meaning of biography in swahili

Meaning of biography in Swahili

What is the meaning of biography.

In English biography means A written account of another person's life .

What is Biography in Swahili?

Biography in Swahili is wasifu, pl wasifu. In Swahili wasifu, pl wasifu. is used as a noun.

Letters of the Alphabet

Select a letter to see words Swahili that start with that letter.

Tafsiri ya "biography" hadi Kiswahili

wasifu ni tafsiri ya "biography" katika Kiswahili. Sampuli ya sentensi iliyotafsiriwa: The year before, a biography of Spencer W. ↔ Mwaka kabla ya hapo, wasifu wa Spencer W.

A person's life story, especially one published. [..]

Kamusi ya Kiingereza-Kiswahili

The year before, a biography of Spencer W.

Mwaka kabla ya hapo, wasifu wa Spencer W.

Onyesha tafsiri zilizozalishwa na algorithimu

Tafsiri za kiotomatiki za " biography " hadi Kiswahili

Tafsiri zilizo na tahajia mbadala

"Biography" katika kamusi ya Kiingereza - Kiswahili

Kwa sasa hatuna tafsiri za Biography katika kamusi, labda unaweza kuongeza moja? Hakikisha kuwa umeangalia tafsiri otomatiki, kumbukumbu ya tafsiri au tafsiri zisizo za moja kwa moja.

Tafsiri za "biography" hadi Kiswahili katika muktadha, kumbukumbu ya tafsiri

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Biography  (English) Translated to Swahili as biografia

Biography in more languages.

• in Arabic السيرة الذاتية
• in Hausa biography
• in Hebrew ביוגרפיה
• in Igbo biography
• in Maltese kitba
• in Somali biography
• in Yoruba igbesiaye
• in Zulu biography
• in Amharic የህይወት ታሪክ
• in Chichewa biography

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Biography & Autobiography

Swahili Biography and Autobiography

Biography and autobiography have held an important place in the historical development of the Swahili language.  In his essay on biographical writing in Swahili, Farouk Topan notes three important factors in assessing this importance (Topan, 1997: 299).  The first of these, as with Swahili poetry, is the influence of Arab literary traditions on the emergence on the written genre.  The second is the connection between orality and literacy, and the third is the introduction of the Western “mode” of biographical and autobiographical writing.  Elements of biographical and autobiographical writing are evident in other genres, with poetic works that focused on personalities and historical figures.  Another early emergence of biography writing emerged through the collection of oral accounts that were collected by early twentieth century colonial officers, among whom Carl Velten was a notable example.  In these and later manifestations of the genre, identity was a continuing issue of importance among those who chose to relate their life stories. 

The representative collection of biography and autobiography held by the University of Kansas Libraries includes both historical and literary biography and autobiography.  These works provide a rich source of primary and secondary resource materials that give expression to the African perspective in the events of the time.   

The story of how Swahili became Africa’s most spoken language

Professor, Harvard University

Disclosure statement

John M. Mugane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Once just an obscure island dialect of an African Bantu tongue, Swahili has evolved into Africa’s most internationally recognised language. It is peer to the few languages of the world that boast over 200 million users.

Over the two millennia of Swahili’s growth and adaptation, the moulders of this story – immigrants from inland Africa, traders from Asia, Arab and European occupiers, European and Indian settlers, colonial rulers, and individuals from various postcolonial nations – have used Swahili and adapted it to their own purposes. They have taken it wherever they have gone to the west.

Africa’s Swahili-speaking zone now extends across a full third of the continent from south to north and touches on the opposite coast, encompassing the heart of Africa.

The origins

The historical lands of the Swahili are on East Africa’s Indian Ocean littoral. A 2,500-kilometer chain of coastal towns from Mogadishu, Somalia to Sofala, Mozambique as well as offshore islands as far away as the Comoros and Seychelles.

This coastal region has long served as an international crossroads of trade and human movement. People from all walks of life and from regions as scattered as Indonesia, Persia, the African Great Lakes, the United States and Europe all encountered one another. Hunter-gatherers, pastoralists and farmers mingled with traders and city-dwellers.

Africans devoted to ancestors and the spirits of their lands met Muslims, Hindus, Portuguese Catholics and British Anglicans. Workers (among them slaves, porters and labourers), soldiers, rulers and diplomats were mixed together from ancient days. Anyone who went to the East African littoral could choose to become Swahili, and many did.

African unity

The roll of Swahili enthusiasts and advocates includes notable intellectuals, freedom fighters, civil rights activists, political leaders, scholarly professional societies, entertainers and health workers. Not to mention the usual professional writers, poets, and artists.

Read more: Hip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé

Foremost has been Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka . The Nigerian writer, poet and playwright has since the 1960s repeatedly called for use of Swahili as the transcontinental language for Africa. The African Union (AU), the “united states of Africa” nurtured the same sentiment of continental unity in July 2004 and adopted Swahili as its official language. As Joaquim Chissano (then the president of Mozambique) put this motion on the table, he addressed the AU in the flawless Swahili he had learned in Tanzania, where he was educated while in exile from the Portuguese colony.

The African Union did not adopt Swahili as Africa’s international language by happenstance. Swahili has a much longer history of building bridges among peoples across the continent of Africa and into the diaspora.

The feeling of unity, the insistence that all of Africa is one, just will not disappear. Languages are elemental to everyone’s sense of belonging, of expressing what’s in one’s heart. The AU’s decision was particularly striking given that the populations of its member states speak an estimated two thousand languages (roughly one-third of all human languages), several dozen of them with more than a million speakers.

How did Swahili come to hold so prominent a position among so many groups with their own diverse linguistic histories and traditions?

A liberation language

During the decades leading up to the independence of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in the early 1960s, Swahili functioned as an international means of political collaboration. It enabled freedom fighters throughout the region to communicate their common aspirations even though their native languages varied widely.

The rise of Swahili, for some Africans, was a mark of true cultural and personal independence from the colonising Europeans and their languages of control and command. Uniquely among Africa’s independent nations, Tanzania’s government uses Swahili for all official business and, most impressively, in basic education. Indeed, the Swahili word uhuru (freedom), which emerged from this independence struggle, became part of the global lexicon of political empowerment.

The highest political offices in East Africa began using and promoting Swahili soon after independence. Presidents Julius Nyerere of Tanzania (1962–85) and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya (1964–78) promoted Swahili as integral to the region’s political and economic interests, security and liberation. The political power of language was demonstrated, less happily, by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (1971–79), who used Swahili for his army and secret police operations during his reign of terror.

Read more: New Kiswahili science fiction award charts a path for African languages

Under Nyerere, Tanzania became one of only two African nations ever to declare a native African language as the country’s official mode of communication (the other is Ethiopia, with Amharic). Nyerere personally translated two of William Shakespeare’s plays into Swahili to demonstrate the capacity of Swahili to bear the expressive weight of great literary works.

Socialist overtones

Nyerere even made the term Swahili a referent to Tanzanian citizenship. Later, this label acquired socialist overtones in praising the common men and women of the nation. It stood in stark contrast to Europeans and Western-oriented elite Africans with quickly – and by implication dubiously – amassed wealth.

Ultimately, the term grew even further to encompass the poor of all races, of both African and non-African descent. In my own experience as a lecturer at Stanford University in the 1990s, for instance, several of the students from Kenya and Tanzania referred to the poor white neighbourhood of East Palo Alto, California, as Uswahilini, “Swahili land”. As opposed to Uzunguni, “land of the mzungu (white person)”.

Nyerere considered it prestigious to be called Swahili. With his influence, the term became imbued with sociopolitical connotations of the poor but worthy and even noble. This in turn helped construct a Pan African popular identity independent of the elite-dominated national governments of Africa’s fifty-some nation-states.

Little did I realise then that the Swahili label had been used as a conceptual rallying point for solidarity across the lines of community, competitive towns, and residents of many backgrounds for over a millennium.

Kwanzaa and ujamaa

In 1966, (activist and author) Maulana Ron Karenga associated the black freedom movement with Swahili, choosing Swahili as its official language and creating the Kwanzaa celebration. The term Kwanzaa is derived from the Swahili word ku-anza, meaning “to begin” or “first”. The holiday was intended to celebrate the matunda ya kwanza, “first fruits”. According to Karenga, Kwanzaa symbolises the festivities of ancient African harvests.

Celebrants were encouraged to adopt Swahili names and to address one another by Swahili titles of respect. Based on Nyerere’s principle of ujamaa (unity in mutual contributions), Kwanzaa celebrates seven principles or pillars. Unity (umoja), self-determination (kujichagulia), collective work and responsibility (ujima), cooperative economics (ujamaa), shared purpose (nia), individual creativity (kuumba) and faith (imani).

Nyerere also became the icon of “community brotherhood and sisterhood” under the slogan of the Swahili word ujamaa. That word has gained such strong appeal that it has been used as far afield as among Australian Aborigines and African Americans and across the globe from London to Papua New Guinea. Not to mention its ongoing celebration on many US college campuses in the form of dormitories named ujamaa houses.

Today, Swahili is the African language most widely recognised outside the continent. The global presence of Swahili in radio broadcasting and on the internet has no equal among sub-Saharan African languages.

Swahili is broadcast regularly in Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland and Tanzania. On the international scene, no other African language can be heard from world news stations as often or as extensively.

At least as far back as Trader Horn (1931), Swahili words and speech have been heard in hundreds of movies and television series, such as Star Trek , Out of Africa , Disney’s The Lion King , and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider . The Lion King featured several Swahili words, the most familiar being the names of characters, including Simba (lion), Rafiki (friend) and Pumbaa (be dazed). Swahili phrases included asante sana (thank you very much) and, of course, that no-problem philosophy known as hakuna matata repeated throughout the movie.

Swahili lacks the numbers of speakers, the wealth, and the political power associated with global languages such as Mandarin, English or Spanish. But Swahili appears to be the only language boasting more than 200 million speakers that has more second-language speakers than native ones.

Read more: What Kwanzaa means for Black Americans

By immersing themselves in the affairs of a maritime culture at a key commercial gateway, the people who were eventually designated Waswahili (Swahili people) created a niche for themselves. They were important enough in the trade that newcomers had little choice but to speak Swahili as the language of trade and diplomacy. And the Swahili population became more entrenched as successive generations of second-language speakers of Swahili lost their ancestral languages and became bona fide Swahili.

The key to understanding this story is to look deeply at the Swahili people’s response to challenges. At the ways in which they made their fortunes and dealt with misfortunes. And, most important, at how they honed their skills in balancing confrontation and resistance with adaptation and innovation as they interacted with arrivals from other language backgrounds.

This is an edited extract of the first chapter of The Story of Swahili from Ohio University Press

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• MobiTuki : Swahili-English dictionary (Tanzania)

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• 17 minute languages : Swahili-English common phrases (+ audio)

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• Swahili-English dictionary by Charles Rechenbach (1967)

• Swahili-English dictionary by Arthur Cornwallis Madan (1903)

• English-Swahili (1902)

• Dictionary of the Suahili language by Johann Ludwig Krapf (1882)

• Dictionnaire swahili-français : Swahili-French dictionary, by Charles Sacleux (1939)

• Dictionnaire français-swahili (1891)

• Vocabulaire français-kisouahili : French-Swahili vocabulary published by the État indépendant du Congo (1894)

• Suaheli-Dragoman : Swahili-German dictionary by topics, by Friedrich von Nettelbladt (1891)

• Wörterbuch der Suahelisprache : Swahili-German & German-Swahili dictionary, by Carl Gotthilf Büttner (1890)

• Swahili etymological dictionary by András Rajki (2005)

• An anthology of proverbs in Kiswahili & translation into English & German, by Claudia Dal Bianco & Johanna Emig (2009)

• African aphorisms or Saws from Swahili Land , by William Ernest Taylor (1891)

• The terms for "emotion" in Swahili : a lexical analysis based on interviews with native speakers , by Rosanna Tramutoli, in Kervan (2019)

• Terminologia del corpo ed estensioni metaforiche  : swahili e zulu a confronto , in Kervan (2020)

• Translating Swahili linguistic terminology into Italian , Nordic Journal of African Studies (2020)

• Texts on textiles : proverbiality as characteristic of equivocal communication at the East African coast , by Rose Marie Beck, in Journal of African Cultural Studies (2005)

• Expanding the Swahili vocabulary : newly adopted words in Swahili in the field of information and communication technology, by Malin Petzell (2005)

• The adaptation of Swahili loanwords from Arabic , by Leonard Chacha Mwita, in Journal of Pan African studies (2009)

• A brief lexico-semantic study of French and Kiswahili by Lester Mtwana Jao, in Mambo (2015)

• Epenthetic vowels in Swahili loanwords by Andrew Harvey, in Journal of linguistics and language in education (2014)

• Phonological and semantic change in language borrowing : the case of Arabic words borrowed into Kiswahili , by Mohamed Abdulmajid Akidah, in International journal of education and research (2013)

• Historical inferences from Swahili etymologies par Thilo Schadeberg, in Unwritten testimonies of the African past (1989)

• Lugha ya mitaani in Tanzania : the poetics and sociology of a young urban style of speaking , with a dictionary comprising 1100 words and phrases, by Uta Reuster-Jahn & Roland Kießling, in Swahili Forum (2006)

• Swahili toponymy of past towns on the East African coast : "What's in a name?" , by Monika Baumanova & Rosanna Tramutoli, in Kervan (2022)

• University of Kansas : Swahili course

• Kiko : pronunciation & grammar (University of Georgia)

• Swahili course (+ video)

• Verbix : verb conjugation & Swahili-English translation

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• The Swahili language and its early history , by Martin Walsh, in The Swahili world (2018)

• Swahili colloquial , course for beginners (2003)

• Swahili learners' reference grammar by Katrina Daly Thompson & Antonia Folárin Schleicher (2001)

• Swahili basic course , Foreign Service Institute (1968) (+ audio)

• Swahili language handbook by Edgar Polomé (1967)

• Swahili vowel harmony by Lutz Marten, in Working papers in linguistics and phonetics (1996)

• Noun classification in Swahili by Ellen Contini-Morava, University of Virginia

• The formation and syntax of contractions in Kiswahili with special emphasis on noun-possessive combination , by Titus Mpemba, in Journal of linguistics and language in education (2015)

• Swahili Forum : Journal for Swahili studies (since 1994)

• Swahili grammar and vocabulary by F. Burt (1910)

• A Handbook of the Swahili language , as spoken at Zanzibar , by Edward Steere, revised by Arthur Cornwallis Madan (1894)

• Swahili exercises by Edward Steer (1918)

• Grammar of dialectic changes in the Kiswahili language by Chauncy Hugh Stigand (1915)

• Inkishafi : poem & translation into English, by William Ernest Taylor

• Aids to the study of Ki-Swahili by Mervyn Beech (1918)

• Grammaire kiswahili : Swahili grammar, by Henri Delaunay (1927)

• Grammaire des dialectes swahilis : grammar of the Swahili dialects, by Charles Sacleux (1909)

• Die syntaktischen Verhältnisse des Suaheli (syntax of Swahili) by Wilhelm Planert (1907)

• Suahili Konversations-Grammatik : Swahili grammar, by August Seidel (1900)

• Suaheli Handbuch (Swahili handbook) by Walter von Saint Paul Illaire (1890)

• The metrolingual use of Swahili in urban Ugandan landscapes and everyday conversation by Nico Nassenstein, in Multilingualism in the global South (2016)

• Mombasa's Swahili-based "Coasti slang" in a super-diverse space : languages in contact on the beach , by Nico Nassenstein, in African study monographs (2016)

• books & papers about the Swahili language: Google books | Internet archive | Academia | Wikipedia

• Youtube : 101 Swahili : vocabulary, common phrases, Swahili songs with lyrics and translation

• Mwananchi : newspaper (Tanzania)

• BBC - VOA - RFI - DW : news in Swahili

• Language and popular culture in Africa : texts in Swahili (popular culture) with translation into English or French

• LyrikLine : poems in Swahili, with translation (+ audio)

• Swahili-literatur : narratives in Swahili with translation into German

• A Shaba Swahili life history : text, translation and comments , by Jan Blommaert (2014)

• Mythical and archetypal images of the hero in Swahili literature : more than just warriors , by Graziella Acquaviva, in Kervan (2019)

• Identity and memory in Swahili war verses : the long road to an East African self (2019)

• Immagini e metafore vegetali nella poesia swahili  : dal seme alla pianta (Vegetal images and metaphors in Swahili poetry) (2016)

• Ritual practices, hypnotic suggestions and trance-like states in Swahili written literature , by Cristina Nicolini, in Kervan (2021)

• studies about the Swahili literature, by Xavier Garnier

• Le kiswahili entre Afrique, orient et occident  : quelle littérature pour une langue désancrée ? (2011)

• Traduire le swahili en français  : à propos de Nagona et Mzingile d'Euphrase Kezilahabi , in Études littéraires africaines (2012)

• La poésie orale swahili manganja by Pascal Bacuez, in Cahiers d'études africaines (2000) Swahili texts & translation into French

• Figures du politique en Afrique  : comment prendre en compte la littérature d'expression swahilie , by Mathieu Roy & Charles Mnyampala (2010)

• Mathias Mnyampala (1917-1969) : poésie d'expression swahilie et construction nationale tanzanienne , by Mathieu Roy, thesis (2013)

• Introduction au Diwani ya Mnyampala (Mathias Mnyampala's anthology) (2007)

• Poésie et philosophie d'expression swahilie en Tanzanie  : vision et transformation du monde dans le Diwani de Mathias Mnyampala , in Les Cahiers d'Afrique de l'Est (2012)

• Elisi katika nchi ya ajabu : translation into Swahili of the Lewis Carroll's book, Alice's adventures in wonderland (1940)

• Swahili tales as told by natives of Zanzibar , with translation into English, by Edward Steer (1870)

• Prosa und Poesie der Suaheli : Swahili prose and poetry, with translation into German, by Carl Velten (1907)

• Märchen und Erzählungen der Suaheli : Swahili tales & stories & translation into German (1898)

• Anthologie aus der Suaheli-litteratur : anthology of the Swahili literature & translation into German, by Carl Gotthilf Büttner (1894)

• BibleGateway : Biblia Takatifu , translation of the New Testament into Tanzanian Swahili (+ audio)

• Biblica : Biblia Takatifu , translation of the New Testament into Tanzanian Swahili (+ audio)

• WordProject : translation of the Bible into Tanzanian Swahili (+ audio)

• YouVersion : Biblia Habari Njema (1996)

Watu wote wamezaliwa huru, hadhi na haki zao ni sawa. Wote wamejaliwa akili na dhamiri, hivyo yapasa watendeane kindugu.

• Umoja wa mataifa ofisi ya idara ya habari taarifa ya ulimwengu juu ya haki za binadamu : translation into Swahili (+ audio)

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→ Universal Declaration of Human Rights : bilingual text in Swahili, Lingala & other languages

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Article contents

History of the standard swahili language.

• Morgan J. Robinson Morgan J. Robinson Department of History, Mississippi State University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1012
• Published online: 30 January 2024

In many ways, Swahili has become emblematic of the African continent. Taught in universities around the world, an official language of the African Union, and embraced by some members of the diaspora as a way to connect with the continent’s histories and cultures, Swahili is a global language, and its most far-reaching dialect is Standard Swahili. The conventional historical narrative depicts Standard Swahili as a constructed language that was developed over the course of the 20th century by the efforts of German, British, and postcolonial governments. However, by pushing the timeline back into the mid-19th century, one begins to see that Standard Swahili can also be situated within a precolonial history that incorporates multiple constituencies involved in multiple processes of standardization, both official and unofficial, that spanned broad swathes of both space and time.

• standardization
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Home » Articles » 120 Core Swahili Words — Basic Swahili To Get Along in East Africa

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written by Martin Mbae

Reading time: 13 minutes

Published: Dec 12, 2022

Updated: Jun 21, 2023

120 Core Swahili Words — Basic Swahili To Get Along in East Africa

Swahili words are very similar to English words. By that I mean that they have no gender, no accents, and they are pronounced as they’re read.

If you thought Swahili was going to be too hard to learn, this should help you feel more confident!

I am a native Swahili speaker and I am going to put myself in your shoes to help you out.

In this post, I will break the language down in the easiest way possible and teach you words that you will actually use, not what you’d find in textbooks or in a generic language course.

I will then introduce you to the heart of East Africa by teaching you a few slang phrases that everyone uses.

Table of contents

10 most basic swahili words, 13 swahili words for time, 10 swahili words for places, 8 swahili words for things, 11 swahili words for people, 25 common swahili verbs, 19 simple swahili adjectives and adverbs, 5 core swahili conjunctions and connectors, swahili pronouns, bonus: 5 cool swahili phrases to talk in the east african street slang, 1. swahili words have no gender, 2. you don’t have to learn swahili pronouns, 3. words in swahili are pronounced as they are read, 4. nouns are referred to only as either animate or inanimate, 5. there are little differences between the formal and informal versions of words, how to learn swahili words and speak better than 90% of foreigners.

If you’re only going to learn 10 Swahili words, these are the must-knows!

• Habari  – “Hello”
• Kwaheri  – “Goodbye”
• Ndio  – “Yes”
• Sawa  – “Okay”
• Hapana  – “No”
• Tafadhali  – “Please”
• Asante  – “Thank you”
• Karibu  – “You’re welcome”
• Samahani  – “I’m sorry”
• Sijui  – “I don’t know”

42 Basic Swahili Nouns

Benny, the founder of  Fluent in 3 Months  suggests that one of the best ways to  hack a language  is to learn based on words that you use every day.

I will now introduce you to some words you’ll hear a lot, especially when moving around.

• Siku  – “Day”
• Wiki  – “Week”
• Mwezi  – “Month”
• Leo  – “Today”
• Jana  – “Yesterday”
• Juzi  – “The day before yesterday”
• Kesho  – “Tomorrow”
• Saa  – “Hour”
• Dakika  – “Minute”
• Saa  – “Time”
• Kabla  – “Before”
• Baada  – “After”
• Sasa  – “Now”
• Hapa  – “Here”
• Pale  – “There” – if it’s close
• Huko  – “There” – if it’s far
• Pahali  – “Place”
• Shule  – “School”
• Duka  – “Shop”
• Kazi  – “Work”
• Bafu  – “Bathroom”
• Nyumbani  – “Home”
• Nchi  – “Country”
• Hoteli  – “Hotel”
• Simu  – “Phone”
• Kitu  – “Something”
• Nyumba  – “House”
• Gari  – “Car”
• Chakula  – “Food”
• Chai  – “Tea”
• Maji  – “Water”
• Mwanamke  – “Woman”
• Mwanaume  – “Man”
• Mzee  – “Old man/respectful way of referring to a man”
• Mama  – Old woman/respectful way of referring to a woman
• Msichana  – “Girl”
• Kijana  – “Boy”
• Rafiki  – “Friend”
• Mtu  – “Person”
• Bwana  – “Husband”
• Mke  – “Wife”
• Jina  – “Name”

These are the 25 most common Swahili verbs you need to know.

Swahili is pretty easy to master, because all you need to do is add the word  ku  before a verb to make it complete.

This is like in English where you add “-ing” to a verb to make it a gerund, which means “come” becomes “coming” and “walk” becomes “walking”.

In Swahili, instead of adding the letters at the back like a suffix, we place them at the front and so if we were to use the example in the previous sentence,  kuja  (come) becomes  kukuja  and  tembea  becomes  kutembea .

Below are some common examples. Notice that each verb is conjugated to start with  ku-

• Kufanya  – “To do”
• Kuwa  – “To be”
• Kuwa  – “To become”
• Kusema  – “To say”
• Kuja  – “To come”
• Kwenda  – “To go”
• Kuweza kufanya  – “To be able to do”
• Kuona  – “To see”
• Kutuma  – “To send”
• Kuwa na  – “To have”
• Kuchukua  – “To take”
• Kungoja  – “To wait”
• Kukutana  – “To meet”
• Kuishi  – “To live”
• Kufikiri  – “To think”
• Kupa  – “To give”
• Kupata  – “To receive”
• Kujua  – “To know”
• Kutengeneza  – “To make”
• Kutumia  – “To use”
• Kusoma  – “To learn”
• Kula  – “To eat”
• Kunywa  – “To drink”
• Kucheka  – “To laugh”
• Kusoma  – “To read”

Like other languages, Swahili has many adjectives you could use to make your sentences more colourful.

Knowing these is what will set you apart from a typical foreigner, and you will be treated very well if you can use these adjectives.

• Mingi  – “Many, lots of”
• Kidogo  – “Few”
• Kubwa  – “Big”
• Ndogo  – “Small”
• Refu  – “Tall”
• Fupi  – “Short”
• Karibu  – “Near”
• Mbali  – “Far”
• Poa  – “Good, nice”
• Mbaya  – “Bad”
• Rahisi  – “Easy”
• Ngumu  – “Difficult”
• Poa/maridadi  – “Beautiful”
• Mbaya  – “Ugly”
• Tamu  – “Delicious”
• Moto  – “Hot”
• Baridi  – “Cold”
• Sana  – “Very”

Pro tip: If you go to buy something from a shop, especially curio items, you’ll most likely be charged a lot more than locals.

Here’s what to do:

When the seller mentions the price, just smile and say  Hiyo pesa ni mingi  sana . Niuzie vizuri . (“That’s a lot of money. Sell it to me at a better price.”)

You’ll catch the seller by surprise and you’ll definitely get a discount.

If you want to be fluent in any language, conjunctions are super helpful. They give you a moment to think and help to connect your sentences smoothly.

Here are five common ones in Swahili:

• Lakini  – “But, however”
• Pia  – “Also”
• Kwa mfano  – “For example”
• Kwa hivyo  – “So”
• Halafu  – “Then”

There aren’t many pronouns in Swahili. Most of the time they aren’t even necessary because they are absorbed into the sentence.

Here are some examples:

• “The driver is coming.  He  went to buy some soda” –  Dereva anakuja. Ameenda kununua soda.
• “The guests are late because  they  stopped in Nairobi” –  Wageni wamechelewa kwa sababu walisimama Nairobi.

As you can see, the translated sentences seem to have no pronouns, and that’s because the pronoun has been integrated into the verb.

However, it’s still good to know the pronouns. If it’s  not  clear who or what you’re talking about, then you need to be able to use them in the sentence.

So here are the Swahili pronouns

• Mimi  – “I”
• Wewe  – “You”
• Yeye  – “He”
• Yeye  – “She”
• Wale  – “They”
• Sisi  – “We”
• Hii  – “This”
• Ile  – “That”

Pro tip: Never refer to someone as “you”. It is very offensive.

East Africa has a bad aftertaste of white colonialists and whenever you disrespect someone, they feel that you are behaving like a colonialist and will avoid talking to you.

If you want to call someone, use their name. If you don’t know their name and they are close, walk up to them and start by greeting them. If you don’t know their name and they are far away, use hand gestures. Whoever sees you waving will draw the person’s attention toward you.

Would you like to be the coolest foreigner in East Africa? Then learn some slang.

Everyone on the street uses the slang words I’m about to give you. We dumped the Swahili we learnt in school and developed our own version for ease of communication and it’s quite different from formal Swahili.

That said, here are five slang phrases you can use to sound like a true Kenyan.

• Unaitwa?  – “What’s your name?”
• Noma sana  – “Amazing, great”, or “that’s crazy”
• Fiti kabisa  – “The best, really great,”
• Baadaye  – “Goodbye, see you later”
• Niaje bro  – “Hello, brother”

If you speak to me using any of these words, you’ll be my new best friend. 🙂

Now that you know a few Swahili words, I would like to explain to you why Swahili words aren’t that hard to learn…

5 Reasons Why Swahili Words Are Easy to Learn

If you can speak English, Swahili will be quite similar to what you are used to.

When I started learning German, I was taken by surprise by the fact that a “dog” is masculine, a “cat” is feminine and a “rabbit” is neutral. At first, I thought that only words for living things have a gender… Only to find out that “beer” is neutral but “glass” is masculine.

So much confusion!

In contrast, Swahili is very straightforward. Not only there are no genders, but we don’t even use articles, whether definite or indefinite!

Let me give you an example: in English, if you say “the car”, you are being more precise than if you said, “a car”. In Swahili, “the car” is  ile gari , while “a car” is still  ile gari . Simple, right?

In most languages, you have to know which pronoun to use in a sentence. This changes depending on who or what you are referring to.

This means that if you are talking about a person, then you use “I”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “they”, e.t.c, and if you are talking about something then you use “it”.

In Swahili, the pronouns are absorbed into the sentence, and so you don’t have to know which pronoun to use, meaning you end up with fewer words to learn.

“Ronaldo is one of the best players in the world.  He  has scored very many goals.” –  Ronaldo ni mmoja wa wachezaji bora kabisa wa kandanda. Amefunga mabao mengi sana .

“ She  said the dog ate her book…but we all know  it  didn’t.” –  Alisema mbwa alikula kitabu chake. Lakini sote twajua kwamba hakula .

Yes, in Swahili, there are no umlauts that cause pronunciation changes, no silent letters that shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and no accents that make language acquisition an entirely awkward affair.

On top of that, we don’t pronounce any letters differently from how they appear.

In German, for example, the word  welt  is pronounced as  velt , while  vater  is pronounced as  fater .

This is not the case in Swahili as every word is pronounced as it is read.

When you are referring to something in Swahili, the only thing that determines the word you use to refer to it is if the thing is alive or not.

This means that demonstrative pronouns, such as “this” and “that”, are the same for living things and the same for non-living things. Let’s look at the tables below:

Once you master the demonstrative pronouns, you are good to go.

Note: There is one exception – plants.

Plants are neither referred to as being animate or inanimate, and the descriptive pronoun used changes depending on the noun class ( ngeli ) of the item you are referring to.

This is very complicated, even for us Swahili speakers! But don’t worry. Don’t try to learn any of this by heart. We didn’t learn it by heart either, we just learnt naturally by developing a feel of what’s right. You can develop this feeling too through listening and speaking.

Fortunately, you can get along 90% of the time without ever referring to a plant in Swahili, but if you’d like to learn online naturally, you can try the  Fluent in 3 Months  method .

Related learning:  The Best Podcasts to Learn Swahili at Any Level

I will explain this point with an example. While there are  many versions of the Swahili word for “hello” , the most common one is  habari .

If you want to be formal, then you could say  hujambo  if you are greeting one person, or  hamjambo  if there are many people.

Here’s the problem: many people will look at you in a very weird way if you use the formal version, so much so that you’d be better off simply saying “hello”.

This is because no one uses  hujambo / hamjambo , and I’d advise you not to use it unless you are at the coast, where the language is much more polite as the culture is very different from other parts of the country.

If you are in Kenya and really want to get along like a true Kenyan, here are the common Swahili words you could use for hello:

Let me put this into perspective…

When some friends came visiting from Finland and learnt the word  mambo , everyone they greeted was very pleased and didn’t look at them as regular tourists.

And how did Obama greet people while in Kenya? He said “ niaje ”!

Interesting, right?

Now here’s a little challenge: if you are in Kenya, or have a friend from East Africa that you can talk to or send a message to, just type the word  niaje  and see the excitement you will cause.

If you are a foreigner in East Africa, people will instantly know you are not from around even if you are not white, and you will draw attention whenever you speak.

If you, however, speak some Swahili, the people you meet will be shocked and you’ll receive a lot of favours in return.

The problem is that you can only speak well if you learn through immersion, and if that’s not an option, you can try the  Fluent in 3 Months  method and you may start speaking Swahili in as little as 7 days.

• How to Learn a Language in 2022 – Ultimate Guide with 35+ Language Hacks
• How to Learn Swahili: An In-Depth Guide (With Resources!)
• The Best Podcasts to Learn Swahili at Any Level
• Hello in Swahili – “Habari?” and 14 More Swahili Greetings (and Their Response!)
• Tips for Learning Non-European Languages

Martin Mbae

Email and content copywriter

Martin is a native swahili speaker from East Africa. As a copywriter, he specializes in email conversions and launch sequences for B2B and consumer-facing companies.

Speaks: English, Swahili, German

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About Swahili

Swahili (also known as Kiswahili) is the most commonly spoken language in sub-Saharan Africa. In Kenya, Swahili is an official language along with English, and children are usually taught in Swahili in school.

The Basics of Saying Hello in Swahili Besides the standard habari or jambo , I will teach you how to say even ‘good morning’ in Swahili (or good afternoon/evening) plus some other cool stuff that you can use while interacting with fun-loving youthful peers.

Chances are that you may not need to know all the greetings discussed in this article so it makes sense to first cover the basic greetings that are applicable in almost every situation. You may want to read to the bottom if you want to have a little more fun with your Swahili greetings, though.

NOTE: (PRONUNCIATION GUIDE) – Swahili words are basically pronounced the way they are written. The stress in almost all instances is on the second last syllable. Habari would therefore be pronounced as haBAree and Jambo as JAmbo. The letter ‘i’ is pronounced as the ‘ee’ in ‘sweet’ and letter ‘u’ as the ‘oo’ in ‘pool’. There are no silent letters.

There are basically five ways to say hello in Swahili:

• Hujambo or jambo (how are you?) – Sijambo (seeJAmbo) (I am fine / no worries)
• Habari? (any news?) – nzuri (nZOOree) (fine)
• U hali gani? (oo HAlee GAnee) (how are you) – njema (fine)
• Shikamoo (a young person to an elder) – marahaba
• For casual interactions: mambo? Or Vipi? Or Sema? (scroll down to street language section for explanations).

Other replies to the above greetings that might be used in place of nzuri:

• njema (NJEma) – fine
• salama (saLAAma) – peaceful / all’s well
• sawa (SAwa) – okay
• vyema (VYEma) – well
• naendelea vyema (naendeLEa VYEma) – I am doing well

Now let’s dig deeper …

Asking ‘How Are You?’ in Swahili?

• Hujambo (how are you? – to one person) – Sijambo (I am fine).
• Hamjambo (how are you? – to two or more people) – Hatujambo (We are fine).
• Habari? (literal translation is: news?) – nzuri (fine – to mean there is no bad news).
• U hali gani (how are you – to one person) – nzuri (fine).
• Mhali gani (how are you – to two or more people) – nzuri (fine).

Variants to Habari According to Time of Day

Habari? simply means news? As in ‘is there any news in your life I should know?’

The standard reply is nzuri to mean that everything is fine. If there is something troubling you then you can say mbaya (MBAya) which means bad. The other person will then proceed to ask what is wrong.

If you want to be specific – to state the time of day – you can use the following:

• Habari za asubuhi (good morning) – nzuri (fine)
• Habari za mchana (good afternoon)
• Habari za jioni (good evening)
• Habari za kutwa? ( how has your day been?)

Peers Greeting Each Other / Cool Street Language

Young people everywhere like to make language sound cool. Swahili speakers are no exception.

While walking the streets of a Kenyan town, you might hear some of these Swahili greetings. Most of them are informal and should not be used in formal writing.

• Mambo (MAmbo) – What’s up?
• Vipi? (VEEpee?) – how?
• Sema? (SEma?) – speak?

The replies to these greetings can be:

• Safi (SAfee) – Clean
• Poa (POa) – Cool
• Freshi (fREshee) – fresh (it is a swahilized slang version of the English word fresh)

Another informal greeting is:

Is vipi? (is how?) – is poa (is cool) …??? well, doesn’t make any sense but it sounds cool.

This is from Sheng – Swahili street slang that is a mixture of English and Swahili. Sheng is spoken by the youthful urban population mainly in Kenya but is slowly catching up in Tanzania.

Shikamoo? It is not necessary that you use this greeting but it is important that you learn it so that when you encounter it somewhere you know what it means.

Shikamoo? (sheeKAmo) – Marahaba (maraHAba) This greeting is used when a young person is greeting a significantly older person. It is used to show respect.

Shikamoo literally translates to ‘touching your leg’. The greeting therefore works one way and only a young person can initiate the conversation by saying “shikamoo?”

Bidding Goodbye in Swahili

• Kwaheri (kwaHEree) (Goodbye)
• Tuonane kesho (too-o-NAne Kesho) (see you tomorrow) – Inshallah (eenSHAllah) ( God willing)
• Uende salama (oo-E-nde saLAma) (go with peace) – Tuonane inshallah (we will see each other God willing).

Goodnight in Swahili

• Usiku mwema (ooSEEkoo mWEma) (Goodnight) – Wa buraha (wa booRAha) (with tranquility)
• lala salama (sleep well / peacefully) – nawe pia (Nawe PEE-a) (you too)
• Ndoto njema (NDOto NJEma) (sweet/good dreams) – Za mafanikio (za mafaneeKEEo) (of prosperity/success)

Other useful phrases that will come in handy

• Asante – “Thank you!” You will use this word the most in your conversations.
• Sawa – “OK”
• Karibu – “Welcome” or Karibuni – Welcome (to more than one person)
• Sana – (Very) used as in  Asante-sana – Thank you VERY much.
• Pole – “I am sorry for your misfortune.” This applies to everything from getting chalk dust on your clothes, to tripping, dropping an item or sneezing.
• Pole pole – “Slowly, slowly.” Everything is pole pole in Africa.
• Chakula – “FOOD!” If you hear this word, walk towards the place you heard it.
• Ndiyo / Hapana – “Yes” and “No” respectively.
• Tafadhali – “Please”
• Jina lako nani? – “What is your name?”
• Jina langu ni John – “My name is John”

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How Swahili Became Africa’s Most Spoken Language

Over two millennia, Swahili has built bridges among people across Africa and into the diaspora.

By John M. Mugane Professor, Harvard University

Once just an obscure island dialect of an African Bantu tongue, Swahili has evolved into Africa’s most internationally recognised language. It is peer to the few languages of the world that boast over 200 million users.

Over the two millennia of Swahili’s growth and adaptation, the moulders of this story — immigrants from inland Africa, traders from Asia, Arab and European occupiers, European and Indian settlers, colonial rulers, and individuals from various postcolonial nations — have used Swahili and adapted it to their own purposes. They have taken it wherever they have gone to the west.

Africa’s Swahili-speaking zone now extends across a full third of the continent from south to north and touches on the opposite coast, encompassing the heart of Africa.

The Origins

The historical lands of the Swahili are on East Africa’s Indian Ocean littoral. A 2,500-kilometer chain of coastal towns from Mogadishu, Somalia to Sofala, Mozambique as well as offshore islands as far away as the Comoros and Seychelles.

This coastal region has long served as an international crossroads of trade and human movement. People from all walks of life and from regions as scattered as Indonesia, Persia, the African Great Lakes, the United States, and Europe all encountered one another. Hunter-gatherers, pastoralists and farmers mingled with traders and city-dwellers.

Africans devoted to ancestors and the spirits of their lands met Muslims, Hindus, Portuguese Catholics, and British Anglicans. Workers (among them slaves, porters, and labourers), soldiers, rulers, and diplomats were mixed together from ancient days. Anyone who went to the East African littoral could choose to become Swahili, and many did.

African Unity

The roll of Swahili enthusiasts and advocates includes notable intellectuals, freedom fighters, civil rights activists, political leaders, scholarly professional societies, entertainers, and healthcare workers. Not to mention the usual professional writers, poets, and artists.

Read more: Hip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé

Foremost has been Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka . The Nigerian writer, poet, and playwright has since the 1960s repeatedly called for use of Swahili as the transcontinental language for Africa. The African Union (AU), the “united states of Africa,” nurtured the same sentiment of continental unity in July 2004 and adopted Swahili as its official language. As Joaquim Chissano (then the president of Mozambique) put this motion on the table, he addressed the AU in the flawless Swahili he had learned in Tanzania, where he was educated while in exile from the Portuguese colony.

The African Union did not adopt Swahili as Africa’s international language by happenstance. Swahili has a much longer history of building bridges among peoples across the continent of Africa and into the diaspora.

The feeling of unity, the insistence that all of Africa is one, just will not disappear. Languages are elemental to everyone’s sense of belonging, of expressing what’s in one’s heart. The AU’s decision was particularly striking given that the populations of its member states speak an estimated two thousand languages (roughly one-third of all human languages), several dozen of them with more than a million speakers.

How did Swahili come to hold so prominent a position among so many groups with their own diverse linguistic histories and traditions?

A Liberation Language

During the decades leading up to the independence of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania in the early 1960s, Swahili functioned as an international means of political collaboration. It enabled freedom fighters throughout the region to communicate their common aspirations even though their native languages varied widely.

The rise of Swahili, for some Africans, was a mark of true cultural and personal independence from the colonising Europeans and their languages of control and command. Uniquely among Africa’s independent nations, Tanzania’s government uses Swahili for all official business and, most impressively, in basic education. Indeed, the Swahili word uhuru (freedom), which emerged from this independence struggle, became part of the global lexicon of political empowerment.

The highest political offices in East Africa began using and promoting Swahili soon after independence. Presidents Julius Nyerere of Tanzania (1962–85) and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya (1964–78) promoted Swahili as integral to the region’s political and economic interests, security and liberation. The political power of language was demonstrated, less happily, by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (1971–79), who used Swahili for his army and secret police operations during his reign of terror.

Read more: New Kiswahili science fiction award charts a path for African languages

Under Nyerere, Tanzania became one of only two African nations ever to declare a native African language as the country’s official mode of communication (the other is Ethiopia, with Amharic). Nyerere personally translated two of William Shakespeare’s plays into Swahili to demonstrate the capacity of Swahili to bear the expressive weight of great literary works.

Socialist Overtones

Nyerere even made the term Swahili a referent to Tanzanian citizenship. Later, this label acquired socialist overtones in praising the common men and women of the nation. It stood in stark contrast to Europeans and Western-oriented elite Africans with quickly — and by implication dubiously — amassed wealth.

Ultimately, the term grew even further to encompass the poor of all races, of both African and non-African descent. In my own experience as a lecturer at Stanford University in the 1990s, for instance, several of the students from Kenya and Tanzania referred to the poor white neighbourhood of East Palo Alto, California, as Uswahilini, or “Swahili land”. As opposed to Uzunguni, “land of the mzungu (white person)”.

Nyerere considered it prestigious to be called Swahili. With his influence, the term became imbued with sociopolitical connotations of the poor but worthy and even noble. This in turn helped construct a Pan African popular identity independent of the elite-dominated national governments of Africa’s fifty-some nation-states.

Little did I realise then that the Swahili label had been used as a conceptual rallying point for solidarity across the lines of community, competitive towns, and residents of many backgrounds for over a millennium.

Kwanzaa and Ujamaa

In 1966, activist and author Maulana Ron Kareng a associated the black freedom movement with Swahili, choosing Swahili as its official language and creating the Kwanzaa celebration. The term Kwanzaa is derived from the Swahili word ku-anza, meaning “to begin,” or “first.” The holiday was intended to celebrate the matunda ya kwanza, “first fruits.” According to Karenga, Kwanzaa symbolises the festivities of ancient African harvests.

Celebrants were encouraged to adopt Swahili names and to address one another by Swahili titles of respect. Based on Nyerere’s principle of ujamaa (unity in mutual contributions), Kwanzaa celebrates seven principles or pillars: unity (umoja), self-determination (kujichagulia), collective work and responsibility (ujima), cooperative economics (ujamaa), shared purpose (nia), individual creativity (kuumba), and faith (imani).

Nyerere also became the icon of “community brotherhood and sisterhood” under the slogan of the Swahili word ujamaa. That word has gained such strong appeal that it has been used as far afield as among Australian Aborigines and African Americans, and across the globe from London to Papua New Guinea. Not to mention its ongoing celebration on many U.S. college campuses in the form of dormitories named ujamaa houses.

Today, Swahili is the African language most widely recognised outside the continent. The global presence of Swahili in radio broadcasting and on the internet has no equal among sub-Saharan African languages.

Swahili is broadcast regularly in Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, and Tanzania. On the international scene, no other African language can be heard from world news stations as often or as extensively.

At least as far back as Trader Horn (1931), Swahili words and speech have been heard in hundreds of movies and television series, such as Star Trek , Out of Africa , Disney’s The Lion King , and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider . The Lion King featured several Swahili words, the most familiar being the names of characters, including Simba (lion), Rafiki (friend), and Pumbaa (be dazed). Swahili phrases included asante sana (thank you very much) and, of course, that no-problem philosophy known as hakuna matata repeated throughout the movie.

Swahili lacks the numbers of speakers, the wealth, and the political power associated with global languages such as Mandarin, English, or Spanish. But Swahili appears to be the only language boasting more than 200 million speakers that has more second-language speakers than native ones.

Read more: What Kwanzaa means for Black Americans

By immersing themselves in the affairs of a maritime culture at a key commercial gateway, the people who were eventually designated Waswahili (Swahili people) created a niche for themselves. They were important enough in the trade that newcomers had little choice but to speak Swahili as the language of trade and diplomacy. And the Swahili population became more entrenched as successive generations of second-language speakers of Swahili lost their ancestral languages and became bona fide Swahili.

The key to understanding this story is to look deeply at the Swahili people’s response to challenges. At the ways in which they made their fortunes and dealt with misfortunes. And, most important, at how they honed their skills in balancing confrontation and resistance with adaptation and innovation as they interacted with arrivals from other language backgrounds.

This is an edited extract of the first chapter of The Story of Swahili from Ohio University Press

This article is from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news organization dedicated to sharing the knowledge of academic experts. Find out more about them or subscribe to their weekly newsletter .

John M. Mugane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Home • Baby Names

75 Swahili Baby Boy Names With Meanings

Welcome the light of your life with a distinctive African name.

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Illustration: MomJunction Design Team

In a world filled with varied cultures and languages, the charisma of Swahili boy names remains unmatched. Swahili, or Kiswahili, serves as the native language for numerous residents of Zanzibar and functions as the common language for a significant portion of the populations in Kenya and Tanganyika ( 2 ). A Swahili name represents East Africa's rich past, conveying an aura of strength, power, and spirit.

Swahili boy names have a distinct feel that appeals to people worldwide. Whether it's the soothing rhythm, the rustic feel, or the powerful meanings they communicate, Swahili names are gaining popularity outside the East African region as well. Parents from different cultures who are drawn to the significant connection between history and nature have chosen these names for their children.

A Swahili name is usually made up of two given names. The first name tends to be of Christian or other religious origin, but the second name is typically Muslim, especially if the first name is Christian. Alternatively, the second name could be a tribal name. In some situations, a patronymic name is derived from the person’s father or other paternal ancestors ( 2 ).

Swahili names often carry wonderful meanings, such as ‘peace,’ ‘love,’ ‘strength,’ and ‘wisdom.’ Parents may opt to give their children a Swahili name in order to give them a name with a positive connotation that will guide them through life. Swahili names are not nearly as common in the Western world as in other languages; thus, giving a child a Swahili name can make them stand out.

These names have a musical and rhythmic tone that flows well when pronounced. Their enchantment makes them enjoyable to say and listen to. Like the simple Zuberi , which means ‘iron,’ each name has a certain charm that captures the mind.

Infographic: Splendid Swahili Boy Names With Meanings

Bestow an attractive name on your child by embracing the worldwide popularity of the Swahili language. These names have a significant meaning that reflects East Africa's cultural heritage and hold promises of strength and hope. Check out our infographic for a delightful selection of meaningful Swahili names for your adorable little hero.

Illustration: Momjunction Design Team

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What Swahili boy names mean gift from God?

In Swahili culture, there are several names associated with the meaning ‘gift from God.’ For instance, the masculine name Baraka means a ‘blessing,’ while Zawadi means ‘gift’ in Swahili.

2. What name means lucky in Swahili?

In Swahili, the unisex name Bahati means ‘luck or ‘good fortune.’

3. What are Swahili names for fearless?

The masculine first name Jabari means ‘the brave one’ in Swahili. The feminine name Jasiri refers to ‘bold and courageous.’

4. What is the Swahili name for hope?

The unisex name Tumaini means ‘hope’ in Swahili language. The feminine name ‘Taraji’ also means ‘to hope’ or ‘to wish for.’

5. What name means peace in Swahili?

The unisex name Amani refers to ‘peace’ in Swahili. Raha is also a popular Swahili name, which means ‘peace’ in Arabic.

6. What is the Swahili name for King?

The Swahili name for a king is ‘Mfalme.’ However, it is a term used for a King and is not a common baby name.

7. What Swahili names mean spirit?

In Swahili, the name Roho means ‘spirit.’ The name Imamu refers to a ‘spiritual leader.’

8. Are Swahili names gender-specific?

Swahili names are mostly gender-specific. For instance, names such as Simba, Asani, and Djimon are masculine, while Amina, Eshe, and Hadija are feminine. There are also gender-neutral names such as Amana, Jina, and Mosi.

9. Are Swahili names only used in East Africa?

Swahili or Kiswahili (as known locally) is a native Bantu language of Tanzania and Kenya ( 1 ). So, Swahili names are most commonly used in the East African region. However, these names are not exclusive to this region. They gained popularity in other African countries as well as Swahili-speaking communities and individuals worldwide.

References:

• Swahili. https://clp.arizona.edu/courses/languages/swahili
• Lawson Edwin. (2015). Swahili Personal Names.

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Do you have a name in mind and want to know more about it? Or want to find names belonging to a particular origin, religion, or having a specific meaning? Use our search tool below to explore more baby names with different combinations.

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The Top 50 Languages Spoken in Africa

Guys, Africa is a huge continent.

I mean, really huge—more so than you might expect. We’re talking a continent as big as the U.S., India, China and most of Europe combined . It’s also one of the most diverse continents, both culturally and linguistically. 

For us language enthusiasts, Africa has more languages than you can count. In fact, it’s estimated that there may be over 3,000 languages spoken in Africa, from rare and exotic tongues to some of the world’s most common languages .

Unfortunately, I’ve found that, in online language learning communities , African languages are widely overlooked. But they shouldn’t be, because they’re invaluable for travelers ,  professionals in the business world  and anyone with curiosity about the world, its languages and its cultures . 

So, let’s take a little trip through Africa, exploring the continent’s 50 most spoken languages.

The Top Ten Languages in Africa

9. portuguese, 10. amharic, the next 40 most spoken languages in africa, and one more thing....

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Number of speakers: Over 300 million 

Example phrase: السلام عليك [ as-salām ‘alaykum ] (May peace be with you)

If you decide to learn Arabic, you’ll probably get more bang for your buck than you even thought possible.

Arabic is a Semitic language and is an official language in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Libya and Eritrea. It’s also widely spoken in many other countries.

Arabic comes in a number of varieties, but if you learn Modern Standard Arabic, you’ll be able to communicate with most Arabic speakers around the world. Modern Standard Arabic is the written form of the language—this is the Arabic used in news articles, online and in novels. It’s spoken in newscasts and in some TV shows.

However, this is not the form of Arabic that native speakers always learn as children. They learn various dialects of Arabic, unique to their regions. Some of these dialects are more mutually intelligible than others, but learning, say, Moroccan or Egyptian Colloquial Arabic can help you deeply connect with a culture in a way that Modern Standard Arabic can’t.

Number of speakers: 120 million in Africa

Example phrase:  Bonjour  (Good day)

French can get you pretty far in many African countries, especially in North, West and Central Africa, where a number of countries were French colonies in the past.

African French has unique features that take some getting used to. Its accents and vocabulary are heavily influenced by surrounding native African languages, and the resulting dialects are rather distinct.

Each African region is home to a variety of French accents and creoles, some of which are difficult to understand. Central African French differs a lot from West African French, and so on. African countries that make up la Francophonie   each have strong traditions of African-French prose, poetry  and film that are as diverse as the cultures they come from. One way to master African French is to learn French in Africa .

Number of speakers: Over 100 million

Example phrase:  Hujambo  (Greeting)

Swahili, known as Kiswahili in the language itself, is a Bantu language widely spoken in the African Great Lakes region, which comprises a huge swath of Central, Southern and East Africa.

With Swahili under your belt, you’ll be able to communicate in gorgeous countries like Tanzania and Kenya, where it’s an official language. Swahili will also help you get around parts of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

Swahili is quite appealing to many language learners both due to the fact that it’s widely spoken and to its history. Kiswahili actually means “coastal language”—it’s a trade language that was created to facilitate communication between a number of Southern and Eastern Africa’s wide variety of ethnic groups.

It’s also not too difficult for English speakers to learn. Unlike many other African languages, Swahili doesn’t involve tones and it uses the Latin alphabet. Knowing some Arabic will give you a good start, too, as there are many Arabic loanwords in Swahili.

What’s more, I guarantee you already know a handful of Swahili words. Why? The writers of Disney’s “The Lion King” had a bit of a love affair with Swahili. Hakuna Matata? That’s Swahili for “no worries!” Simba? Swahili for “lion!”

Number of speakers: 63 million

Example phrase: Sannu  (Hello)

Hausa is spoken primarily in Nigeria and Niger, but it’s also spoken by plenty of other people in West Africa. In fact, Hausa serves as a lingua franca (common language) for Muslim populations in this region. It’s widely understood, so it’ll get you pretty far in West Africa!

Hausa is written in both the Arabic script and the Latin alphabet. However, the Latin alphabet, called Boko, tends to be the main script used these days among Hausa speakers.

Hausa is a tonal language, but don’t let that put you off. Each of the five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) can either have a high or low pitch, so they’re really more like 10 vowels. While these tones may be marked in learning materials that use Latin text, everyday writing does not use any diacritics, so this can be confusing.

Number of speakers: 60 million

Example phrase: Ndewo  (Hello)

Another language that’s rooted in Nigeria in West Africa, Igbo has six tones, which can make it difficult to learn for non-natives. Igbo was originally written in ideograms, which were rather creative artworks that conveyed the meaning of sentences and paragraphs, but today it’s written in the Latin script with some additional letter combinations added for its unique sounds.

It’s not a widely known or studied language, but with 60 million speakers, it’s sure to come in handy for those with a strong interest in Nigeria and West Africa.

Number of speakers: 55 million

Example phrase: Bawo ni  (Hello)

One of the most spoken languages in West Africa, primarily in southwestern and central Nigeria, this is a pluricentric language, which means that its speakers use a wide variety of related varieties, all of which are mutually intelligible.

Yoruba is the language used in the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé and in the Caribbean religion Santaría , which makes it a language that is being spoken in both the old and new worlds. It’s not understood by linguists how Yaruba gained usage in these religious domains, so this strange example of language transfer remains a mystery.

This is a great language to learn if you have a strong interest in West Africa and Nigeria, a rich and diverse region.

Number of speakers:  Over 40 million

Example phrase:  Azul  (Hello)

Berber is a group of closely connected languages often referred to as the Amazigh languages, or simply Tamazight. The languages are spoken by millions in North Africa, mainly in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Mali, Mauritania, Burkino Faso and the Siwa Oasis of Egypt.

The language has been struggling as Arabic and French have ousted it in some areas, but it’s hung on and now has official recognition in Morocco. Tuareg, one of the most ancient Berber languages, is still used as a lingua franca  (common language) in the Sahara Desert as it has been for centuries.

The language has a relatively rare verb-subject-object (VSO) sentence structure, like Arabic and Egyptian, so the verb always comes first, which can be confusing for some learners.

This is the language to learn if you want to travel or work in North Africa, especially the remote parts.

Number of speakers: 35 million

Example phrase: Akkam  (Hello)

Oromo is native to the Ethiopian state of Oromo and northern Kenya, and has been traditionally spoken by the Oromo people and ethnic groups that live close by in the Horn of Africa. 

Oromo is one of the official working languages of Ethiopia. It’s written in the Latin script and Oromo speakers are known for having a highly evolved oral storytelling tradition. It’s a rather complex language, with five long and five short vowels and seven grammatical cases. Interestingly, the sounds /p/, /v/ and /z/ were not in the language historically, and are only used for recently adopted words.

Number of speakers: 30 million in Africa

Example phrase:  Bom dia  (Good day)

Portuguese, a remnant of colonialism on the African continent, has held on strongly through the years. It’s an official language in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Equatorial Guinea, but there are other Portuguese speaking communities all over Africa. The language is used for government and business on the continent and is one of the official languages of the African Union—Africa’s version of the U.N.

Learning Portuguese can be enormously helpful for travel and work in Africa, and of course the language also opens up Portugal and the vast area of Brazil. It also happens to be one of the U.S. Department of State’s critical languages right now.

Number of speakers: Over 22 million

Example phrase: ታዲያስ: [ Tadiyas ] (Hell0)

Amharic is a rich and ancient language spoken mainly in Ethiopia. It’s related to Arabic and Hebrew, and it’s the second-most widely spoken Semitic language after Arabic.

Amharic is gorgeous when spoken, and it’s even more stunning when written in its unique script. It uses an alphasyllabary called fidel —basically, each “letter” represents a consonant/vowel combination, but the forms of the consonants and vowels change depending on the combinations.

Learning to write fidel might take a little longer than learning the Arabic script, but it’s still well within reach for the average learner. 

Amharic is also host to a growing body of Ethiopian literature. Poetry and novels are both popular, and learning Amharic will open the door to experiencing literature far different from that of the rest of the world. Once you have the basics down, try your hand at reading the most famous Amharic novel, “Fiqir Iske Meqabir” (Love Unto Crypt) by Haddis Alemayehu.

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Now that you know a little more about some major African languages, there’s no excuse to pass them up. You’ve seen how much territory they cover, and how many wonderful people you could meet by speaking them.

Many of the countries listed here have rapidly growing economies, and are increasingly important on the world stage in terms of trade and politics.

Furthermore, learning any of these languages is an opportunity to connect with a new culture and deeply experience any of the gorgeous countries in which these languages are spoken.

If you dig the idea of learning on your own time from the comfort of your smart device with real-life authentic language content, you'll love using FluentU .

With FluentU, you'll learn real languages—as they're spoken by native speakers. FluentU has a wide variety of videos as you can see here:

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What did ICJ ruling mean in South Africa's genocide case against Israel?

The UN's top court is hearing Israel's response to a case brought by South Africa seeking an emergency halt to its offensive in Rafah.

South Africa has also accused Israel of genocide in the Gaza war.

Israel, which has called South Africa's case "wholly unfounded" and "morally repugnant", responded on Friday accusing South Africa of bringing "biased and false claims".

The words of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have been subject to intense scrutiny since South Africa brought its case and it’s centred around the use of the word “plausible” in the ruling.

In January, the ICJ delivered an interim judgement - and one key paragraph from the ruling drew the most attention: “In the Court’s view, the facts and circumstances... are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible.”

This was interpreted by many, including some legal commentators, to mean that the court had concluded that the claim that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza was “plausible”.

This interpretation spread quickly, appearing in UN press releases, statements from campaign groups and many media outlets, including the BBC.

In April, however, Joan Donoghue, the president of the ICJ at the time of that ruling, said in a BBC interview that this was not what the court had ruled.

Rather, she said, the purpose of the ruling was to declare that South Africa had a right to bring its case against Israel and that Palestinians had “plausible rights to protection from genocide” - rights which were at a real risk of irreparable damage.

The judges had stressed they did not need to say for now whether a genocide had occurred but concluded that some of the acts South Africa complained about, if they were proven, could fall under the United Nations’ Convention on Genocide.

Let’s look at the background of the case and how the legal dispute unfolded.

The ICJ was set up to deal with disputes between the nations of the world relating to international law.

That means laws that are agreed between nations, such as the Genocide Convention, a key measure agreed after World War Two to try to prevent such mass slaughter again.

Last December, South Africa launched an attempt at the ICJ to prove that, in its view, Israel was committing genocide in relation to how it was perpetrating the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It alleged that the way Israel had prosecuted the war was “genocidal in nature” because, according to the South African case, there was an intention to “destroy Palestinians in Gaza”. Israel absolutely rejected these allegations, saying the entire case misrepresented what was happening on the ground.

South Africa would need to show the court clear and hard evidence of an alleged plan to commit genocide. Israel, for its part, would have a right to examine those claims one by one and argue that its actions, in a dreadful urban war, were legitimate self-defence against Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by dozens of countries. That full case could take years to prepare and argue.

So South Africa asked the ICJ judges to first issue “provisional measures”.

That’s the ICJ’s term for a court injunction - an order from a judge to freeze a situation, to prevent any harm being done, before a final court finding can be reached.

The court was asked to order Israel to take steps to “protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people”.

Over two days lawyers for both countries argued over whether Palestinians in Gaza had rights that the court needs to protect.

The ruling, to which 17 judges contributed (with some of them disagreeing), came on 26 January.

“At this stage of the proceedings, the Court is not called upon to determine definitively whether the rights which South Africa wishes to see protected exist,” said the ICJ.

“It need only decide whether the rights claimed by South Africa, and for which it is seeking protection, are plausible.

“In the Court’s view, the facts and circumstances... are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible.”

Having decided that Palestinians in Gaza had plausible rights under the Genocide convention, it concluded that they were at real risk of irreparable damage - and Israel should take steps to prevent genocide from occurring while these critical issues remain in question.

The court did not rule whether Israel had committed genocide - but did its wording mean that it was convinced there was a risk of that happening? This is where the dispute over what the court actually meant then took off.

In April, some 600 British lawyers including four former Supreme Court justices, signed a letter to the UK Prime Minister, asking him to stop arms sales to Israel and referring to “a plausible risk of genocide”.

That triggered a counter-letter from UK Lawyers For Israel (UKLFI). The 1,300-strong group said the ICJ had only ruled that Gaza Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide - in other words, that it had been dealing with a complex and somewhat abstract legal argument.

The dispute continued in more letters and interpretations.

Many in the first group described UKLFI’s interpretation as “empty wordplay”. The court, they argued, cannot have been solely concerned with an academic question - because the stakes were far higher than that.

And, of all places, the debate crystallised in legal sparring before a UK parliamentary committee, debating the question of arms exports to Israel.

Lord Sumption, a former UK Supreme Court justice, told the committee: “I think it is being suggested [in the UKLFI letter] that all that the ICJ was doing was accepting, as a matter of abstract law, that the inhabitants of Gaza had a right not to be subjected to genocide. I have to say that I regard that proposition as barely arguable.”

Not so, responded Natasha Hausdorff of UK Lawyers for Israel.

“I respectfully insist that reading a finding of plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide disregards the Court’s unambiguous statements,” she replied.

A day later, Joan Donoghue - now retired from the ICJ - appeared on the BBC’s HARDtalk programme and explicitly tried to end the debate by setting out what the court had done.

“It did not decide - and this is something where I'm correcting what's often said in the media... that the claim of genocide was plausible,” said the judge.

“It did emphasise in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide. But the shorthand that often appears, which is that there's a plausible case of genocide, isn't what the court decided.”

Whether there is any evidence of such terrible harm is a question the court is far from deciding.

UN's top court says Israel must prevent genocide

What is the genocide case against Israel?

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I'm an interior designer, and these are my top picks from Amazon's outdoor rug Memorial Day sale — save up to 80%

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Don’t forget the tragedy at the heart of this year’s PGA Championship

Over and above all the concern about Scottie Scheffler’s arrest, there’s this: someone died at a golf tournament Friday.

Yankees looking to extend Juan Soto, Elly De La Cruz is unreal & listener emails

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FSU petitioning NCAA to rescind penalties related to NIL recruiting violations

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Attorneys say Scottie Scheffler likely won't face felony conviction: 'Probably about a zero percent chance'

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How has the meaning of Pride changed since Seattle’s first parade?

Over the past half-century, a lot has changed for the LGBTQ+ community around Seattle and beyond. Seattle’s first Gay Pride Week was held in 1974, the AIDS epidemic arrived in the 1980s and Washington legalized same-sex marriage in 2012, to name just a few examples of landmark events.

With all that change, the meaning of the Pride celebrations that happen each June has likely evolved, too. As we approach the 50th year of Seattle Pride, we’re asking local members of the LGBTQ+ community: What is the purpose of a Pride celebration, and how have you seen the meaning of Pride change in your lifetime?

We’re particularly interested in connecting with friends and family members who have intergenerational relationships within the LGBTQ community — for example, grandparents and grandchildren or friends who span different generations.

Share your perspective in the form below or by emailing [email protected] by May 22. Your response, lightly edited for grammar and length, might be included in an upcoming story.

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The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.

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Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico shot in assassination attempt

The populist prime minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico , was "fighting for his life" Wednesday after he was shot multiple times in an "attempted assassination," his party's officials said.

Slovak Defense Minister Robert Kaliňák told reporters that doctors operated into the evening and that Fico's condition was extremely serious.

"We've experienced a very tragic day, which means the prime minister is fighting for his life," Kaliňák said, according to local reports.

Late Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Tomas Taraba offered an update to the BBC, saying Fico was "not in a life-threatening situation at this moment."

Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok earlier reporters that the gunman shot Fico five times. A suspect was arrested, officials said; a motive was not immediately clear.

Šutaj Eštok said an initial investigation found “a clear political motivation.”

Fico’s Facebook page said he was taken to a hospital in Banská Bystrica rather than in the capital, Bratislava, because "it would take too long considering the urgency of the matter."

At a news conference after the attack , President Zuzana Čaputová confirmed an arrest of a suspect and said police would provide further information.

“Until then, let us not pass quick judgments, please,” she said.

A reporter for the Slovak news agency TASR said several shots were fired in the town of Handlova, about 110 miles northeast of Bratislava. Fico was greeting members of the public after a government meeting, it reported.

Čaputová confirmed the attack on Fico, 59, shortly after the news broke.

“Utterly shocked by today’s brutal and reckless attack on #Slovakia ’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, which I condemn in strongest possible terms,” she said in a message on X . “I wish him lot of strength in this critical moment and early recovery. My thoughts are also with his family and close ones,” she added.

Photos on news agencies showed a man appearing to be detained in Handlova. Video captured at the scene and shared on social media showed another man being carried into a car by security staffers in dark suits.

Fico was elected in October as leader of the leftist Smer party, meaning “direction,” standing on a pro-Russian and anti-American populist platform.

He had already served as prime minister twice before he returned to the role last year as part of a power-sharing deal with two other parties. Fico faced criticism this month as thousands of Slovaks rallied against a plan to overhaul public radio and television in the country of 5.4 million, sparking fears of government control and a shift away from pro-Western ties.

Fico has found common cause with Viktor Orbán , the right-wing authoritarian leader of Hungary, Slovakia's neighbor to the south, in ending support for Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion and criticizing Western support for Kyiv. Slovakia also shares a border with Ukraine.

Both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin gave public support to Fico.

Putin said in a letter to Čaputová shared by the Kremlin that the "heinous crime cannot be justified," and Zelenskyy post ed on X that "every effort should be made to ensure that violence does not become the norm in any country, form, or sphere."

President Joe Biden also wished Fico a "speedy recovery" and said in a statement that the U.S. Embassy was in contact with the Slovakian government and "ready to assist."

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, also strongly condemned the attempt on Fico's life.

“Such acts of violence have no place in our society and undermine democracy, our most precious common good,” she said in a post on X .

Slovakia is an E.U. member.

Slovakia’s main opposition parties canceled a planned protest against a plan to overhaul public broadcasting that they say would give Fico's government full control of public radio and television, according to The Associated Press.

“We absolutely and strongly condemn violence and today’s shooting of Premier Robert Fico,” Progressive Slovakia leader Michal Šimečka said. “At the same time we call on all politicians to refrain from any expressions and steps which could contribute to further increasing the tension.”

The country’s incoming president, Peter Pellegrini, a close Fico ally, said the incident represented "an unprecedented threat to Slovak democracy."

He added, "If we express different political opinions with guns in the squares and not in polling stations, we endanger everything we have built together in 31 years of Slovak sovereignty."

Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.

Weekend Director of Platforms, NBC

Your Reddit posts will now help train ChatGPT - what we know so far

Last week, Reddit introduced a new content policy that was a pretty big win for user privacy. Part of that new policy stated that if a company wants to use Reddit data for commercial purposes, including training AI, it will have to pay.

OpenAI is taking Reddit up on that offer .

Also: The ChatGPT desktop app is more helpful than I expected - here's why and how to try it

The two companies reached an agreement to give OpenAI access to Reddit's massive catalog of content for  ChatGPT  training purposes. In return, Reddit will get access to OpenAI's tools to bring AI-powered features to Reddit users and mods.

OpenAI will access Reddit's Data API, "which provides real-time, structured, and unique content from Reddit." The goal is to give OpenAI a better understanding of Reddit's content, especially on recent topics.

Neither of the two sides disclosed actual financial terms.

Reddit has long been a training ground for AI, but the company's recent policy updates put an end to companies doing so without the platform's consent. 

It makes sense why OpenAI would want access to Reddit user posts. Steve Huffman, Reddit Co-Founder and CEO, calls his site "one of the internet's largest open archives of authentic, relevant, and always up to date human conversations about anything and everything." 

For users, this change won't mean much – at least not in how the site functions. The content policy prohibits partners from using content to identify an individual for any reason, including ad targeting, it prohibits law enforcement or government officials from conducting surveillance on users, and it allows users to delete any of their content, even if it's technically been sold.

Also: What is a Chief AI Officer, and how do you become one?

This new agreement simply means that OpenAI will potentially take what you post and feed it into a database alongside millions of other posts to help AI become more reliable. 

As far as what the new AI features might be, Reddit didn't offer up specifics. Facebook recently integrated AI , but it was met with a lot of frustration from users. It's possible Reddit might incorporate an AI-powered posting tool that assists users with hashing out their thoughts, but that would lead to a trained-by-AI, posted-by-AI loop of sorts. If the company takes an idea from Google , it might offer up AI-powered summaries at the top of posts, but in my personal experience, that summary is often wrong.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there's a way for users to opt out of having their content used to train AI other than deleting old posts.

OpenAI is unveiling new ChatGPT features today - search engine not included

Microsoft build is next week - here's why i'm excited (and you should be, too), how i test an ai chatbot's coding ability - and you can too.

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What Does Midheaven Symbolize in Astrology?

Allow me to introduce you to your Midheaven — a powerful point in your birth chart that indicates your public image, career path, and your most successful pursuits. Sounds like a great thing to know about, right? Here’s your guide to all things Midheaven: what it symbolizes, how to locate it, and what it means for you.

What is the Midheaven in astrology?

Since you’re here, you probably already know that when it comes to your personal astrology, your Sun Sign is only the tip of the iceberg. And that at the exact moment you were born, all of the other planets and celestial points in the sky are also included in your unique astrological profile — a two-dimensional diagram known as your birth chart .

But did you know that the birth chart — shaped like a circle — is also anchored in space and time? While the far-left point (the nine o’clock position) reflects the eastern horizon and your Rising Sign , the top of the wheel (the 12 o’clock position) illuminates the sky directly overhead. (Okay, fine, you did know. Anyway.) This area in the sky is referred to as the zenith, and — symbolically — your Midheaven.

What does the Midheaven symbolize?

Also known as your “MC” or Medium Coeli (Latin for “middle of the sky”), this placement reveals your aspirations, ambitions, and how you’re perceived in the public sphere. Situated within the Tenth House of legacy, your Midheaven is linked to your professional path, career goals, and the image you project to the world.

While some erroneously refer to your Rising Sign as the “mask you wear in public,” your Midheaven is actually much better suited for this definition. In fact, many people will perceive you as your Midheaven sign, since that placement reflects the energy you generate externally. Likewise, you can use your Midheaven to help determine what type of professional path may be best suited for your personality.

For example, if your Midheaven is in Cancer, perhaps you may excel in environments focused on teaching, nurturing, or inspiring others through community building. Alternatively, if your Midheaven is in Sagittarius, you may be motivated by travel, exploration, and philosophical adventures—perhaps you would thrive pursuing journalism or academia.

Additionally, any planets or celestial bodies that are conjunct (in the same zodiac sign or within close proximity to) the Midheaven will add flavor and dimensionality to its role in your life. If Mercury (the planet of expression) is connected to your Midheaven, it will reveal that communication plays a major role in your legacy. Or, if transformative Pluto is conjunct your Midheaven, it may reveal that your legacy will continue to change and evolve over time. Some folks may even have multiple planets interacting with their Midheaven — in that case, remember that each planet tells a story that adds depth and nuance to this powerful placement in your life.

Keep in mind, your legacy is not intended to be your 15 minutes of fame, nor is it the odd jobs you take in order to pay your bills. The Midheaven isn’t money or resources, either; pursuing your soul’s mission isn’t always an economic decision. Fundamentally, the Midheaven illuminates how you’ll be remembered posthumously, and its powerful significance is revealed across many decades, through an array of experiences — both successes and failures.

How can I find the Midheaven in my birth chart?

It’s easy to find the Midheaven — but, first, you’ll need to calculate your birth chart based on your exact date, time, and location of birth. I recommend downloading the TimePassages app for iPhone or Android, but Astro.com is also a great resource. From there, observe what is located at the top of your chart at the 12 o’clock position; depending on the software, your Midheaven may be indicated through the initials “MC” or a thick line with an arrow pointing up. Or, if you want to go right to the source, check out this free Midheaven calculator .

Once you’ve identified your Midheaven, here’s what you need to know about cultivating your soul’s legacy:

• Aries Midheaven: Legacy built on passion and initiation
• Taurus Midheaven: Legacy built on investments and security
• Gemini Midheaven: Legacy built on curiosity and variety
• Cancer Midheaven: Legacy built on nurturing and caretaking
• Leo Midheaven: Legacy built on performance and visibility
• Virgo Midheaven: Legacy built on structure and communication
• Libra Midheaven: Legacy built on partnership and collaborations
• Scorpio Midheaven: Legacy built on depth and intuition
• Sagittarius Midheaven: Legacy built on exploration and adventure
• Capricorn Midheaven: Legacy built on discipline and wisdom
• Aquarius Midheaven: Legacy built on innovation and rebellion
• Pisces Midheaven: Legacy built on creativity and spirituality

Remember, unlocking the potential of your Midheaven requires dedication, discipline, and — perhaps most importantly — patience. As our birth charts guide us throughout our entire lives, we’re continuously learning how to harness the wisdom to achieve our fullest potential. A placement this powerful takes time to come to fruition, so it’s best to reflect on the Midheaven as a sort of North Star, pointing us in the direction of our greatest purpose. So go forth, my friend, and embrace your true calling.

More astrology news and guides

• Steel Yourself for Saturday’s Jupiter-Uranus Conjunction
• Get Ready for the Solar Eclipse in Aries to Change You
• A Guide to the Water Signs: Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces
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