Editing Comorian languages (section)

=== Shingazija ===
Shingazija was not documented until 1869 when Bishop Edward Steere collected a word list and commented that he did not know which language family it belonged to. In 1870 Gevrey characterized both Shingazija and Shinzwani as the 'Souaheli des Comores' (Swahili of the Comoros) which was only a 'patois de celui de Zanzibar'. However, Kersten noted in 1871 that Shingazija was not at all like Swahili but was a separate Bantu language.

Torrend was the first to identify the difference between Shingazija and Shinzwani in 1891. He attempted to account for Shingazija by suggesting that it was a mixture of Shinzwani and Swahili.<ref name=":1" />