The Swoswo people, a branch of Mondi tribe, dominated the Ghana Kingdom in the end of the 19th century. As they became more powerful, Swoswo expanded the kingdom to cover the city of Adagasht, the renowned commercial center that brought together the caravans of the western and northern parts of Africa in those days. The kingdom became the most powerful in the whole western Sudan as it extended to the shores of the River Niger and the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

In the middle of the 11th century when the Murabituns took over the kingdom, the Swoswo people embraced Islam in their entirety as did the neighboring tribes. Effected by the North African culture, the Swoswo language borrowed tones of words and later adopted its script.