This area of the site is devoted to the documentation of the four dialects of the Comoro Islands: Ngazija, Nzwani, Moheli and Maore, often cited in the literature with their prefixes and alternate spellings, such as Shingazidja, Shimaore, and so on.

For a long time these languages have been mistakenly regarded as  dialects of Swahili.  It is unclear what the origin of this misconception is, but it has been persistent.  Most present day linguists, using modern methods of classification, argue that while Comorian is closely related to the languages of the Swahili continuum and whose speakers share many  Swahili cultural motifs and practices, Comorian is not a dialect of Swahili, but rather a sister language to Swahili.  More discussion of this relationship will be found in the Profile.  Individual pages will be reserved for specific information and documentation for each of the dialects. This can be accessed in the drop-down menu for this page.

   Profile

   Documentation

   Status

   Bibliography

   Links