Muziki

Time for a music break.

1.  Mama Ntilie - Gelly, AT & Ray C

A mama ntilie is a woman who sells food at a street stall - the kind of place where working men might go for lunch. In reality these women seldom look like Ray C, but the dance moves of the small children and the odd guy in a tank top more than compensate for the lack of realism.  Some of the lyrics:

Usikae mbele, kuziba wenzako.  Unataka nyama? vipi pweza wako?
Don't sit at the front, blocking the others.  You want meat? How's your octopus?

2.  Tamaa Mbaya  - Twenty Percent

Twenty percent are probably my favourite bongo flava group. I recommend their film 'Furaha ipo wapi?' where there is an explanation for the name: "My parents named me 20%, because only God is 100%".  'Tamaa mbaya' means a bad wish or desire, and the song is a warning to a young girl still at school whose 'tamaa mbaya' is wanting to have a baby before she's finished her studies. The chorus goes:

Tuliza moyo wako, kubali mapungufu yako,

Calm your heart, accept your shortcomings
Rahisisha mahitaji yako, ongeza kipato chako

Meet your own needs, increase your income.

And the best line:

Mbuzi ni mbuzi, hawezi kuwa simba
A goat is a goat, it can't become a lion

3.  Bei Kali - Jose Chameleone

Chameleone comes from Uganda, and sings in Swahili, English and Luganda. Most of his songs are in Swahili, and he's very popular all over East Africa. I'm particularly fond of this one, which is the story of a poor young man who has a very demanding girlfriend and their adventures in three East African cities.  "Bei" means price, and "kali" is fierce, severe, or strict - in other words, something extremely expensive. I can't think of a translation that quite does "bei kali" justice though, so I'm going to leave it as it is.

Anapenada vitu vya bei kali
, kama hajui ati sina mali


Ananiomba vitu vya bei kali, 
Nikiwa sina yeye hanijali

She likes things that cost "bei kali", even though she knows I don't have any money

She asks me for "bei kali" things, and if I don't have them she stops caring for me.

Kutano la kwanza ilikuwa Mombasa,
Rohoni nilisikia nimempata sasa
Kumbe hata yeye alininoki pia
Jioni tukaenda pamoja out for a beer
Nilishanga alianza kuomba whisky
Ni vinyaji vya bei bila kuwa tipsy
Niliamua twende dance floor tucheze
Akakata ati hapendi nyimbo za Lingala!

Our first meeting was in Mombasa
I felt in my heart that she would be mine
She even came round to ask me out
In the evening we went out together for a beer
I was shocked when she started ordering whisky
And expensive drinks without getting tipsy
I decided to go to the dance floor and dance 
But she refused! She doesn't like songs in Lingala

His problems continue in the next verse when they go to Kampala and she demands to stay at the Sheraton, and then when they go out to a restaurant in Kigali and she refuses to eat ugali (he's had enough by this stage, and leaves her there).

I couldn't find a good video for this one, but here's the song:

If you like Chameleone, listen to 'Jamila', 'Valu Valu' and 'Kipepeo' as well.

4.  Jitolee - Mzungu Kichaa (with Professor Jay & Mwasiti)

Mzungu Kichaa ("crazy mzungu") is a Danish guy called Espen who has lived in Tanzania since he was fifteen; his Swahili is perfect, and he sounds as if he was born in Dar es Salaam. He's quite a big star in the Bongo Flava scene, and here he's singing with the wonderful Professor Jay.  The chorus goes:

Mikono juu!  Jitolee na usaidie
Ombi kwa binadamu upendo usipotee

Put your hands in the air! Get up and do something
Pray that love doesn't disappear

To be

The verb "to be" in Swahili is very simple, since it isn't actually a verb at all (in grammatical terms, it's called a copula).  The only word you need is ni:

Mimi ni daktari          I am a doctor
Yeye ni Mtanzania     He/She is Tanzanian
Wao ni wanafunzi      They are students

The negative form (am not, is not) is equally simple: si.

Wewe si mwalimu     You are not a teacher
Sisi si Waingereza      We are not English
Mimi si pweza            I am not an octopus

Because these don't change form, you need to use personal pronouns (I, you, he, she etc.) to specify who or what you're talking about.  These are:

Mimi      I
Wewe    You
Yeye      He / She
Sisi        We
Nyinyi   You (plural)  [sometimes spelt 'ninyi']
Wao       They   [sounds like 'wow!']

Asking questions is easier than in English, because you don't even have to change the word order.

Wewe ni mwalimu?    Ndiyo, mimi ni mwalimu.
Are you a teacher?   Yes, I'm a teacher.

Nyinyi ni Wakenya?  Hapana, sisi si Wakenya. Sisi ni Wazanzibari.
Are you Kenyan?    No, we're not Kenyan.  We're Zanzibari.

Often the word je is used to alert the listener to the fact that a question is coming, but the meaning remains the same:

Je, yeye ni fundi*?          Is he a fundi?
Je, nyinyi ni wapishi?    Are you cooks?

* It's hard to translate the word 'fundi' into English.  A fundi could be a mechanic, a bicycle repairman, an electrician, a carpenter, a tailor, a plumber, or anyone with some kind of useful manual skill - usually either a craftsman or someone who can fix things.

Greetings: Being Polite

When you meet an older person, you should greet him or her with respect:

Shikamoo!

If you're talking to an old man, you can say

Shikamoo mzee

Or to an old woman

Shikamoo mama

They will reply 'marahaba' (this word is only used as the reply to 'shikamoo').

***

You will hear the word karibu (welcome) very often.  You should reply 'asante' (thank you), or even asante sana (thank you very much).

If you are talking to more than one person, karibu becomes karibuni.
Similarly, if you are thanking more than one person, asante becomes asanteni.

***

People call "hodi!" if they are going into someone else's house or room, to mean "can I come in?"
Someone inside will reply 'karibu', "welcome, come in."

***

Apart from greetings with 'jambo?' and 'habari?', people may also greet you with

Mzima?

The reply is the same word, mzima.  It means 'whole' or 'complete'.

Or they may say

Salama?

And again you reply with the same word, salama. This means 'safe, secure'.

Both are simply greetings, to which the reply is always positive.

***

Sorry                                    Samahani
Sorry, I don't understand     Samahani, sifahamu
Say that again please           Sema tena, tafadhali          
Speak slowly                       Sema polepole                    

To sympathise with someone, for example if they've had bad news or a bad experience, say pole. People say pole all the time, to express sympathy for everything. You're walking down the road in the sun?  Pole, someone will say, because you might be a bit hot and tired. You tripped over? Pole. You just found out you have a terminal illness? Pole. Maybe pole sana.

(Pole is not the same as polepole, which means 'slow' or 'slowly'.)

***

When you're saying goodbye....

Tutaonana!    See you
Baadaye         Later
Kwaheri        Goodbye (if you're going away for longer). This becomes kwaherini, if you're
                       talking to more than one person.

Greetings: Habari

You can spend a lot of quality greeting time with the word 'habari', which literally means 'news'.

Any question beginning with 'habari' basically means 'How are you?', or "What's your news?"

Examples include:

Habari yako / Habari zako?        What's your news?
Habari gani?                                 What kind of news (do you have)?
Habari za asubuhi?                      News of the morning?   [Good morning]
Habari za mchana?                      News of the afternoon? [Good afternoon]
Habari za jioni?                            News of the evening? [Good evening]
Habari za leo?                               News of today?     [Good day, hello]
Habari za kazi?                             News of work?      [How's work?]
Habari za safari?                          News of your journey?     [Did you have a good trip?]

A good answer to any 'habari' question is nzuri, meaning good or fine.  Other responses include:

nzuri sana       very good
salama             safe (but here it just means 'fine')
safi                    clean (again, it just means 'fine' when it's the answer to 'habari')
njema               great

Greetings: Jambo

Jambo!

If you only know one word in Swahili, this is probably it.

Literally, 'jambo' means 'matter' or 'affair'.  Used alone, it is a greeting for foreigners who probably only know one word in Swahili. If you want to speak Kiswahili sanifu, or standard Swahili, you need to learn a few prefixes.  To greet someone, you should ask:

Hujambo?  

Hu- is a negative marker, so 'hujambo' means: "you have no matter?", or "there's nothing the matter with you?"

The correct reply is:

Sijambo.

Si- is the negative marker for the first person (I), so it means "I have no matter", or "there's nothing the matter with me."

The negative marker requires a different prefix for each person:

Si + jambo     =  sijambo     (I have no 'jambo')
Hu + jambo   =  hujambo    (You have no 'jambo')
Ha + jambo   =  hajambo    (He/She has no 'jambo')

Hatu + jambo  =  hatujambo  (We have no 'jambo')
Ham + jambo  =  hamjambo  (You [plural] have no 'jambo')
Hawa + jambo =  hawajambo (They have no 'jambo')

(Remember these negative prefixes. They will be useful).

So if you're talking to more than one person, you should greet them with

Hamjambo?

And they will reply

Hatujambo.

You can ask about other people as well.  If someone knows that you have children (or if they don't know you at all, but think that you should have children), they might ask

Watoto hawajambo?   (Are the children ok?  or 'The children have no 'jambo'?')

And you would reply

Hawajambo.        

***

The plural of 'jambo' is 'mambo'.  Mambo is also used as a greeting, particularly in a less formal situation and if you're one of the cool young guys.

If someone greets you with "mambo?" or "mambo vipi?"  you can reply with something like:

poa         cool
safi         clean

(If you want to be clever, try "poa kichizi kama ndizi" - crazy cool like a banana.)

How to learn Swahili (part one): Relax

If you have a tendency to be a bit pedantic about spelling and grammar, learning Swahili might help you loosen up a bit. I speak from experience.  As someone who learns languages more easily through reading than through listening, I find it hard to remember a word unless I’ve seen it written down. Until I feel confident about how to spell it, it hovers at the edge of my memory and threatens to disappear at any moment; if I realise I’ve been spelling it incorrectly, I have to start chasing it all over again until I can pin it down and make sure that it’s fixed in my head, each letter in its proper place. Perhaps this is a symptom of growing up in English, a language in which spelling is either right or wrong, and can be mysteriously different from the way a word is pronounced.

Swahili is kinder and more flexible.  Some people write “asante”, others prefer “ahsante” (thank you) but neither is ‘wrong’ – they both sound the same, if you say them out loud. The same goes for the expression for ‘let’s go’, which can be written “twende” or “tuende”.  In some parts of Tanzania ‘l’ and ‘r’ are interchangeable, so you might see “tayari” (ready / already) written as “tayali” if that’s how the word is pronounced. No one seems to think that the question of ‘correct’ spelling merits any kind of strong opinion.

Up to a point, the same goes for grammar and pronunciation. The standard Swahili that you learn in books or in class is based on the Swahili spoken in Zanzibar. The further you get from the coast, the more differences you hear in the way Swahili is spoken; for most Tanzanians it isn’t their first language anyway, so the way they speak it depends on the level of education they’ve had and the area they come from.  Everyone is used to hearing Swahili spoken with a wide variety of accents, often with some variations from standard grammar, sometimes incorporating words from other languages in ways that are changing every day (an extreme example is Sheng, an urban Swahili-based slang spoken in Nairobi which incorporates a lot of words from English and from other Kenyan languages).  So if you know that your pronunciation isn’t perfect and you’re worried about making grammatical mistakes, relax – as long as people can understand you, the rest doesn't matter that much.

Introducing Swahili Grammar

Learning Swahili can be difficult to begin with, because the grammar is very different from that of European languages. Once you’re used to the way it works, the good news is that there are very few exceptions to the rules – unlike English.

Here are a few basic points about how Swahili works:

1) There are no articles (a/an, the).  Mtoto can therefore mean child, a child, or the child.

2) One of the most common words you'll see is the "A of association" (-a).  Depending on the class of the noun it follows, it can be ya, wa, la, cha, vya, or za, and its function is to link the words before and after it. Usually it can be translated as "of".  E.g.

Mtoto wa jirani    -  the child of the neighbour (the neighbour's child)
Duka la vitabu     -  shop of books (bookshop)
Habari za leo       -  the news of today (today's news)

NB. The word 'na' means 'and', and is not an A of association.

3) Swahili nouns fall into one of six noun classes.  Each class has its own rules, so nouns behave differently depending on the rules of the noun class they belong to.

One example of this is plurals: the plural of mtoto (child) is watoto, because it belongs to the M-WA class.  The plural of mti (tree) is miti, because it belongs to the M-MI class. The plural of kitabu (book) is vitabu, because it belongs to the KI-VI class. When you begin learning Swahili this can be very frustrating, because you can’t predict what the plural of a noun will be until you have become familiar with each noun class. The same goes for words that describe a noun, including 'this' and 'that', and most adjectives.

4) Verbs do a lot of work in Swahili. You do not have to use a personal pronoun (I, you, he, she etc.) because it is contained in the verb.  If there is an object pronoun in the sentence (e.g. I saw her) this also becomes part of the verb.  For example:

ninakupenda  =  I like/love you

NI  +  NA                                      + KU                    +  PENDA

‘I’   +   present tense marker  + you (object)  +  like/love (verb stem)

Because of this structure, you need to have some idea of how these affixes work before you can use a dictionary.  In this case, to find the meaning of the verb you would look up “penda”.

5) Verbs can also have several forms which alter their meaning. The most common variation changes the verb from active to passive: “penda” is the basic form of the verb ‘like/love’, while “pendwa” means ‘to be liked/loved’.  Another carries the meaning of 'causing someone to do something': the verb "soma" means to read or learn, and "somesha" means to cause someone to learn, i.e. to teach. Once you know the rules, you can often guess the meaning of new verbs.