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http://orvillejenkins.com/profiles/arablang.html

Language Profile
Arabic in East Africa

F or centuries the ruler of the East African coast — the whole area called Uswahili — was the Sultan of Oman. Mombasa and Zanzibar rebelled at times, and at one time so did Lamu. But ultimately the whole area was held together, but under the breakaway Sultan of Zanzibar. He and his people were Omanis that rebelled against the home rulers. Just like the USA British who broke away from the home country because of internal differences, but then developed strong fraternal relations later.

Omani and Yemeni
Thus Omani Arabic is the primary linguistic influence in Arabic in East Africa. Most Swahili forms borrowed from Arabic where different from Standard Arabic or the more popular but non-standard Egyptian Arabic (like “gamel” instead of “camel”), can be traced to Yemeni-Omani forms. As I, a non-speaker understand it, there is not a great difference between the Yemeni and Omani language forms. Omani is the foundational Arabic language form.

Earlier Arab traders who settled on the East African coast settled down and learned the local Bantu language, married local women, introduced Islam and thus much Arab culture and vocabulary.

The Swahili language and culture grew up this way. The Arabs may have maintained their Arabic, but also spoke Swahili, the form of Bantu language common on the coast. Arabic was a minority language.

East African (Zanzibari and Tanzanian) Arabic should likely be classified as a dialect of Omani Arabic. But there aren’t many left who speak it. Here is where some confusion comes in. The Arabian Arabs, as opposed to the Kenya or East African Arabs, are Yemeni.

I do not know of any recent Omani immigrants or workers in Kenya, though that does not mean there aren’t any. I have not actually lived on the coast, so my contacts are indirect, meeting people through others who live there. Coastal non-citizen Arabs I know of are Yemeni origin.

I have met some Arabs in Nairobi, and they all come from Yemen. They are Yemenis in Kenya on work permits. They serve as sheikhs, imams and teachers in schools, and businessmen. They learn Swahili to communicate with the local people, both African and Arab.

Coastal Kenyan Arabs
Coastal Kenyan Arabs I have met are business people, and they do not speak Arabic, but Swahili. They learn Arabic as a formal language but do not use it at home, that I am aware of. However, it seems their ties outside Kenya are in Yemen.

I know some have gone there for various business. Some have studied outside in Arabic countries, but I cannot say if that would be in Yemen or more developed areas like Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

There are other Yemeni Arabs in business on the coast who do speak Arabic and do maintain contact with Yemen, but not Oman, as far as I know. (But it takes only one negative example to prove any such observation wrong.)

The 1989 Kenya census shows 7,881 “Other Arabs.” Kenya Arabs are shown as 33,71 4, with 40,456 my projection for 1996.

It is my impression that in general, East African coastal Arabs do not speak Arabic as a native language...