Nyamwezi

Nyamwezi, or Kinyamwezi, is a major Bantu language of west-central Tanzania, spoken across the plateau region called Unyamwezi, around Tabora and Singida. It forms a dialect continuum with Sukuma, its close northern neighbour. The name is Swahili, meaning people of the moon or people of the west, and covers five related groups.

Nyamwezi oral tradition places their arrival on the plateau in the 1600s, where they lived in small chiefdoms and turned from farming and fishing to long-distance caravan trade. By 1800 their caravans carried Katanga copper, ivory, wax and salt to the Swahili coast, and by 1825 Arab and Indian merchants had followed the trade routes inland to Unyamwezi.