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The 'Shambaa' (also called the Sambaa, Shambala, Sambala, or Sambara) are an ethnic and linguistic group based in the Usambara Mountains of northeastern Tanzania. In 2001 the Shambaa population was estimated to number 664,000 [1].
''Kishambaa'' is the Sambaa word for the language Shambala language, ''Wasambaa'' are the people (''Msambaa'' for a person), and ''Usambaa'' or ''Usambara'' is used for Sambaa lands. The Shambaa call their lands ''Shambalai''.
The language is mutually intelligible with Bondei and Zigua, with the three groups sharing significant overlap in territory and a long history of intermarriage. The similarity between them has prompted some to refer to themselves as "Boshazi" (the first syllable from each of the three groups).
Sambaa is one of the coastal Bantu languages that was combined with Arabic to form the Swahili language (''Swahili'' سواحلي itself being an Arabic word meaning "coastal language"). For this reason Sambaa and Swahili share many words and some grammitcal similarites, though Swahili is not mutually intelligible with Sambaa.
The Usambara area was the early colonial headquarters for German East Africa. Tanganyika, the name for the German colony, and later for the republic and eventually for the mainland portion of Tanzania is itself from Sambaa: ''Tanga'' means farmed land, and ''nyika'' is brushy land.