Comorian languages

Common card · No. 255427

Comorian (Shikomori, or Shimasiwa, the "language of islands") is a group of four Bantu languages spoken in the Comoros Islands, an archipelago in the southwestern Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar. It is one of the official languages of the Union of the Comoros in the Comorian constitution. One of them, Shimaore, is spoken on the disputed island of Mayotte, a French department claimed by Comoros. Like Swahili, the Comorian languages are Sabaki languages, in the Bantu language family. Each island has its own language, and the four are conventionally divided into two groups: the eastern group is composed of Shindzuani (spoken on Ndzuani) and Shimaore (Mayotte), while the western group is composed of Shimwali (Mwali) and Shingazija (Ngazidja). Although the languages of different groups are not usually mutually intelligible, only sharing about 80% of their lexicon, there is mutual intelligibility between the languages within each group, suggesting that Shikomori could be considered...

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