AHC: Swahili an international language

With any POD before 1900, have Swahili be an important international language of commerce and culture outside of Africa.
 

Delvestius

Banned
Just given it's nature and history it would be pretty difficult... Swahili is a trade language created between Arabic and local languages, and still today most speakers prefer their tribe's languages or English over Swahili. It's almost used as a Hindi in the sense that some countries (especially Kenya and Tanzania) wanted a national language that all tribes could use to communicate, but it has fallen into disfavor ever since English came to the area. Most speakers that don't speak it as their primary tongue (primary speakers number about 5 million) look at the language with some levels of disdain.... Given it's relatively low importance besides the history of Arab trade, I don't see any obvious way it can become any more influential than as it is now.
 
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