The joys of Kiswahili

Embarking on a new language

Keen-memoried readers may recall that before my recent (ahem) “absence”, I embarked on a series of lessons in Brazilian Portuguese. I had three lessons in all and was delighted at how easy it was to pick up, if you knew Spanish, French, Catalan or just about any Romance language. There were key pronunciation changes of course, but lots of hooks to hang onto… (words you recognise, tenses that work in similar ways, masculine and feminine forms, etc).

But once back to full fitness, I decided I wanted a more difficult challenge (with apologies to Brazilian readers who gave me lots of encouragement!): something that would really stretch me. And so I went back to the iTalki website and opted for Swahili, or “Kiswahili” as it’s known to its speakers. I’m now 90 minutes in: barely left the station, but already the scenery is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

And boy, it certainly is a challenge. The first language I ever learned with zero “hooks” was of course Chinese. Then came Turkish, Tigrinya and Bengali. All the other languages I’ve dabbled in had Indo-European roots, although the Slavic languages certainly veer way off the beaten track in terms of what you can easily grasp from the get-go.

Swahili is a hook-free zone, from an entirely different language family: Bantu. It's also spoken in Tanzania and Zanzibar and straddles a few other borders too.

Check out these basic everyday questions.

Unaitwa nani? (What’s your name?)

Unakota wapi? (Where are you from?)

Unaishi wapi? (Where do you live?)

Ulizaliwa wapi? (Where were you born?)

Unaongea lugha gani? (What language(s) do you speak?)

Unasoma lugha gani? (What language(s) are you studying?)

Upenda lugha gani? (What language(s) do you like?)

Linguists will soon spot that the actual question is the final word. And will also be able to work out which one means “language”. But oh my word, when it comes to those verbs, it’s basically like throwing vowels up in the air and watching where they land.

A source of relief is that the u-prefix refers to “you” and that every one of those verbs replaces “u” with “ni” when you answer in the first person: so ninaitwa, ninakota, niniaishi, etc.

But you’re still left with the problem of how to remember the bloody verbs in the first place.

My answer? Make memory associations:

Unaitwa: nightwear, pyjamas with your name on

Unakota: could be Dakota

Unaishi: end part sounds a bit like “chez”.

Ulizaliwa: someone called Liza, lying on a bed giving birth

Unaongaea: brings Pangaea to mind, with all its languages

Unasoma: Aldous Huxley’s soma would probably help with study

Upenda: brings the word “penchant” to mind.

A bit lateral, I grant you, but it works for me.

Although I do sometimes ask myself whether it wouldn’t be easier to just watch Netflix…
______________

For more on the benefits of multilingualism, visit the Open Language Initiative at www.olangi.org