How to speak Swahili in a few mildly complicated steps.

One of my goals for my time here in Tanzania is to study and practice the language of KiSwahili. This process is different than my previous language experience with Spanish. Swahili is completely new for me, and is actually quite new in the world of modern languages.

Swahili was created around the time of independence for East Africa, mainly Kenya and Tanzania, in the 1960s. It was created in order to unite tribes and to instill a sense of unity and new national identity. Many words have Arabic roots, but the foundation for Swahili lies in the Bantu tribal language.  Absorbing such a new language is both fun and challenging. Our school translator Herman has been teaching me three times a week for the last month or so. Here is what I have gathered from his lessons so far:

Let’s start with the easy stuff. Luckily, there are many cognates and borrowed words from English in Swahili. Some of my favorites are glassi, bili, voucha, kompyuta, baiskeli.

Words are rhythmic and melodic. They almost always end in vowels and each syllable has a vowel (which I usually mix up). Words tend to be long, and the subject becomes a part of the verb word, adding to its length.

            Ninakula chakula chamchana—I eat lunch

            Tutaonana baadaye—See you later

Then there are the six different noun classes. We think of nouns as person, place, or thing. Swahili speakers have nouns divided into categories (in theory) by their spelling or word origin. It ends up really being more of a guessing game.  So the prefix or the linking words change depending on the class of the noun.

    My student--Mwanafunzi wangu 

    My pen--Kalamu yangu 

    My chair-- Kiti changu 
    My chairs—Viti vyangu

Pluralization is also dependent on the noun class. Some nouns stay the same in plural and some change the first letters.

            Mtu/Watu—person/people

            Uso/Nyuso—face/faces

Perhaps because Swahili developed so recently, there are fewer words to choose from when describing things. Nearly everything can be described using big (kubwa), small (kidogo), good (nzuri) or bad (baya).

With this lack of word choice and the cultural norms of how Tanzanians express themselves, literal translations from English to Swahili are much harder. For example, to say “Nice to meet you” is “Nimefurahi kukutana na wewe.” –literally, I have been made happy to meet (each other) with you.

There are also multiple ways to say yes and no depending on the context. Ndiyo translates to yes, but is actually "indeed!" Once you get to know the indirect, overly polite way Tanzanians answer questions and requests, it's not surprising that the language would reflect this mentality. We joke that we have to ask our students questions three times, three different ways to figure out what the actual answer is!

Hopefully my lessons are starting to pay off. I can successfully talk to children under the age of 8 and order food at a restaurant. Both necessities in my book. There is much more I could say about this crazy and beautiful language, but for now… Asante kwa kusoma blog yangu.