ShmoopTube

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What do you get when you mix traditional African Bantu languages with Arabic? [Boy mixing languages into jug]

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A brand new language called Kiswahili…or Swahili for short.

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See, East Africa had a ton of stuff the Arabs were interested in…

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Ivory, spices, slaves… [Lots of ivory, spices and slaves]

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And Africans were happy to do business… with a lot of people getting rich in the process.

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So Arab and Muslim traders would sail in ships down the coast, spreading their language and [Ships sailing down the coast of Africa]

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religion.

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And creating a new language in the process.

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At first, Swahili was mostly confined to cities on the coast like Mombasa or Zanzibar City.

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It makes sense when you think about it.

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Say you were a trader from Baghdad who wanted to buy some ivory for an awesome musical instrument [Trader dancing]

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you're making.

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Oh, come on…just use your imagination.

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Sure, you could sail inland up the rivers and try to buy some ivory directly from an [Trader stood by an elephant]

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elephant hunter.

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Or, for the low price of a middleman fee, you could swing by a city conveniently located

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on the sea.

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It was a dream.

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The local lords were Muslim like you, everybody knew the Arabic word for ivory, and you weren’t

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as likely to get gouged.

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Why not save yourself the hassle?

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For a while, inland East Africa remained largely rural, noncommercial, and non-Muslim. [African people in groups]

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But the Swahili language penetrated even deeper into Africa as time went on.

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During the 19th Century, trade and migration from the Swahili Coast started spreading the

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language into the interior.

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Somewhat ironically, Christian missionaries even helped spread the Muslim-inspired language, [Christian man preaching muslim language]

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since Swahili is a language they used to spread the Gospel in Africa.

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Eventually, the language reached a ton of areas, including the modern countries of Uganda,

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Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Central African Republic, and Mozambique.

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Today, Swahili is the official language of Kenya.

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Although, thanks to English colonization, official correspondence is still done in English. [Man completing correspondence]

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The English—once they come in, they don’t go out…

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Swahili is also the official language of Tanzania, Kenya’s neighbor to the South. [Finger points to Tanzania]

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It was declared so by Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s first leader after British rule.

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Nyerere actually encouraged newly liberated Tanzanians to speak Swahili as a way to unify [Nyerere giving a speech[

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them and give them a national identity.

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In a lot of ways, it totally worked.

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Though higher education is still in English…

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…which sucks for a lot of people struggling for an education…. [African students studying in English]

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…Swahili is the biggest language on the block.

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And almost all Tanzanians speak it, along with their own tribal languages.

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Swahili has even found its way into American pop culture.

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Popping up in Michael Jackson songs and Disney movies.

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If you've seen The Lion King, you know some Swahili already.

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"Simba" means "lion." [Simba on stage]

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"Rafiki" means "friend."

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And "hakuna matata" means "no worries,"

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But…you probably already knew that.

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Unless you…just kinda block out any information told to you by talking animals… [Man shrugs shoulders at two horses]

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