Swahili Translation
Overview
Looking for a professional translation company to handle the Swahili language? Look no further – you’ve found us!
We are a translation and localization agency with a passion for Africa. Swahili, due to it’s importance in East Africa, is naturally one of our strongest and most in-demand languages we deal with on a daily basis.
Whatever your need, rest assured we can deal with it. Business documents, websites, social media posts, videos, proposals, reports, financial documents, educational materials and anything else you can think of, we can translate under one roof.
Our team will ensure we properly understand your needs not only from a linguistic perspective but also from your organisation’s perspective in terms of objectives, needs and specific requirements. No matter what your need, we are here to help.
Simply contact one of the team to discuss your particular translation project.
Professional Swahili translators
We have a large team of professional Swahili translators from many different countries, residing in many different countries. Need a Swahili speaker from Tanzania? No problem. Need one that can work from Swahili into American English? Not a problem. Need one who can understand and translate some of the rarer Swahili dialects? No problem.
As well as geographical coverage, our team are also made up of professional linguists with business and sector specific knowledge spanning everything from banking and finance to life sciences and marketing and everything in between.
Quick Facts
- Alternate names & spellings: Swahili
- Language ISO code: sw/swa
- Number of speakers: approximately 50 million speakers in the world
- Writing system: based on the English alphabet (Latin script) although documents written in the Arabic script can also be found due to its Islamic heritage.
- Spoken in: Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda and Burundi, Somalia, and the Comoro Islands.
About Swahili
The official title for the language is actually “Kiswahili” which comes from the plural of the Arabic word sāḥil (ساحل), which means “boundary” or “coast” and the prefix ki-, meaning “coastal languages”.
It is the most spoken language in Sub-Saharan Africa and the only African language the African Union works with. The Kiswahili (Swahili) language is a Bantu language spoken mainly in East Africa. It is the mother tongue of the Bantu people living in Zanzibar and coastal areas of Tanzania and currently it has become a lingua franca in most southern part of East Africa. Kiswahili is the official language of Tanzania and the national language of Kenya. However, Kiswahili speakers reside also in Somalia, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
There is controversy about the ethnical origin of this language. While some experts attribute its origin to the Arabs and Persians who arrived to the coasts of East Africa in the nineteenth century to trade, others argue that Kiswahili was spoken in East Africa before the arrival of the Arabs and Persians and that, like any other language, Kiswahili language was influenced by some borrowings from Arabic and Persian. On the other hand, it must be recognised that although a lot of its words come from Arabic and Persian, Bantu words are predominant. It also borrows words from English and Portuguese as a result of the contact between different populations.
Swahili dialects
Most important Kiswahili dialects: Kiunguja (the basis of Standard Kiswahili), Kimrima, Kimgao, Kipemba, Kimvita, Kiamu, Kingwana, Kingozi, Shikomor, Kimwani, Chimwiini and Sheng (sort of slang).