海角大神

I聽have been learning Swahili online, because of a family trip to Tanzania. I was surprised to encounter a word that looked familiar: kujenga (鈥渢o build鈥�). I wondered whether this verb was related to Jenga, the tower-building game, and discovered that it is, indeed. The game鈥檚 inventor, Leslie Scott, was born in Tanzania and grew up speaking English and Swahili. She named it 鈥淛enga鈥� because this word both describes what the game is about in Swahili and is a catchy name.聽

English has gotten a number of words from Swahili, which is the most widespread African language, spoken by around 200 million people. It has relatively few native speakers 鈥� estimates range from 2 million to 18 million 鈥� but has spread across the continent as a lingua franca.聽

In the 20th century, Swahili became a key vehicle for Pan-Africanism, 鈥渢he ideology and movement that encouraged the solidarity of Africans worldwide,鈥� as a statement from the African Union puts it. Tanzania鈥檚 first president, Julius Nyerere, promoted Swahili as the linguistic driver of this unification, in the hopes that speakers of the country鈥檚 120 and the continent鈥檚 thousands of Indigenous languages would be able to communicate without resorting to a colonial language such as English or German.

Pan-African ideals inspired the American holiday Kwanzaa. In 1966, Maulana Karenga, chairman of the Black studies department at California State University, Long Beach, created a celebration of African American heritage based on African harvest festivals: Matunda ya Kwanza (鈥渇irst fruits鈥�) in Swahili.

Some sources hold that jumbo (鈥渁 very large specimen of its kind鈥�) and jamboree (鈥渁 large festive gathering鈥�) derive from Swahili. 鈥淛umbo鈥� was the name of a huge elephant owned by circus maestro P.T. Barnum in the 1880s. No one knows for sure how he got his name, but it might have been a form of jambo, which means 鈥渋ssue鈥� or 鈥減roblem鈥� and is a common Swahili greeting, as in 鈥淒o you have an issue? I have no issue.鈥� Jamboree starts with jambo, and so might look related, but there is not much evidence for a Swahili connection here 鈥� it arose mysteriously in American slang in the 1860s.聽

Around 20% of Swahili鈥檚 vocabulary comes from Arabic, as a result of close ties between Oman and the Tanzanian coast. Swahili鈥檚 best-known contribution to English is one of these words, derived from the Arabic safara (鈥渢o travel鈥�): safari. In Swahili, safari refers to any sort of a 鈥渏ourney鈥� or 鈥渆xpedition,鈥� but my family and I are doing the English kind 鈥� getting in a Jeep and, we hope, seeing some animals!