The Kamusi Project
User Profile
The Kamusi Project receives about 60,000 visitors a month to the website of the Internet Living Swahili Dictionary, who conduct about one million lookups each month. Users arrive from virtually every country in the world, including substantial numbers from Africa. In addition, many people visit the site once but use it often, by downloading our content for free for offline use. African usership is expected to increase rapidly during the next few years as internet access on the continent is improved and as the Kamusi Project rolls out new mobile access features and new dictionaries and terminologies for languages around the continent.
Visitors to the Kamusi Project in the past 24 hours
When the project began in 1994, it was conceived primarily as a tool for university students in the United States studying Swahili. While they remain an important audience (with notable traffic spikes around exam time), analysis of our discussion forums and anonymous user logs reveals that we now serve a much wider range of users:
| Who? | Why? |
| University students studying Swahili (Europe, Americas, Australasia, non-Swahili Africa) | Learning vocabulary and grammatical structure, writing, reading literature |
| African students at US or European universities | Help with general studies and daily interactions |
| Students at African universities | Understanding coursework and texts in English |
| UN, World Bank, and other multilaterals | Official document and meeting translations |
| Non-governmental organizations | Providing field services, translating documents |
| Zoos, museums, botanical gardens | Interpretive displays, research, naming |
| Hospitals, health insurers, health agencies | Patient interaction, disease monitoring and prevention |
| Elementary and secondary schools in Africa | English learning and Swahili studies |
| Elementary and secondary schools out of Africa | Introducing global awareness |
| Software manufacturers | Localizing software for African markets |
| Computer and mobile phone producers | Building products for African markets |
| Law firms, police, justice agencies | Legal cases (prosecution and defense), prisoner communications |
| African government agencies | Communicating with the public |
| European and US government agencies | Social and emergency services for immigrants, diplomatic and security communication |
| Shipping companies | Cargo and packages going to, from, or through Africa |
| Multinational firms | Selling to, buying from, or investing in Africa |
| African firms | Contacting overseas markets, sourcing foreign supplies |
| Name seekers | Naming a business, boat, pet, child, etc. |
| Pen-pals and the lovelorn | Reading and writing letters |
| The curious | Come across Swahili in a film or reading |
| African office workers | Correspondence, using localized software |
| African readers and internet users | Reading Swahili and foreign books and websites |
| Journalists (print, radio, TV, bloggers) | Interviews, transcriptions, source documents |
| Translators | Technical terms and nuance |
| Scholars | Linguistics, literature, field research |
| The regulars | Bilinguals or Swahili speakers who habitually look up words |
English
Swahili
