The Kamusi Project is a collaborative work by people all over the world. Together we are working to establish new dictionaries and learning resources for the Swahili language - Kiswahili - both within Swahili and between Swahili and English. Swahili is the most widely spoken African language, with as many as 100 million speakers in East and Central Africa. Swahili is a national language of Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, and it is an official language of the African Union.

We suggest that first-time visitors to the Kamusi Project take a few minutes to read through our page of Frequently Asked Questions.

We invite you to become a contributing editor - help refine our lexicon by using our unique Edit Engine, Grouping Tool, and Photo Uploader. Your contributions will be incorporated in the dictionary, and you will be acknowledged on the Participants page, as soon as they are reviewed by the project editor.

The Kamusi Project is independently managed under the auspices of the World Language Documentation Centre, a non-profit organization registered in the United Kingdom. The project was transferred to WLDC oversight in October 2007, after over twelve years at the Yale University Council on African Studies and the Yale Program in African Languages. We are deeply appreciative of Yale for the many contributions the university made to the creation and development of the project. We have received support for online curriculum and dictionary development from the United States Department of Education, and have also received support from the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning. We also wish to thank the Negaunee Foundation for several generous grants.

You can also support the Kamusi Project by visiting our advertisers, purchasing books, movies, and music from the Swahili Bookstore, and buying Kamusi Project gear from CafePress.

• Online Dictionaries are available for you to search, browse, and download.
• The Kamusi Parser: you can now look up any conjugated Swahili verb in the dictionary search box and we will analyze and interpret the verb automatically.
• The Edit Engine enables you to contribute to ongoing development of the dictionaries, and the Grouping Tool allows you to help arrange the way dictionary results appear to the public.
• Use our Photo Uploader to contribute appropriate pictures to illustrate dictionary entries.
• The Internet Living Swahili Learning Center includes lessons and much more. We also maintain a page linking to Swahili books, dictionaries, and audiotapes.
• The Swahili Discussion Forum hosts ongoing conversations about Swahili and East Africa.
• Frequently Asked Questions about the project, movies, online translations, and more.We suggest that first-time visitors read through our page of Frequently Asked Questions before posting questions to the Discussion Forum.

For a more detailed explanation about Swahili Time and the Swahili Clock, please visit our Swahili Clock page

An extension is now available for Firefox web browsers that you can easily configure for direct Kamusi lookups from any page on the Internet.

The Kamusi Parser is built right into our dictionary search results. The parser enables you to look up any conjugated Swahili verb. We check the word according to every grammatical rule regarding the formation of Swahili verbs, and return a list of possible solutions to you. The parser still has a few minor known bugs,and we have not completed coding the rules for verb extensions.

Tux Paint in Swahili is a free drawing program for children.

We try to maintain all the latest free Swahili software on our server, including OpenOffice for Windows or Linux - please alert us to any new or updated software in Swahili.

You will also find a number of advertising links throughout the site. These ads provide crucial revenue for the project, so please visit our advertisers if their ads look interesting to you.

Every few months we send out a newsletter to our registered members. You can register here, and we promise that we will not spam you.

We provide much more frequent news flashes via twitter updates. You can join our twitter friends to share in the life of the Kamusi community. You can also subscribe to our RSS news feed if you would like to receive regular updates on your news aggregator

The next step for the Kamusi Project will be PALDO, the Pan African Living Dictionary Online. PALDO will be an interlinked dictionary of many African languages, built on the Kamusi Project platform. Please follow our newsletters and news flashes for further updates!

We receive a great variety of questions about our project, Swahili and other African languages, and many other topics. If your questions are not answered on this page, we encourage you to post them on the Swahili discussion forum, as we are often unable to answer direct queries.

Questions about the Project:

• What is the Kamusi Project?
• Who runs the Kamusi Project?
• How can I contribute to the Kamusi Project?
• Can I buy a printed copy of the Internet Living Swahili Dictionary?
• What is the history of the Kamusi Project?
• What is the Edit Engine and how do I use it?
• What is the Photo Uploader and how do I use it?
• What is the Grouping Tool and how do I use it?
• I am having trouble with the Discussion Forum. Can you help?
• Can I link to the Kamusi Project? How do I link to a specific page or dictionary entry? Can you add a link to my site?

Questions about Swahili and other African languages:

• What is Swahili?
• Why do some people say "Swahili" and others say "Kiswahili," and which term is correct? What does the "Ki" mean in "Kiswahili?" Why do some people write "Kiswahili" and some people write "KiSwahili" with a capital "S" in the middle of the word?
• Where is Swahili spoken?
• Can you translate a passage for me, or is there a "translation" site that can convert between Swahili and English?
• Can you recommend books or tapes for learning Swahili?
• Where can I take Swahili classes?
• How do I pronounce words in Swahili?
• What alphabet is used for Swahili?
• I am looking for a Swahili name -- what name should I choose?
• What is the meaning of the saying on my fabric from East Africa?
• Is this word or phrase Swahili, and what does it mean?
• Are there projects similar to the Kamusi Project for other African languages?
• Where can I find information about other African languages?

Other Questions:

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• What can you tell me about Mighty Joe Young?
• What can you tell me about Basenji dogs?