Swahili

[bobjenkins]

My teacher spoke this language, he used to live in the Congo. I would like to learn some of this language, too many languages, too little time.:):):) I thought I would post a few things about it, (estoy aburridísimo), surprizingly you might already know how to say something in Swahili if you have seen the movie, "the lion king"

Remember the song they sing? Hakuna matata translates to "no worries/no problems"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Maeneo_penye_wasemaji_wa_Kiswahili.png

Swahili (Kiswahili) is spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the coastline from southern Somalia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia) to northern Mozambique (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozambique), including the Comoros Islands. Although only 5-10 million people speak it as their native language.

Although originally written in Arabic script, Swahili writing is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial governments. The Swahili alphabet now contains all the same letters as English with the exception of q and x.

About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language), resulting from its evolution through centuries of contact between Arabic-speaking traders and many different Bantu-speaking peoples inhabiting Africa's Indian Ocean coast.

It also has incorporated German (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language), Portuguese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_language), Indian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India), English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language) and French (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language) words into its vocabulary due to contact with these different groups of people.
------------------------some easy words-------------------------
Majibu (responses)
Ndiyo - Yes - Sí
Hapana - No - No
Labda - Maybe - Quizá

Mahamkio (Greetings)
Jambo - Hello - Hola
Hujambo - How are you? - ¿Cómo estas?
Sijambo - I'm fine - Estoy bien

Kauchana (Goodbyes)
Kwa heri - Goodbye - Adiós
Tutaonana - See you later - Hasta luega
Lala salama - Sweet Dreams - Sueños dulces

Maneno ya maana (useful phrases)
Unasema kiingereza? - Do you speak English? - ¿Usted habla Inglés?
Choo kiko wapi - Where are the toilets? - ¿A dónde los baños?
Asante - Thank you - Gracias
Jina langu - My name is... - Me llama..


Here's a song in Swahili
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKNzSfoKeK8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2Fvideosearch%3 Fhl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aof&feature=player_embedded

Now you know another language:)
Tutaonana (see you later)

[Jessica]

interesting! This language seems harder than Chinese :/

[ElDanés]

Well, Chinese has never been considered a very hard language to learn because of its analytical nature, but of course, everything is relative.

I doubt I'd ever need Swahili, and I thus don't see why I should learn it. If I had to learn some language of Africa which I wouldn't get any use of anyway, like with Swahili, but merely for the fun of learning it, I'd rather learn some more (in my eyes) interesting language, like one of the many languages with pretty complex phonologies, like many of the Khoisan and Bantu languages (among many other language families and sub-branches) with their clicks and tones.

[AutumnBreeze]

I plan on learning Swahili at some point :D . When we started celebrating Kwanzaa, the Swahili used to talk about different parts of the holiday really stuck with me. My son loves to ask people "Habari gani?" (What's the news?). So I would not use it much right now but someday. Beautiful language though.