Swahili: Kenya v Tanzania
Tanzania
According to the official national linguistic policy announced in 1984, Swahili is the language of the social and political sphere as well as primary and adult ... English is also well-spoken.
quality of spoken English is astounding. Most English speakers, especially journalists, business leaders, and politicians, use the BBC accent and it is quite brilliant.}
From the University of Wisconsin: When learning Swahili and spending time in East African countries, one might realize that there are some differences between the way people speak Swahili across places. The first differences that occur to some Swahili students might be between the Swahili spoken in Kenya as compared to Tanzania, between mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar, or between rural and urban spaces across East Africa. However, how are the different dialects of the Swahili language systematically divided by linguists and what are the more nuanced characteristics that set one dialect apart from another?
One source that closely tracks now over 7,000 languages around the world, Ethnologue, is published annually by SIL (originally known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Inc.). SIL is a U.S.-based, international faith-based nonprofit organization. SIL’s main purpose is to research, translate, and offer trainings for “sustainable language development,” although it originally set out to translate Bibles into different languages and dialects.
According to SIL, the Swahili spoken in Tanzania can be broken up into the dialects of Mrima (Mtang’ata), Unguja (Kiunguja, Zanzibar), Pemba, and Mgao (Kimgao). SIL also has a measure of how close to each other different dialects are, called “lexical similarity”: Bajun dialect 85% with the Amu dialect, 78% with the Mvita dialect, 72% with the Mrima dialect; Mvita dialect 86% with Amu, 79% with Mrima; Mrima dialect 79% with Amu. The Swahili spoken in Kenya can be broken up into the dialects of Amu (Ozi), Mvita (Kimvita, Mombasa), Bajuni (Bajun, Gunya, Tikulu, Tikuu, Tukulu), Pemba (Hadimu, Phemba, Tambatu), Mambrui (Malindi), Pate, Siu (Siyu), Jomvu, Kilindini, Changamwe, Ngare, Vumba, Tangana, Chitundi, Faza, Katwa, Kilifi, Mtwapa, and Shaka.
Here is a language map of Tanzania created by SIL:
Here is a language map of Kenya created by SIL:
Here is link to a different website with some great maps of language distribution.
According to another source, the main Swahili dialects in East Africa can be broken up as follows:
- Kimrima [around Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania]
- Kimvita [around Mombasa, Kenya]
- Kiunguja [in Zanzibar and Pemba Islands]
- Kiamu [around Lamu, Kenya]
- Kingwana [in south-eastern Congo]
- Kingazija [Comorian dialect: this dialect is significantly different from the other ones]
- Kimtang’ata [to the north of Dar-es-Salaam and south of the Kenyan border]
However, besides Kingwana (a lingua franca in Congo) and Kingazija (the main lingua franca in the Comoros), this source argues that the other Swahili dialects are less distinguishable today. Swahili is regarded standardized (“Kiswahili sanifu”) in mainland Tanzania, and particularly in Dar es Salaam, but there are still some detectable regional differences between people who speak Swahili in Zanzibar and on the coast of mainland Tanzania, as compared to other parts of Tanzania. Some make the distinction in Kenya between standard Swahili and up-country Swahili, the latter being less grammatically correct. Another broader difference is that Tanzanians and Kenyans mix and/or code-switch with Swahili and English, while Central Africans mix Swahili and French.
Examples of Kenyan Up-Country Swahili (more details here):
| English | Standard Swahili | Up-Country Swahili |
| Where is he/she! | – Yuko wapi? | – Ako wapi? |
| I was at the shop. | – Nilikuwa dukani. | – Nilikuwa kwa duka. |
| Come here! | – Njoo hapa! | – Kuja hapa! |
| I don’t eat rice. | – Sili wali. | – Sikuli wali. |
| I don’t know. | – Sijui. | – Mimi pana jua. |
| car | – motokaa | – mtukaa |
| my friend | – rafiki yangu | – rafiki wangu |
| He/She is ill. | – Yeye ni mgonjwa. | – Yeye iko mgonjwa. |
| tea without milk | – chai ya rangi | – sturungi |
One Tanzanian view: Not big difference, but there is. When a Kenyan speaks one sentence in Swahili, I will instantly know that the speaker is a Kenyan. May be the same is true when a Tanzanian speaks to Kenyan listener. There are many phrases, made of correct Swahili words, but common in Kenya, not in Tanzania and vice versa.
Tanzania: “njoo hapa”: Kenya: “kuja hapa”: English: come here
Tanzania: “leta kwangu”: Kenya”:”leta kwa mimi”: English: bring to me
Tanzania: “shule ya secondari”: Kenya: “shule ya upili”: English: secondary school
Tanzania: “jimbo”: Kenya: “kaunti”: English: “electoral /administrative region”
"English is well spoken in Kenya, even in rural area among the locals, although sometimes mixed with Swahili words. In Tanzania, even the rural population speak pure Swahili, with vey little or not a single English word."
Another online view:
"You have to know Swahili in Kenya and English too because of the education system. Everybody loves talking in English but hate writing a letter or text in Swahili. so English is for writing. Some rich people think that Swahili is for peasants."
"Swahili is the same. All Swahili words are the same. What brings/cause the differences is the frequency of usage and the accent. In the coast of east Africa Swahili is frequently used. It's their first language in many ways. As a result, they have abundance of experience speaking it, and thus widening their vocabulary and improving their accent.
On the other hand, other East African countries, including Kenya, tend to use Swahili as not so primary a language. In these countries, tribal or ethnic languages are given prominence. In the long run, the vocabulary used among this speakers become limited and the accent becomes adulterated by the other vernacular languages. And this explains why Tanzanian Swahili is regarded as the best or the most fluent, followed by Kenya, Uganda, Congo etc etc. But Swahili itself is the same. The words are the same. The seemingly differences are superficial subject to the frequency of use."
This all goes to show that there are different characteristics of the Swahili language that can be taken into account when considering the life of dialects across time and place. For more information about SIL International’s method and language development programming, see the SIL website or their online publication of the annual SIL Ethnologue.
Works Cited
SIL International. “About SIL.” https://www.sil.org/about.
Simons, Gary F. and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2017. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twentieth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.
Kiswahili.net. “Swahili Dialects.” http://www.kiswahili.net/5-information/general-info/swahili-dialects.html. Verlag AM-CO Publishers.
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