 of 955
Expression of Pronominal Subjects	Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs	437 of 711
Antipassive Constructions	No antipassive	146 of 194
Productivity of the Antipassive Construction	no antipassive	146 of 186
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions	Morphological type but no compound type	254 of 310
Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation	Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation	170 of 206

Complex sentences 2

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Relativization on Subjects	Gap	125 of 166
Utterance Complement Clauses	Balanced	114 of 143

Vocabulary 8

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
M in First Person Singular	m in first person singular	53 of 230
Hand and Arm	Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm'	228 of 617
Tea	Words derived from Sinitic cha	110 of 230
Numeral Bases	Decimal	125 of 196
M in Second Person Singular	No m in second person singular	152 of 230
N-M Pronouns	No N-M pronouns	194 of 230
M-T Pronouns	No M-T pronouns	200 of 230
Finger and Hand	Different	521 of 593

Other 1

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks	Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings	71 of 143