#language: swahili

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Suzie Noma • I'm Feeling It • Ignited • Kenyan Message • Nita • Pale Pale • Secret Love • Stay • Heaven

This is the soundtrack to the Kenyan film Rafiki which depicts a lesbian relationship and discusses the discrimination of LGBTQ+ people in Kenya!

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[duckprintspress]

when you reblog, tell us what languages in the tags!!

[genshin-impact-updates]

Natlan Live Symphony Performance | Genshin Impact

Conducted by Robert Ziegler, the Natlan Live Symphony Performance features the London Symphony Orchestra, London Voices choir, Vocal Shack choir, and top folk musicians performing two game soundtrack pieces produced by HOYO-MiX, "Natlan" and "Anthem of the Savannah."

A big thank you to TAKEOFF Studios for providing collaboration support, and to Stagecast for their support with filming and production.

[stargazingtranquility]

Harry knows a lot of languages, in theory, but he’s only fluent in English like;

He can completely understands Punjabi because that’s the Potters’ native language but he can’t quite grasp speaking it. He picks up French terms of endearments/cuss words from Regulus and Sirius. He knows welsh cuss words as well as philosophical translations because of Remus. He can playfully imitate Italian pick up lines because of Barty. He knows to hide when he hears Swahili because Dorcas only reverts back to it when she’s completely pissed at someone. But everyone around him speaks English the majority of the time, so that’s what he speaks.

Then he gets to Hogwarts and meets Draco Malfoy who can hold a conversation in just about any language someone speaks to him in and fuck, Harry never thought that French was romantic. He’s never seen Punjabi as alluring before. He didn’t consider Italian as attractive.

He spends the summer begging members of his family to teach him more of their languages so he can go back and prove to Draco that he is stupid in more than one language.

[gayvampyr]

multilingualism poll because im curious

& feel free to specify in the notes which ones!

edit: i meant to write *and, not “or”

[vagabondart]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

You can smoke weed in Minecraft but only if the language is set to Swahili.

[black2infinity]

[geoazie]

Aesthetic of the languages on earth : Swahili

Swahili is a Bantu language spoken by 80 million people over the African East Coast. It is an official language in Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. It is a recognized minority language in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mozambique.

[pademelonluck]

the little things i find in linguistics.

(spanish) poo: caca.

(irish) cake: caca.

(swahili) brother: kaka.

[kouhaiofcolor]

🇳🇬

Do I have West African followers by chance? I’m curious about what dialect/s I should start with learning that are specific to the region. I was getting a little familiar with Swahili since a lot of diasporans I follow have set up in East or South Africa and I found myself picking up on words and phrases through them — but was sideswept to find out the language isn’t really spoken in the west😅. I’d appreciate Black People’s input on this in general, but if you’re West African or speak any of these yourself and have more personal insight, that’s perfect.

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

O bosso • Kwele • Mawakanda • New Breed • Kusema • Stay Humble • High Level • No Unga Bunga • Jungle go dumb • Pana Njia

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[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.

[leroibobo]

the kiti cha enzi (swahili for "chair of power") style of chair reflects both the tradition of decorative chairs being associated with wealth and power in many niger-congo language-speaking societies, as well as the various artistic influences which converged on the swahili coast due to trade. the chairs, only ever made in mombasa and the islands of pate, lamu, and zanzibar, are wooden - mostly ebony - with the seats made of woven string, and inlaid with ivory, bone, and sometimes silver.

the style was first developed in the 15th century. (this particular chair dates to the 19th.) despite the chairs' intricacy, they're also designed to be easy to take apart and carry - an important feature for past swahili rulers and other important figures who were always on the move. wealthy families tended to have at least a few which they'd use to seat important guests while less wealthy families may have owned less decorative versions.

[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!

[dedalvs]

Hi, I wanted to ask, when writing a gloss for a conlang, how would I notate noun classes? Especially if the classes aren't dependant on gender and animacy? Like something like the Bntu languages, or Irathient or High Valyrian (I think Irathient had noun classes don't fact check me)

You notate it based on the language and how much space you have. All of Swahili's classes have numbers, so you just write the number (the same is true of Irathient; good memory!). For High Valyrian, all the noun classes start with different letters, so you can just do L (lunar), S (solar), T (terrestrial), and A (aquatic). Honestly, as long as you provide a key, you can call them whatever you want.