You Could Be Speaking Swahili for All I Know
This is our total guide to Swahili (aka Kiswahili), including every essential fact yous want to know.
When thinking about learning a linguistic communication, one of the first things we practise is learn about the language.
For Swahili, this meant learning some basic facts similar
- Where is Swahili spoken?
- How many people speak Swahili?
- What are the major grammatical features of Swahili? E.one thousand. conjugation, grammatical gender, cases, and and then on.
- How is Swahili pronounced?
- Is Swahili hard for English speakers?
- Can Swahili exist a unifying African langauge?
And a few other things.
Below is a full general introduction to Swahili with some high-level answers of these questions.
Basic facts about Swahili
Swahili is one of the most spoken languages in Africa. According to varying sources, there are upward to 100 million speakers — but interestingly, very few of these (equally few as five million) are native speakers.
Instead, Swahili is a lingua franca, used in advice spanning indigenous and geographic communities. Swahili is the second-largest commonly spoken language in the continent, afterward Arabic.
Though the name Swahili comes from Arabic, meaning "of the coast", information technology refers to both the people and the linguistic communication. The proper noun comes from the Arabic give-and-take sawaahili (سواحلي), which means "of the coasts", which y'all would use to refer to coastal people.
When y'all add the ki– prefix to the word to form Kiswahili, it changes the meaning to "language of the coastal people". Kiswahili is what we call the language when speaking Swahili.
The correct name for the Swahili/Kiswahili
And then, what's the correct proper noun — Kiswahili or Swahili? We choose to apply "Swahili". We don't want to get stuck in semantics, but essentially — Swahili is what it's normally called in English, just like "Français" is chosen "French" in English.
While "Swahili" can refer to the people, the civilisation, and the language, it is the usually accepted way of referring to the language when speaking (or writing) English language.
When speaking the language, the linguistic communication is called Kiswahili. The prefix "ki" refers to a language with whatever linguistic communication. For example, the Swahili name for the English language language isKiingereza.
Past contrast, the people are referred to equally watu waswahili, and the culture is uswahili.
Traditionally, English language news sources have referred to the linguistic communication with the word Swahili. But at least recently, English language-language papers in African countries accept been using the discussion "Kiswahili" (for example hither, here and here). So the trend may change.
Where is Swahili spoken?
The simple answer is that Swahili is spoken very well in Tanzania and quite well in Kenya.
Swahili is also occasionally spoken well (and more often spoken somewhat well) in a few other regions and countries including Uganda, Rwanda, Republic of malaŵi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, Northern Republic of zambia and Mozambique.
If y'all are learning Swahili for travel or work in a region, and then information technology would be mostly relevant for Tanzania and Republic of kenya, and not so much for other places where it's spoken, where it will be more of a curiosity that you speak it to well-nigh people you meet.
See our full guide for the all-time place to acquire Swahili. Generally we'd recommend Tanzania, and in Tanzania, we'd recommend Zanzibar.
History of the Swahili linguistic communication
Swahili is originally an African language of Bantu origin.
"Bantu" refers to people who speak Bantu languages. This is a huge language grouping, comprising between 440 and 680 languages (depending on definitions) and with 350 million speakers, about 30% of the population of Africa.
Other major Bantu languages are Zulu (27M speakers), Shona (~14M speakers) and Xhosa (20M speakers). The map of countries covered by Bantu languages is quite huge —information technology's basically well-nigh of sub-Saharan Africa.
Languages in the Bantu family unit are mostly non mutually intelligible (see this thread on Quora with people discussing the question). But they have related components and structures, only like European or Romance languages do.
For example, all Bantu languages (including Swahili) share the concept of suffixes to denominate class, somewhat like grammatical gender in European languages. And when hearing bones numbers and nouns in a new Bantu language, you lot're more than probable to come up across similar words (than if you were studying a completely foreign language).
How Swahili spread inland
Swahili was born in Zanzibar, grew up in Tanzania, fell sick in Kenya, died in Uganda, and was buried in Congo.
Common proverb
If you're interested in learning Swahili — head to Zanzibar! But if you lot have other constraints, we wrote a whole article on the all-time places to learn Swahili here.
As the Arabic etymology of the name implies, Swahili was originally a coastal language, but now has spread to the hinterlands of East Africa.
The origins are a petty mixed, but a combination of trade, the impact of missionaries, internal migration and government rulings saw Swahili spread inland from the declension.
Swahili's roots are in Zanzibar, a little strip of Africa's eastern coastline. In Zanzibar they're very proud of the way they speak Swahili, saying that they speak information technology 'correctly' or 'purely' (according to Daniel Gross in a podcast on PRI, "How the Swahili language took hold across Africa"). This is singled-out from speaking 'standard' Swahili, spoken elsewhere in Tanzania and in neighbouring countries.
In the belatedly 19th century, German missionaries under the and then Kaiser used Swahili as a linguistic communication to utilize to preach the gospel to locals in the north. At the time it was written using Arabic messages. It was the Germans who moved it from Arabic script to Roman script, creating the showtime lexicon and translating the Bible in the process.
After World War I, Germany lost near of its overseas territories, including the region that straddled today's Tanzania and Kenya. The newly installed British wanted a common language across its new territories and picked Swahili. They decided to structure and standardise it, picking i dialect as the baseline — Kiunguja the dialect spoken by the Unguja people in Zanzibar, which is part of Tanzania.
How Swahili grew in Tanzania
From 1930 onward Swahili expanded in Tanzania, becoming the official language of the colonial government, and was used for all formal communication in schools, mass media and books.
In Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, head of state of Tanzania (and its preceding regions) from an incredible 1961 to 1985 and former anti-colonial activist, had a large role in promoting Swahili as a national language. He was well-schooled in both, and in fact, had published a translation of Shakespeare'south Julius Caesar in Swahili. He promoted Swahili every bit a national language, recognising its unifying power.
Today, in Tanzania, Swahili is spoken in the domicile, in regime, and is used on street and shop signs. The influence of Swahili has been so great that younger generations are more probable to be fluent in Swahili than in their mother tongues.
Swahili is to be the merely linguistic communication used in schools in the future in Tanzania, a motility which has attracted as much praise equally it has criticism.
How Swahili grew in Kenya
In Kenya and in Republic of uganda, Swahili is widely spoken. Only the official linguistic communication used in both countries in government and legal proceedings, plus the language on signs and shopfronts, is English.
Swahili in other countries never had the political backing that it had in Tanzania. Some eighty per cent of Kenyans use Swahili in 24-hour interval-to-day life, but they mix it with English and local languages in a mix known as Sheng. Yous nonetheless can't assume that any employee or official speaks Swahili fluently plenty to express circuitous thoughts, like written report on a news particular.
Swahili is still of import enough in Republic of kenya that long-term businesspeople and dignitaries learn it upon arrival. While this is condign more mutual, it'due south still surprising to locals when someone of non-African origin speaks Swahili — notable plenty to be called out in the news.
Swahili is a compulsory subject from primary school, even in international schools, but this doesn't mean that people will feel comfortable communicating in it.
Who speaks Swahili, to what degree and to whom depends largely on individual context. Co-ordinate to an commodity in The Due east African:
In Kenya, Sheng, the often-maligned working linguistic communication of Kenya'southward youth that has its origin in Nairobi'southward Eastlands, is ofttimes blamed for the poor mastery of Kiswahili among Kenyan students.
It is besides interesting to note how Kiswahili demarcates sharp divisions in socio-economical status, and one tin can tell which side of the split a person falls in by the language others utilize to address them.
Heart and upper heart course children in Kenya, for example, are socialised to speak Kiswahili specifically to domestic workers, drivers and gardeners included — the so-chosen ordinary wananchi, and are less likely to speak the language among themselves.
Kiswahili'south future lies in borrowing from English
Swahili in Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and elsewhere
Swahili is widely spoken in Congo besides, though this version varies quite dramatically from the i spoken in Tanzania and Kenya. In fact, some speakers have commented that they find it unintelligible.
Swahili remains secondary after French and Lingalese but is still spoken past one-half the population. That said, the local version of Swahili in Congo is heavily influenced by Lingalese and French vocabulary.
In Republic of uganda, Swahili is in 3rd place, despite being one of the two official languages, forth with English language. The almost widely spoken local language in Republic of uganda is Luganda.
Luganda is the language of the biggest ethnic group in central Uganda. It works as a language of inter-indigenous advice, of wider communication and as a lingua franca. Luganda in Uganda is used everywhere: educational activity, in the media, urban hip-hop, trading and in church.
In 2005, after the Ugandan government identified a need to adopt an African official language, Swahili and Luganda were the two front-running options. While Luganda is more widely spoken, its clan with an ethnic group ruled information technology out; it excludes people outside the ethnic group.
Swahili is less politically contentious in Uganda and therefore was more widely well-received, even though it's spoken by far fewer people. So the authorities picked Swahili.
The main group of people in Republic of uganda that speak Swahili is the military. But even within that group, aside from those who invested time into studying it, virtually members of the military aren't more often than not considered to speak it "well" by the standards of Kenyans, let lone Tanzanians.
Iddi Amin, the military dictator who ruled Uganda in the seventies, was the first proponent of Swahili as a national linguistic communication, though his proposal was never taken seriously.
Swahili is also spoken in Rwanda, though not every bit widely as in Kenya and Tanzania. This may brainstorm to alter. In 2017, Rwanda moved to adopt Swahili as its 4th official language, alongside Kinyarwanda, the national language, and with French and English, which are used in official communication.
Swahili is also spoken by smaller numbers in Republic of burundi, Northern Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.
Languages related to Swahili
The construction of Swahili is undeniably Bantu, a lot of the vocabulary has been borrowed from English language, Arabic and Persian.
The influence of Standard arabic, Farsi and even Portuguese on Swahili
Arab and Persian cultures had a bully influence on Swahili culture and language. For a basic example, wait at the numbers.
See here for an analysis of the affect of Arabic on Swahili.
In Swahili numbers, the wordsmoja (i),mbili (two),tatu (iii),nne (four),tano (five),nane (eight) andkumi (ten) are of Bantu origin. On the other handsita (six),saba (seven) andtisa (nine) are of Standard arabic origin.
Beyond numbers, further evidence of Persian influence is in the Swahili words chai (tea),achari (pickle),serikali (government),diwani (councilor),sheha (village councilor) are borrowed from old Persian through connection with merchants.
Swahili also absorbed words from the Portuguese who controlled the Swahili coastal towns from the 16th to 18th centuries. Some of the words that Swahili absorbed from the Portuguese include leso (handkerchief), meza (table), gereza (prison house) and pesa ('peso', money).
Swahili also borrowed some words from languages of the afterward colonial powers on the East African declension, including English language and German.
Swahili words of English origin
Other than Arabic and Western farsi, Swahili has been influenced and taken some words from English, for instance:
- polisi, police force
- boksi, box
- hoteli, hotel
- televisheni, television
- baiskeli, bike
- hospitali, hospital
- soksi, socks
- picha, film
- muziki, music
- redio, radio
The word safari means "journey" in Swahili. In English information technology has taken on the meaning y'all and I are familiar with: an expedition to discover, hunt animals in their natural habitats eastward.g. National Parks.
Swahili Grammar
Overall, Swahili has a fairly uncomplicated grammatical structure.
A few things that brand Swahili grammer easy are
- At that place is no grammatical gender (though the noun course system can be considered one)
- In that location are no instance endings (unlike e.g. Russian, German, or MSA)
- Conjugation is pretty straightforward with few irregular verbs
The things that make Swahili grammer a little hard for english speakers are
- Conjugation. English speakers aren't used to the idea of conjugating verbs (there are and then few conjugations that virtually of u.s. do it subconsciously). So introducing ideas like subjunctives is hard for many English monoglots.
- The substantive class organisation.
The noun class organisation is a somewhat diabolical concept for not-Bantu speakers. It is like having x-20 grammatical genders. The "class" of each noun dictates how it behaves with the words around information technology.
See here for an overview of the noun class organization in Swahili. You can larn it, but information technology is an unfamiliar concept to many language learners.
The Swahili alphabet
The Swahili alphabet is mostly the same every bit the 1 used in English, afterward romanization by German missionaries. Here's the Swahili alphabet and how to pronounce it.
Letter of the alphabet Pronunciation in Swahili
- Aa: a as in far
- Bb: be equally in all-time
- Cc: ch equally in church
- Dd: de as in desk
- Ee: e as in bed
- Ff: ef as in far
- Gg: ge as in go
- Hh: h equally in hint
- Ii: ee as in feel
- Jj: je every bit in jelly
- Kk: ka equally in cup
- Ll: le as in allow
- Mm: em as in men
- Nn: en as in internet
- Oo: o as in ox
- Pp: pe as in pen
- Rr: re every bit in rep
- Ss: se as in ready
- Tt: te as in take
- Uu: oo as in cool
- Vv: ve as in vet
- Ww: we every bit in went
- Yy: ye as in yet
- Zz: ze as in zoo
Standard Swahili has five vowels: a, due east, i, o and u. These vowels are ever pronounced the same, regardless of stress (run across the examples higher up).
Missing letters: Y'all might have noticed that there is no Q and X in the Swahili alphabet.
Consonant combination
If Swahili were written in its own script, these would be private letters. Combined consonants are e'er pronounced in the same way. Nonetheless, as information technology stands, these are not considered as separate letters of the alphabet:
- CH as in the word chai, tea
- DH as in the word dhahabu, gold, and like to the 'th' sound in 'this', but not in 'call up'
- GH equally in the give-and-take ghala, warehouse
- KH is by and large used in Arabic words, for example kheri, luck, and is similar to the 'ch' sound in the Scottish word 'loch'
- NG' as in the give-and-take ng'ombe, cow
- NG as in ngapi, pregnant how much
- NY as in Kenya
- SH as in shamba, farm
- Th equally in thamani, worth, like to the 'th' sound in 'think'.
Email and website conventions
When giving an email or website address the conventions are:
- @ kwa, at
- . nukta, dot
- / mkwaju, slash
- – kuunga, hyphen
For case, you can contact united states of america at "hello kwa discoverdiscomfort nukta com".
Swahili phrases
Information technology's useful to have a few phrases in the back of your pocket. At that place is more of this to come up, and we've covered a few more than in our Swahili report plan.
After learning Swahili, we had a good think about what the most important Swahili phrases would exist, and we put them downward in this primary article here.
- Hello/hi: Habari. (See our whole article on saying Hi in Swahili — it ain't piece of cake!)
- Bye/bye: Kwaheri
- Please: Tafadhali
- Thank you: Asante
- Yep: Ndio
- No: Hapana
- How are you: Hujambo?
- I'm fine, give thanks you: Sijambo, asante
- I'm not well: Sijisikii vizuri
- Do you speak English?: Unaazungumza Kiingereza?
- Pleased to meet y'all: Nimefurahi kukufahamu
- I need help, please: Ninahitaji msaada, tafadhali
- I'm distressing: Samahani
- My name is: Jina langu ni…
- I don't empathize: Sielewi
- Run into you later!: Baadae!
- Great!: Nzuri!
- Congratulations! Hongera!
Is Swahili hard for English speakers?
Overall, I would rate Swahili being roughly as difficult as Spanish for native English speakers. In other words, easier than most languages — but of course, in that location are no easy languages.
The hardest things about Swahili for English speakers are
- Verb conjugation — verbs alter on person, number, and tense
- Noun classes — like having many grammatical genders
- The lack of homophones — every word is new
The thing that makes Swahili quite like shooting fish in a barrel is that considering it's a lingua franca for most speakers, Swahili speakers are quite forgiving. In our feel, people didn't correct us — unless they were our teachers (or we were request them to).
This relaxed arroyo of Swahili speakers contrasts with for example speaking German or French, where some native speakers find it difficult to speak to non-fluent speakers and switch to English, which they frequently speak quite well.
Swahili is non merely easy to pronounce, it's very easy on the ear. Like Italian, Swahili is rich in vowel sounds. For example, "for case, I don't know what to say hither" is "kwa mfano, sijui kusema nini hapa". Every discussion in that sentence ends in a vowel!
Tin can Swahili be a unifying African linguistic communication?
Swahili is already mostly a lingua franca, rather than a linguistic communication indigenous to i ethnic group. Then some proponents of the linguistic communication want it to be an African language rather than ane for only a few countries and regions.
Swahili is already a compulsory subject in schools in many countries, and an optional one in others (such as South Africa).
According to The E African though, for people to adopt Swahili beyond Africa, people need to be less "jittery" about local slang and variances.
Textbook Swahili, and much less the purest Zanzibari grade, is not the version that has regional relevance today — it is street Swahili, spoken in East Africa'southward commercial centres, that used in the arts such as music, and that spoken in the various refugee camps spread across the region that binds the region together. The essence of a lingua franca is its ability to survive a stripping downwardly of vocabulary, and its receptiveness to external influences. For a language to survive the times, it must exist adjustable.
In 2004, the and then-president of the African Union gave his good day address the Marriage in Swahili. He surprised the audience, and fifty-fifty the conference organisers, who had to scramble to find live translators. He did it to urge Africans to prefer a national linguistic communication, proposing Swahili.
Different sources say different things virtually whether Swahili is an official language of the African Union or not — Wikipedia says it isn't considering information technology wasn't ratified by two-thirds of member states, but various articles advise it is.
The affair is, becoming a lingua franca means overcoming some pretty pregnant hurdles. It would mean people would put regional pride ahead of the economic interest of making English a lingua franca (which is itself fraught with some of the same issues), especially in the countries where it would readapt English.
Accepting a lingua franca would imply accepting that many local languages will die away over time, something many are not willing to take. It would mean accepting the language of ane region above that of many others. Finally, it would mean overcoming a lot of prejudices associated with Swahili in regions, like associations with it existence a lower-class language, or one spoken by the armed forces.
One thing nosotros're sure of is that of all African languages, Swahili has come up the closest to being a lingua franca, and that it is invaluable for travelling to Tanzania and Kenya.
Source: https://discoverdiscomfort.com/kiswahili-swahili-complete-guide/
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