City Life Sheng

There's a friendly joke that has been going around in East Africa claiming that 'Swahili was born in Zanzibar, grew up in Tanzania, fell sick in Kenya, died in Uganda and was buried in Congo'. The interesting thing is that this refers to a 'proper' Swahili language, generally accepted to be the variety spoken on the East African coast in Kenya and Tanzania.

So, does this really mean that people in eastern Congo speak bad Swahili? No, they just have their own vocabulary and grammar which has been in development as a spoken language all the way since Swahili was first brought there towards the end of the slave trade. Congolese Swahili, in all its regional differences, is widely used in a large part of the country, but a 'Congomani' won't always be able to understand everything a Swahili speaker from the East African coast says and vice versa. And in Congo there's a difference between the way the language is written and spoken - the latter variety is much more dynamic and allows for people to express themselves in a fun and creative way, full of references to the 'now'.

Further east, in Kenya and Tanzania there's a general agreement on what is proper Swahili, as taught in school, used in official correspondence and in newspapers. The language that youth use amongst each other is quite a bit different from the 'proper' version. In Tanzania there's a growing culture of using slang, on the streets, in music (bongo flava lyrics), in movies, comic books and in public spaces. Some of the newly invented slang vocabulary even makes it into every day use among the older generation, too - think of 'mambo vipi' ('what's up') which would have been considered rude language in the early nineties, while nowadays even the president may be heard saying it.

Since the times of ujamaa, the National Swahili Council has been inventing new Swahili terms to substitute English loan words - 'luninga' for 'television' is often heard (at the same time, Swahili proper is full of foreign loan words, from 'safari' to 'daktari' and even German 'shule'). In 2007 Tanzanian MP's were instructed not to mix any English into their conversation when presenting in parliament, and earlier this month, a form 4 student got his state exam results nullified for having entered bongo flava lyrics into his exam sheets. But language has always proven to be resistant to any attempts at restricting it, and nowadays there's a large vocabulary of Swahili slang words that are generally not in the dictionary but understood by most youth in Tanzania, Kenya and beyond.