Swahili, or Kiswahili, is spoken by over 50 million people in East Africa, mainly in Tanzania and Kenya. In both countries the official languages are Swahili and English, but Swahili is only the first language for people on the coast. There are over a hundred other languages spoken in Tanzania, so most people speak one of these languages at home and Swahili is a second language. Swahili is part of the group of Bantu languages, which includes a large number of languages spoken in Southern, Central, and East Africa. These share the same basic grammatical structure as well as a lot of related vocabulary, so if you already speak Luganda, Kikongo, or Zulu then the way Swahili works should seem quite familiar.
Like English, Swahili is not afraid to borrow words from
other languages and make them its own. This goes back to days when the Swahili
Coast was a centre of Indian Ocean trade and travellers from India, Persia, and
the Arabia followed the monsoon winds to its shores. In classical Swahili poetry as much as 50% of
the vocabulary derives from Arabic and other Indian Ocean languages, while in
everyday spoken language around a quarter of words you will hear have their
origins in a foreign language, usually either Arabic or English.
Arabic
If you already know a bit of Arabic, you have a head start
in learning Swahili. Arab traders first landed on the coast of East Africa more
than a thousand years ago, bringing their language and religion with them. Even the word “Swahili” comes from Arabic: sawaahil means coasts, so a sawaahili is a person from the coast. The
majority of foreign words adopted into the language were originally Arabic,
particularly words relating to sailing, commerce, religion (Islam), education,
and urban living.
Examples of these include kitabu (book), kalamu
(pen), dau (dhow, sailing boat), raia (citizen), safari (journey), rafiki
(friend), and kamusi (dictionary).
Often, the reason that a verb or noun behaves differently
grammatically is because it comes from Arabic.
All Swahili verbs, for example, end in the letter ‘a’. When you come
across a verb that ends in ‘u’ (-fahamu,
to understand) it almost certainly has an Arabic origin.
European languages
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach the Swahili
Coast, where they built colonial settlements in the 16th and 17th
centuries. They also left a few words behind them, including meza (table), bendera (flag), leso
(handkerchief, piece of material), pesa
(money, from ‘peso’), and karata
(playing cards).
From the mid-19th century the British explored and later colonised East Africa. Many words for clothing, technology, and institutions come from English, such as soksi (socks), tai (tie), baisikeli (bicycle), treni (train), daktari (doctor), hoteli (hotel), dereva (driver). The word for ‘school’ can be skuli, from English (more commonly used in Kenya), or shule, from German.
Swahili in Tanzania
Most children in Tanzania speak their tribal language (and often Swahili as well) at home, and then become more fluent in Swahili when they start school. Unlike Kenya, where lessons are taught in English from the first year of school onwards, in Tanzania primary schools teach in Swahili. This is one of the main reasons why English is so much more widely spoken in Kenya. In Tanzania secondary education is in English - but this does not mean that all secondary school pupils have a good understanding of the language.
While many Tanzanians speak excellent English, particularly in larger towns, learning some Swahili gives you the opportunity to meet many more people, and everyone will appreciate it - even if you only learn a few polite greetings.
From the mid-19th century the British explored and later colonised East Africa. Many words for clothing, technology, and institutions come from English, such as soksi (socks), tai (tie), baisikeli (bicycle), treni (train), daktari (doctor), hoteli (hotel), dereva (driver). The word for ‘school’ can be skuli, from English (more commonly used in Kenya), or shule, from German.
Swahili in Tanzania
Most children in Tanzania speak their tribal language (and often Swahili as well) at home, and then become more fluent in Swahili when they start school. Unlike Kenya, where lessons are taught in English from the first year of school onwards, in Tanzania primary schools teach in Swahili. This is one of the main reasons why English is so much more widely spoken in Kenya. In Tanzania secondary education is in English - but this does not mean that all secondary school pupils have a good understanding of the language.
While many Tanzanians speak excellent English, particularly in larger towns, learning some Swahili gives you the opportunity to meet many more people, and everyone will appreciate it - even if you only learn a few polite greetings.
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