Appreciating African Languages
(to accompany study of continents, Africa)

• number of countries in Africa – 54

• number of languages in Africa – about 2000 (1/3 of the languages spoken in the whole world are in Africa) Imagine that if every state had 40 different languages, that would be about as many languages as are spoken in Africa.

• most people in Africa know at least three languages

Here is “hello” in five languages spoken on the African continent:

Fly Taal (spoken mostly in South Africa)

heytah (HAY tah)

Tswana (spoken mostly in Botswana)

dumela (doo MAY lah)

French (used in 26 African countries)

bonjour (bohn ZHOOR)

Swahili (official language of Tanzania and Kenya, used in many others)

jambo (JAHM boh)

Arabic (most widely used language in Africa)

marhaba (MAHR hah bah)

Let’s practice saying hello to each other in these languages.

Now let’s choose one of the “hellos” and write it on one of these pieces of paper. Decorate it however you want and then we’ll tape them up so we can remember to greet each other with one of these words this week.

We’re going to learn a little more about Swahili today. Have you ever heard these Swahili words?

Rafiki means “friend”
Simba means “lion”
Pumbaa means “absent-minded, careless”
hakuna matata means “no worries”

Swahili is spoken in lots of countries in Africa included Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, Zaire, Comorro, Oman, Congo, Madagascar, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Malawi, Mozambique, and the Central African Republic.

Let’s make an illustrated alphabet book with English and Swahili words. Here are 26 words in English and Swahili (attached document). Each of you will take two. Write the word in both Swahili and English on a piece of paper and illustrate what it means so that either an English speaker or a Swahili speaker could use your page to learn the new word.