hello everyone welcome to the Laing
focused Channel and my name is Paul
today I'm going to talk about the
Swahili language or kiswahili as it's
called in Swahili and by the way ki is a
prefix that means language Swahili is
one of the most widely spoken languages
in Africa and if we only consider
languages that are native to Africa then
it is the most widely spoken
it is widely spoken over a wide area of
East Africa the number of native
speakers of Swahili is actually rather
small somewhere between five and fifteen
million but it is widely spoken as a
lingua franca that unites the
linguistically diverse population
estimates vary but the total number of
proficient speakers if we include second
language and third language speakers
could be as high as 150 million or even
more Swahili is an official language in
Kenya Tanzania Uganda and Democratic
Republic of Congo and it's spoken in
other countries like Rwanda and Burundi
the closely related Comorian language
spoken in Comoros is also sometimes
considered a dialect of Swahili chances
are that you know a little bit of
Swahili already whether you know it or
not if you've seen the Disney movie Lion
King then you know the name Simba Simba
means lion in Swahili and maybe you
remember Nala Nala means gift in Swahili
then there's Rafiki Rafiki means friend
in Swahili and of course there's Pumbaa
Pumbaa means stupid in Swahili and of
course there's Hakuna Matata Hakuna
Matata means no worries in Swahili Simba
Nala
Rafiki Pumbaa Hakuna Matata Swahili is
one of the Bantu languages that's a
traditional branch of the niger congo
language family there are around 250
Bantu languages depending on what we
consider a language versus a dialect the
history of Swahili is somewhat unclear
but it originally developed as a
language of coastal areas of Kenya and
Tanzania fishermen spread the language
to nearby islands then over the
following centuries traders from these
islands spread the language to a larger
area of the coast today this coastal
region stretching from southern Somalia
all the way down to northern Mozambique
is where most of Swahili native speakers
are found the areas where Swahili has
spoken had a lot of interaction with
foreign traders particularly those from
the middle
throughout the Middle Ages one of the
main commodities the traders were
seeking was close
so Persian and Arab traders established
closed farms in the Zanzibar archipelago
and they also established trading
settlements along the mainland coast
with both foreign traders and local
Africans Swahili speaking traders
settling along the new trade route
Swahili absorbed many foreign loanwords
especially from Arabic in fact the name
of the language itself Swahili comes
from Arabic the Arabic word for coast is
saw him and the plural form is Salah him
so with the prefix ki kiss swahili means
the language of the coasts in large part
this interaction between foreign Muslim
traders and local Africans is what made
the Swahili language what it is today a
Bantu language with a large number of
loanwords from other languages
especially Arabic but also Persian Malay
and other languages to contact with
European colonial powers also influenced
Swahili Portugal began establishing
colonies in East Africa in 1505 seee
including in zanzibar and along the
Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts and as you
might predict this led to the adoption
of some Portuguese vocabulary but by
about 1730 seee Omani Arabs had retaken
that region from the Portuguese and
re-established control over it around
that time in the early 18th century
Swahili spread further inland with Arab
ivory and slave trade caravans this
brought Swahili to more inland areas of
Kenya and Tanzania to the eastern part
of Congo northern Uganda and Rwanda and
Burundi in the mid 18th century the
British and the Germans began colonizing
the area Germany took Tanganyika or
modern-day Tanzania as a colony in 1886
and the British took control of Kenya
then called the East Africa Protectorate
in 1895 and they both encouraged the use
of Swahili as a national language to
unite the population which spoke dozens
of different languages Germany made
Swahili the official and administrative
language in Tanganyika while the British
made English the official language at
the highest levels in Kenya English was
the language for national administration
and for higher education but Swahili was
made the language for local
administration and for primary education
in order to help spread the Swahili
language it needed to be standardised so
in 1928 a conference was called for this
purpose and the dialect of Zanzibar was
chosen as the basis for the standard
language its status as an official
language or national language as well as
the language of Education has made
swahili widely spoken as a second
language or third language in Kenya and
Tanzania and in the eastern part of the
Democratic Republic of Congo in Tanzania
around 80% of the people can speak it
and amongst the younger generations it
is becoming more widely spoken as a
native language especially in the urban
areas and the situation is similar in
Kenya in the Democratic Republic of
Congo it's most widely spoken in the
eastern part of the country but in total
around 50% of the population are
proficient in the language it is also
fairly widely spoken in Rwanda and
Burundi and to some extent in Uganda as
well but even though Swahili has been
made an official language in Uganda and
it is compulsory to learn in schools a
lot of people are not interested in
learning it and a lot of schools haven't
actually been teaching it at least
that's what I hear so what is Swahili
like orthography well it used to be
written in the Arabic script but because
of European colonial influence it is now
written in the Latin script and it's
written phonetically so that each letter
represents just one sound in the
language phonology Swahili has five
vowel sounds which are always fully
pronounced and not reduced there are no
diphthong so that means that there are
no combination of vowels pronounced as a
single syllable like I or owl or O if
you see two vowels side by side they
have to be pronounced as separate
syllables this makes the phonology
generally quite easy to learn and all
Swahili consonants have English
equivalents but there are some things to
be careful of too nasal consonants can
come before other consonants with no
vowel in between for example in kurta
means child moonboy means dog Deezy
means banana learning how to pronounce
these sounds together may be a challenge
at first if you've never spoken a
language with that feature before
grammar articles there are no articles
in swahili there is no equivalent to off
or that in the language nouns swahili
has a system of noun classes noun
classes are categories of different
types of nouns that are represented by
specific prefixes in most cases one
singular and one plural for each type of
nel first the in wha class nouns in this
class represent people or animate beings
words with the e prefix are singular and
those with the wha prefix are plural
for example baby i'm tirta babies like
toto insect doo-doo insects for a good
another class is the me class nouns in
this class represent trees or plants
words with the or mu prefix are singular
while those with the meet prefix are
plural tree mt trees neeti another class
is the class this class includes a wide
variety of nouns including some animals
loanwords and miscellaneous other words
this is the biggest of the noun classes
because of all the loan words in Swahili
and for this class the prefix denotes
both singular and plural bird and egg a
bird's egg a but this class gets quite
complicated and sometimes the prefix
changes it changes to an mm sound like
an M before a b or a v wind in v new
wines in v new and other words in this
class lose their prefix altogether so
it's interesting to note that in english
the plural form is indicated by the s
suffix at the end of the word but in
swahili it's indicated by a prefix at
the beginning of the word now in classes
are known to be one of the biggest
challenges facing learners of swahili
adjectives now in class prefixes are
also applied to adjectives that modify
those nouns salt the word for good the
base form is zuly but we add a prefix
into duty means a good person glad to
Wes early means good people so the
prefix changes not only on the noun but
also on the adjectives adverbs adverbs
can be formed from the base form of the
adjective by adding the prefix V good
zuly well is duly bad byah badly be by
here's an example sentence re soma
Tobiah he read badly adverbs can also be
formed from nouns by adding the word
coop before them theory means secret
quite theory means secretly verbs
aside from noun classes the other main
thing about Swahili that requires some
adjustment from learners is the verbal
system in Swahili a basic verb consists
of a subject prefix a tense marker and
object in fix if the object is not
separate word and the verb stem here are
some examples I need like a taboo this
means he gave me the book ah is the
subject pronoun meaning he li is the
tense marker indicating past tense me is
the object marker for me and pop is the
verb stem meaning give and Kitab means
book and that's a loanword from arabic
we can change the tense of the sentence
by changing the tense marker at any
becky tableau so this means he will give
me the book in the future tense so we
changed leap the past tense marker to
top the future tense marker now let's
change the subject of the sentence Oh
Danny Paquette a vowel that means you
will give me the book so we changed the
subject prefix from ah which means he -
ooh which means you one interesting
thing is that there are negative subject
prefixes that means we can make the
sentence negative by using a different
subject pronoun here's an example at any
Beckett AB that means he will not give
me the book so remember the positive
form was at an Apache taboo that meant
he will give me the book but we changed
the app to hawk and that is the negative
equivalent of the subject prefix so
every subject prefix has a negative
equivalent and you have to remember both
and you have to think about which one to
use when you're speaking the basic
syntax of Swahili is SVO when there is
no object in fix temple why Nakula yeah
this means elephants eat grass in the
sentence Tembo means elephant y equals
they that's the subject prefix not
equals present tense marker kula equals
eat and Niazi
equals grass so you can see that when we
use a specific noun as the subject we
still use the subject prefix attached to
the verb another example in a pentacle
ax this means I love eating meat is the
subject marker meaning I knot is the
present tense marker Penda equals love
and kula equals eating and of course
that's sv o is Swahili easy to learn
well the pronunciation is known for
being very straightforward and the
grammar is very logical but it's also
very different unless you've studied a
Bantu language before the noun class
system and the verbal system with all of
its fixes requires some extra attention
to learn and for English speakers the
lack of immediately recognizable
vocabulary might be a challenge
what if you happen to speak Arabic then
you will
immediately recognized lots of Swahili
vocabulary here are some examples Atari
comes from Arabic Katara
which means danger Safari comes from
Arabic Safari which means travel Mahadi
comes from Arabic Mahal which means
place kaboo comes from the arabic kitab
which means book Buriti comes from the
arabic barded which means cult and
that's just a small sample there are
lots of Arabic words in Swahili
although the pronunciation has adapted
to fit into the Swahili phonological
system Swahili is a unique product of
the history of the East African coast
and the interaction of the local been
through people with foreign traders from
the Middle East and elsewhere it is
becoming more widely spoken and
continues to grow as a lingua franca in
East Africa if you're planning on living
or traveling in the region or if you
just want to learn about Africa and some
of its cultures then Swahili would be a
great language to learn so the question
of the day for people who have studied
Swahili what did you find challenging
about it and what did you find
straightforward or simple about it and
for proficient speakers of Swahili how
widely spoken is Swahili in your area is
it mostly spoken as a second or third
language or are there lots of native
speakers as well let us know in the
comments down below now for anyone who
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you for watching and have a nice day
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