Language

The language that is spoken in Tanzania is Kiswahili, which literally means, language of Swahili. Swahili is originally a mix of languages spoken in coastal East Africa, largely influenced by Arabic, English, and even some German, Portuguese and Hindi. The root of the language both grammatically and in linguistically is bantu, which describes the indiginous African population that moved East from Western Africa hundreds of years ago. Today, Swahili is widely spoken in East Africa - it is the national language of Tanzania, shares the status with English in Kenya, is spoken in parts of northern Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique, and is spoken by large segments of the poplulations of Burundi, Rwanda and Eastern Congo as a result of the wars in those countries that have sent many refugees to Tanzania.

Swahili, like most languages, continues to develop and change. When trying to decipher a text message or understand a common saying, I often find my 6 year old brother more helpful than a dictionary. "Chobisi" is one such word. It is referred to often - "lets meet at chobisi" or "welcome to chobisi," and for the longest time, I would even use the word without fully understanding the meaning. It turns out "Chobisi" is roughly translated to "a place that you go when you don't want to be found." So, a bar that you are hanging out at during your lunch break could be chobisi, or perhaps your favorite place to relax after work. Great word. Wish we had one in English.

Other times, slang is rooted in culture that doesn't make sence. For instance, a slang response to "whats up?" might be "fulu mzuka". Neither fulu or mzuka appear in my dictionary, but I am told mzuka is slang for milk, so fulu mzuka is I am full of milk, or everything is good. To further complicate matters, another response could be "haina maji" or "there is no water." Thus, if you ask whats up, and someone responds, there is no water, what they are saying is there must be milk, therefore, things are good. Follow?

There is also a lot of English that makes its way into Swahili, although often the context isn't quite right. I have a feeling that the majority of English slang arrives through rap music and videos, so often the understanding of what a word means comes from the music or video associated with it. With hip hop music in mind, it becomes easier to understand why a young man or woman might invite you into their home and say "welcome to my ghetto." Some words when they are brought in are pronounced like English, but spelled completely different (usually phonetically), such as the word "afisa," which after saying out loud you might realize means "officer." Other words are spelled as in English, but pronounced completely differently. For instance, in Arusha the public transport are small mini-busses. In Kenya they are called "matatu" (threes) in Dar Es Salaam "dala dala" and here they are reffered to as "ice." After a while, I asked why they are referred to as ice, and was told that it is written on the front of the busses. Ah Ha! Turns out the vast majority of mini-busses in Arusha are of the car brand "hiace," and nobody bothered to tell the people of Arusha that this brand is pronounced "high-ah-chee" so instead it gets pronounced "ice."

One last thing I would like to mention, for the pure fun of it and having nothing to do with language, is that there are a large quantity of 19-0 Perfect season Patriots Championship shirts here. Ahhh.... what could have been.