#KISWAHILI

[black2infinity]

[avalovesindie]

10 random Swahili words I like

Swahili is a major language in Africa, mainly spoken as a first language in Tanzania but common as a second language in much of East Africa. For language learners outside Africa, it is one of the most common native African languages to learn. The word safari comes from Swahili, as well as the word simba for lion. Here are 10 random words I find appealing:

Rabbit: Sungura

Fire-stones: Mafya

Smooth, soft: Laina

Potato: Kiazi

Honey: Asali

Soap: Sabuni

Tomato: Nyanya

Firefly: Kimulimuli

Banana: Ndizi

Chickenpox: Tetewanga

Victory: Ushindi

I double-checked that my sources were accurate, however, you can check if unsure. Like most languages, many words will have more than one meaning or more than one translation, and the spelling of some words might be altered depending on context.

[songofwizardry]

It's speak your language day! I have some fun facts on Kiswahili! Translation under the cut.

Leo hapa Tumblr ni siku ya kuongea lugha yako ya kwanza (inaitwa speak your language day)! Kuisherehekea siku hii, nilitaka ku shiriki nanyinyi nyote semi chache za Kiswahili. Kiswahili ina utajiri nyingi ya mapokeo ya mdomo, na kuna desturi na historia ndefu ya kusimulia mahadithi, kutega vitendawili, n.k.

Kwa mfano, ukitaka kusimulia hadithi, unaanza hivyo:

Msimulizi: Hadithi hadithi!

Hadhira: Hadithi njoo, uongo njoo, utamu kolea!

Msimulizi: Zamani za kale...

Hadithi zinazosimuliwa mara kwa mara ni hadithi za wanyama wa porini: sungura mjanja, mfalme simba, fisi, na kadhalika; hadithi kama hizi zinapatikana katika nchi nyingi za Kiafrika.

Vitendawili ni semi zinazotegwa, na watu wanatakiwa wazifumbulie. Watu wanaoongea Kiswahili kawaida wanajua vitendawili vingi, kwasababu tunazifunza katika shule ya msingi—mi mwenyewe nakumbuka nilipokuwa katika darasa la saba, kabla ya mtihani ya taifa, nilikaa ninakariri vitendawili kama arobaini! Vitendawili vinachekesha na vinachemsha bongo, kwa mfano:

"Askari wangu ni mpole lakini adui wanamhara." (Jibu: paka)

"Tajiri wa rangi." (Jibu: kinyonga)

"Numba yango ina nuguzo mmoja." (Jibu: uyoga)

"Mzungu katoka ulaya no mkono kiunoni." (Jibu: kikombe)

Kwa ukweli mi mwenyewe nimeaanza kusahau vitendawili vingine—lakini zinapatikana ukiGoogle siku hizi!

Kiswahili ni lugha yenye historia, desturi, na vipengele vingi vya kuvutia—siwezi kuziandika zote hapa, lakini kwa mfano, muda ya Kiswahili ("swahili time"), ngeli za nomino, historia ya uandikishi wa Kiswahili (kuanza na harufi za Kiarabu), na ilivyotengenezwa 'lingua franca' katika Tanzania, na lugha ya taifa baada ya uhuru. Natumaini mtafunza kidogo kuhusu lugha ya Kiswahili leo—usiache baada ya kujua 'Hakuna Matata' tu!

(Kama nimokesea sarufi, samahani sana! Siku hizi siandiki kwa Kiswahili kwa kawaida.)

(Translated from Kiswahili/Swahili, with some extra notes)

Today, here on tumblr, is Speak Your Language Day! To celebrate this day, I wanted to share with you a few short sayings in Kiswahili. Kiswahili has a rich variety of oral traditions, and there is a long history and tradition of narrating stories orally, posing vitendawili (common riddles), etc.

For example, it is traditional when one is narrating a story to start like this:

Narrator: A story, a story!

Audience: Story, come! Fiction, come! Make it sweet!

Narrator: Once upon a time...

The common tales that are narrated are folk tales involving wild animals: common characters of the cunning hare (sungura mjanja), the king lion, the hyena—folk tales of similar nature can be found in many African countries.

Vitendawili are short sayings that are posed, and people need to solve/figure them out. People who speak Kiswahili will know many of these, because we learn them in primary school—I remember when I was in Grade 7, before my national exams (standardised tests taken at the end of primary school), I sat and memorised about forty different vitendawili! Vitendawili can both make one laugh, and be mind-bogglers (literal translation: they boil the brain), for example:

"My soldier is so gentle, but the enemies are scared of them."

"The one wealthy in colours."

"My house has only one pillar."

"The white man has come from England with his hand on his waist."

Answers to the vitendawili are at the bottom.

In all honestly I have forgotten a lot of the vitendawili—but these days you can Google and find lists of them easily!

Kiswahili is a language with a rich history, and many fascinating features—I couldn't write them all here, but for example, Swahili time, our many noun classes, the history of writing Kiswahili (there are early Kiswahili writings using the Arabic script), and the way it originated as a lingua franca and how it became the national language and a uniting factor in Tanzania after independence. I hope you'll look up the history of or a little bit of Kiswahili today—it's much more than just the phrase 'Hakuna Matata'!

(My apologies if I've made any grammar mistakes—these days I don't often write in Kiswahili. Also, because I intentionally wanted to write this in Kiswahili first, and then translate it, and I'm not practiced at translation, the English sounds clunky/weird—my apologies, but hey, it's SpYLD, I gotta prioritise the non-English text.)

Answers to the vitendawili:

A cat

A chameleon

A mushroom

A teacup

Some links:

Langfocus' Swahili video, which is a really good primer

The online Kiswahili dictionary I use most

For Kiswahili news, BBC Swahili (both online and you can listen to the radio) is pretty good. There's also many, many Kiswahili language news sites you can find, eg Mwananchi.

And of course, music!

Bongo flava is a genre of Tanzanian music (that originated in Dar es Salaam! Bongoland!)—it's a vibrant genre, it's closely linked to hip-hop and Afrobeats; I have a soft spot for the Bongo Flava of the 00s, so here's Usineseme by Ali Kiba (2009)

Sauti Sol are super well known these days, with good reason! They're awesome! They sing in both Kiswahili and English, but my favourite song of theirs is Nairobi

And in a departure from my usual brand, some patriotic music—this is a remix of the traditional patriotic song Tanzania Tanzania, recorded to encourage people to vote in the 2015 elections. I like it because it's a fun video that captures a lot of different parts of Dar es Salaam.

[thatstudyblrontea]

August 17, 2024

Back on langblr with some simple swahili vocab! I managed to keep my Duolingo streak for two weeks so far, alternating between Dutch, Swahili, and Danish. So far, so good!

[corvidconventicle]

Animal Names in Swahili

Ndege - bird

Mbwa - dog

Paka - cat

Panya - mouse

Bata Mzinga - turkey

Ng’ombe - cow

Nguruwe - pig

Farasi - horse

Kondoo - sheep

Mbuzi - goat

Nyoka - snake

Samaki - fish

Kuku - chicken

Kururu - crab

[fineanywaymp3]

[ youtube ] [ lyrics ] [ song of the week playlist ]

[spyld]

thanks for organising this! i've posted about kiswahili, the language i'm most fluent in aside from english, and a fun phrase in kiswahili is a riddle/mind-boggler is called 'chemsha bongo', or "boiling the brain". also, kiswahili has a specific verb for "put something on the stove/to boil", and i find myself endlessly frustrated that english doesn't have it.

What a coincidence! I was just reading your Kiswahili post!!

Thank you for the facts!

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

Does anyone have a good resource on translations for the Zulu/Kiswahili lyrics in The Lion King musical? I haven’t been able to find any good ones and it’s driving me insane

[kutyozh]

boy I love radio garden. opened the app, started playing a random radio station in Tanzania (it happened to be Kipiti Radio in Mbeya), and they played this banger:

[javasquats]

Pinned Post :-)

Hi, I’m Toby. I have deleted my 2016-2018 blog and started again with a clean slate. Art blog is @javasquats-art. Spirituality blog is @veneration-of-truth.

Expect posts about:

Linguistics

The comics medium and storytelling generally

Gender abolition and rebooted bioessentialism

Science communication and media literacy

Beloved stories such as better call saul, the penumbra podcast, the adventure zone, ACD Sherlock Holmes, cyrano de bergerac, Star Wars (in a Disney critical way), X-men (movies), skulduggery pleasant, pjo, good omens, dragon prince etc etc

Aromanticism, queerness beyond romantic frameworks

Philosophizing (qualifications: my brain, eyeballs, and ear holes)

Languages I’m learning:

Swedish: 4 years

Swahili: took college classes for 1 academic year, I’m trying to continue independent learning. Defo beginner level

Mandarin: took 2 years in high school, promptly forgot most of it. My skills are so stale

(I’m aspiring to learn Arabic or Scottish Gaelic one day)

PLS hit me up if you want to be language buddies I’ve deleted duolingo and I need to learn by using

Ok that’s it for now byeeeeeee

[triplefool]

1. Lingua franca

1.a. The example of Kiswahili

Sources:

Coluzzi, P. (2022). Western-centricity in Academia: How international journals endorse inner circle Englishes and a European-American worldview. Crossings: A Journal of English Studies, 13(1), 36–42. https://doi.org/10.59817/cjes.v13i1.17

Mazrui, A. (2022). Geographic and demographic dpread of Swahili. Mufwene, S.S., & Escobar A.M. (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact: Volume 1: Population Movement and Language Change, Cambridge, 358–381. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364952415_12_-_Geographic_and_Demographic_Spread_of_Swahili

Muaka, L. (2023). The complexities of noun class system in the acquisition and learning of Swahili language. Language, Culture, Literature Intertwined, 137-152. Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. https://www.ceeol.com/search/chapter-detail?id=1194230

[bulhocomunicacao]

Kirongozi, o mestre caçador! Vida e obra da lenda JORGE ALVES DE LIMA.

Biografia Nascido em 1926 em uma família brasileira influente, Jorge Alves de Lima fez sua primeira viagem à África Equatorial Francesa aos 22 anos de idade, munido de uma máquina fotográfica Kodak Medalist e um rifle de dois canos Holland & Holland.  Durante grande parte dos 20 anos seguintes, Jorge percorreu o continente africano e estabeleceu grande reputação como caçador profissional e…

[lundekjeller]

hei!! habari!!!

Jeg heter Killian! Jeg lærer både norsk (b1) og swahili (a1). Jeg vil å skrive mer på dette språkene :3 Jeg er sytten og fra USA. Jeg tegner, koder, og elsker krypdyr (jeg har to slenger og en øgle). Meste vil jeg poste hvordan jeg poste på engelsk så jeg kan øve på daglig ordforråd. Min hovedkonto er @classicjdiesandgoestohell hvis jeg følger du fra der :)

Jina langu ni Killian. Nasoma kiswahili na kinorwe. Ninatoka merikani. Nina umri wa miaka kumi na saba. Ninapenda kijifunza lugha sana!

[nonenglishsongs]

Top 40 Tuesday - #8 on Kenya YouTube Music Videos | Soundkraft - Tiktoker (Swahili)

[corvidconventicle]

Swahili Numbers

One - Moja

Two - Mbili

Three - Tatu

Four - Nne

Five - Tano

Six - Sita

Seven - Saba

Eight - Nane

Nine - Tisa

Ten - Kumi