Learn about the Swahili alphabet
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Intro |
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| Mike: What alphabet does Swahili use? |
| Gertrude: And has it changed over time? |
| Mike: At SwahiliPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Joyce Mogaka, a kindergarten student, is studying the alphabet with her mum, Julia Mogaka. She sees an unfamiliar letter and asks, |
| "What letter is that?" |
| Joyce Mogaka: Ni herufi ipi hiyo? |
| Dialogue |
| Joyce Mogaka: Ni herufi ipi hiyo? |
| Julia Mogaka: Ni ch. |
| Mike: Once more with the English translation. |
| Joyce Mogaka: Ni herufi ipi hiyo? |
| Mike: "What letter is that?" |
| Julia Mogaka: Ni ch. |
| Mike: "It's ch." |
Lesson focus |
| Mike: In this lesson, we will talk about the Swahili alphabet and how it evolved, as well as how to pronounce the letters. The name "Swahili" comes from an Arabic word which sounds similar |
| and means "coastal dwellers." The prefix |
| Gertrude: ki- |
| Mike: is attached to nouns in the noun class that includes languages, so |
| Gertrude: Kiswahili |
| Mike: means "coastal language." The Swahili alphabet is easy to learn because it uses more or less the same alphabet as English. Knowing the basics of the alphabet is a huge step toward learning Swahili because it's a phonetic language. This means that if you know the letters, you can read the words and people will understand you. This advantage also lies in the writing system, since the way you write is also the way you will pronounce. In other words, you read what you write! |
| The Swahili alphabet consists of five vowels and twenty-five normal consonants---almost like the English alphabet. The vowels include a, e, i, o, u |
| Gertrude: a, e, i, o, u. |
| Mike: and these vowels are always pronounced the same, regardless of stress. Isn't that great? The consonants are the same as in English, except that two are missing: Q and X. These sounds are absent from the Swahili language. |
| Just remember that the |
| Gertrude: r |
| Mike: is rolled like the Spanish one. |
| In addition, unlike English, Swahili only has one sound associated with each letter. For example, the letter G always sounds like the G in Gift. The other main difference is the inclusion of the letter CH, in places where the English alphabet uses the letter C. |
| Lastly, Swahili has a few additional sounds: |
| Gertrude: dh, gh, ng', sh, th |
| Mike: These are two-letter sounds, but they are considered consonants because of the unique Swahili pronunciation. |
| You form Swahili words the same way you would English words—by putting letters together in certain orders. Swahili actually shares many words with English! For example, |
| Gertrude: begi |
| Mike: meaning "bag," and |
| Gertrude: redio |
| Mike: meaning "radio." There are other similarities, but, no matter where you are in your Swahili lessons, you will want to begin by learning the Swahili alphabet, or |
| Gertrude: alfabeti ya kiswahili. |
| Mike: In Swahili, it is very important to get the pronunciation right. Some say it is even more important than getting the grammar perfectly correct. But, as I said before, it's a phonetic language, so it's really not too difficult! |
| [Recall 1] |
| Mike: Let us take a closer look at the dialogue. Do you remember how Joyce says, "What letter is that?" |
| Gertrude: Ni herufi ipi hiyo? |
| Mike: Now, let us take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Julia says, "It's ch?" |
| Gertrude: Ni ch. |
| Mike: As mentioned earlier, Swahili does not have a sound for the letter C, and instead they have a |
| Gertrude: ch |
| Mike: sound—and it's an actual letter, spelled C-H and pronounced |
| Gertrude: ch |
| Mike: as in "church." |
| Next, let's go over the five unique consonant sounds in Swahili because many words use them and so you should know how to pronounce them. In most cases, a |
| Gertrude: ha |
| Mike: sound will cover them. The first is |
| Gertrude: dh, |
| Michael: which sounds like the "th" in the English word "the." Here is an example: |
| Gertrude: dhahabu |
| Mike: meaning "gold." Next is |
| Gertrude: gh, |
| Michael: which has an interesting sound that is slightly different from the previous one. |
| Gertrude: gh |
| Michael: sounds like the "ga" in "gander." The "ha" sound should slightly be felt in the pronunciation. For example, in the word |
| Gertrude: ghali, |
| Mike: which means "expensive." Next up is |
| Gertrude: ng |
| Michael: It's tricky to find the sound of this consonant in English, but you can figure out the sound from the pronunciation of the "g" in "nag." |
| Like in this word: |
| Gertrude: ng'ombe |
| Mike: which means "cow"—and now the letter sh. |
| Michael: This one is easy—it's pronounced the same as in English. Here is an example: |
| Gertrude: sheria |
| Mike: This word means "law." |
| And, to finish things off, the last consonant is |
| Gertrude: th, |
| Michael: which is pronounced like in the English word "lithe." A good Swahili example is: |
| Gertrude: thamani |
| Michael: But what about the actual writing system? Well, here is an interesting fact about the language: Swahili was originally written with the Arabic script. In fact, the old Swahili script, or Swahili-Arabic alphabet |
| Gertrude: kiarabu |
| Mike: based on the Arabic letters, seems to have been used as far back as the eleventh century! The script appears on old coins and tombstones. Of course, these days, Swahili is written in the Latin alphabet, so you will not have a problem learning to write it. |
| [Summary] |
| Mike: In this lesson, you learned that Swahili uses the same alphabet as English, minus just two letters, and that the letter C is replaced with C-H. There are also an additional five unique consonant sounds. Then, you learned that Swahili was once written in the Arabic script but is now written in Latin script. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Mike: The oldest preserved Swahili literature is letters written to allies in Mozambique in 1711, and they were written in the Arabic script. At that time, East Africa was under the Arab influence. Later on, in the 19th century, Swahili was used as the main language of trade by European settlers. Under German rule, the alphabet was changed from Arabic to Latin. In 1895, missionaries in Tanzania published the first Swahili newspaper, called |
| Gertrude: Habari ya Mwezi |
Outro |
| Mike: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Gertrude: Tuonane baadaye |
| Mike: See you soon! |
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