Bravanese, also called Chimwiini (ChiMwini, Mwiini, Mwini) or Chimbalazi,[3] is a related to Swahili spoken by the Bravanese people, who are the predominant inhabitants of Barawa or Brava, in Somalia.[4] Maho (2009) considers it a distinct dialect, and it has been classified as a Northern Dialect of Swahili.[5] However, it strongly distinguishes itself from standard Swahili under all linguistic considerations.[6]
Bravanese may have once served as a regional lingua franca due to the key coastal location of Barawa. One piece of linguistic evidence for this comes from morphological reduction. For example, it has a three-way tense system, which is simpler than that of neighboring Bantu dialects historically spoken in Somalia.[5]
