The best English speakers in Africa I have met were Kenyan school kids. When I did a Swahili language exam in the British Army, my examiner was a Colonel in the Kenyan Army. He was attached to the Military Academy at Sandhurst. His English was BBC flawless. A 10-minute oral exam lasted 45 Minutes. I was hard pressed as he, as he promised, would put me through my paces. I impressed him with some archaic words and constructions, as I had learned from an old book.
It is a misconception that the best Swahili is spoken in Tanzania. It is the best standard Swahili for sure- in itself standardized by the British Inter-Territorial Language Committee. Kiunguja was chosen as the dialect -the Zanzibar town dialect, but as much Arabic as possible was removed (some 50% of vocabulary was Arabic) except where confusion in its admission would result. Words such as Safari have specific meanings outside Arabic's original meaning of caravan convoy or Swahili's mwendo - journey. Also, Kimvita (Mombasa) and Kiamu (Lamu) dialect elements were added. Strictly speaking, the purest forms of Swahili are spoken on the Lamu archipelago
Sheng is not a language...and it's not a threat to Swahili...Sheng has no future...We formed the initial Sheng in 1966...but the Sheng being Spoken today...I can't comprehend it...
Exactly, its sooo flexible and changeable ad also regional. The sheng being spoken in Luhyaland is different from the one you'll find in Nyanza or Nakuru, Kitale Western, Kericho etc and the one you'll find in Eastlands and the one you'll find in leafy suburbs of Nairobi. The sheng being spoken today is the different fro the one which was spoken 10yrs, nope even 5yrs ago. I cant even understand anything they are saying and I am from low income and have spent almost all my life in low income neighbourhoods, and I am not even 40 yet. Its not like the West African Pidgin English....
Sheng is pointless. I’ve always said this. A language that’s not stable can’t be a language. I’ve been young and I’m now almost forty. Yet sheng hasn’t stabilized. And it’s not showing any sign of stabilizing. You can’t study or muster a language that changes every week. Or even daily sometimes. Sheng is a fad. That keeps changing. All the “monchokas” and “riengs” won’t mean a thing in a year. You basically can’t write a kamusi for sheng. And you can’t even do an etiological study either. Words have such a short half life. There’s no order, no general structure. No body governing it to be developed into a language. Above all it doesn’t serve East Africans. At a time when we’re trying to come together. It’ll serve to alienate than bring us together.
It is hard for my poor Mzungu ears to determine what is Sheng and what is code-switching! Even in Kikuyu, people will code switch with English, rather than struggle to use a phrase not or construction not readily available in Kikuyu, or any other vernacular. Understandable as quickly switching to English saves a lot of paraphrasing and possible misunderstanding. We do it in English all the time. Latin is the language of medicine and law, trying to say things in English, does not carry the same meaning.
So, lets see if I got it. So far, just some European and Asian languages had become international and widespread. For the first time, there is an African language that could join this group, allowing to better convey african culture worlwide and opining the possibility for africans from distant regions to speak each other in an african language rather than in a foreign one. But, instead of being proud of it and promote it as quick as possible to insure this place for swahili in a globalised world, you guys create a new mixed or pidgin language that is actually competing against swahili. I have even read that sheng phenomenon is expanding outside kenya into Tanzania. I think that these European and Asian people who are studying swahili should have done a little research before starting, to be aware that swahili has institutional support, but not from those who could speak it.
Let me order my response to this topic as follow: Indeed, I agree with your comment! I wish to add that Kiswahili is a language with a source. In other words with a definite root. Kwa mfano; silabu, sarufi, ngeli, kamusi na kathalika. Kwa ujumla, lugha ya Kiswahili ina mafunzo. Yaani, baada ya kutumia Kiswahili kwa mazungumzo, au shairi, utajifunza mambo fulani. Niseme kwamba haya mambo ambayo Kiswahili inafunza, elezea au kuipa mgongo, ni mambo yanayofaa sio tu mtu binafsi ambaye anaitumia lugha hii, bali pia jamaa wake na jamii kwa jumla. Yaani yaana maelezo, yanatia tabia nzuri, heshima kwa wazazi, haki dhidi ya kiongozi mwenye dhulma, na kathalika. Ni lugha yenye manufaa! Kiswahili should be supported, encouraged and be deeply integrated and institutionalized. It should bear unending institutional support. Creative ways to integrate it into informal language system should be researched and embraced not just in schools, wall street, but also in informal settlements, in the main streets, in media, etc. Mainstream media should sideline - not ban - sheng as a non-medium of disseminating news or important conversations for Kenyan mainstream broadcast. Although not ban it - since its creative spirit is necessary among the youth. The jobless youth often release their pressure, lack of cash or dream, or poverty, and to relieve in a newfound sense of community among fellow-sheng speaking-youths - all from a diverse ethnic backgrounds. They feel as one. They see themselves, their failures, their poverty, their hardships, in the face of their peers. For them, what a great sense of community and comradery! It is not a language we should ever allow to trump Kiswahili! Not now, not ever! Meaning; we should double down on Kiswahili with more accumulated knowledge, science, psychology, literature and research about Kiswahili language. Preserve the literature on Kiswahili language so that our children's children (future generations: i.e. 400yrs to come) never get so naïve as to adopt a dirty street, crime-lauding language that their forefathers - objectively and scientifically (not ideological) - warned against! Concerned Kenyan, Yohana Ogom.
Madocho ni Mjamo Kanairo na kama hauninauwo itabaki uninauwo Sheng Master. Mind you Kiswahili came up from two languages Arabic and Bantu and a little bit of portuguese.a language created in Mombasa for transaction of barter trade. Kwa Ivyo mbona Sheng isi evolve just like kiswahili🤔 plus its created in Kanairo with all the languages of kenya and also to spice it up it we also put foreign languages.
A little history and perspective will help. For starters, language takes a very long time to evolve. That evolution is organic. Having said that, haphazardly borrowing words from other languages and lumping them together doesn’t make it a language. There’s a reason why governments have departments that safeguard their languages. Bc a lot goes into it. Languages is a pretty powerful tool. All sheng is doing is to dilute the languages it’s supposedly borrowing from. Bc that’s not borrowing. It’s more like theft. Another thing to keep in mind is how young Swahili as we know it actually is. So if you really are championing for a new language, where the dominant one is not even out of her diapers yet, then it shows a bit of immaturity. Wouldn’t you agree? Can you write me an essay in sheng. What are the rules of the language? How do you form the nouns, pronouns, articles…? How do words associate? Can you trace origins of words and evolution? (Remember language exists in a cultural context. Always)
Sometimes u understand a little Sometimes u understood nothing! 🙂
hahaha,,,wacha uaganis
Vile vile, and it is very dynamic,unless you are current. you are left behind.
Sheng ni ya ma vijana...but kiswahili kitukuzwe ...
Shida ya Sheng ni iko kama syllabus, inataka updates juu inabadilika kila uchao.
Love it iko sawa
Sheng Sii Sheng Tu It's Keeps Changing Depends With Your Location...
Kiswahili ni lugha tamu,,hii sheng kusema ukweli inaleta balaa...
"Piga Mboka, Tumia Mongrel Na Bado Usare Crime" hiyo imeni'touch
I appreciate all kenyans
Sheng made me hate kiswahili as a subject in High school. Actually, got a C plain because I was so used to sheng back then.
No one can speak good english or swahili in kenya? He needs to mingle with people more
SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, I'm a pro SWAHILI speaker and proud.
Mombasa speak well than other region in Tanzania
@@zainabumsuya5557 even lamu island 🏝
The best English speakers in Africa I have met were Kenyan school kids. When I did a Swahili language exam in the British Army, my examiner was a Colonel in the Kenyan Army. He was attached to the Military Academy at Sandhurst. His English was BBC flawless. A 10-minute oral exam lasted 45 Minutes. I was hard pressed as he, as he promised, would put me through my paces. I impressed him with some archaic words and constructions, as I had learned from an old book.
It is a misconception that the best Swahili is spoken in Tanzania. It is the best standard Swahili for sure- in itself standardized by the British Inter-Territorial Language Committee. Kiunguja was chosen as the dialect -the Zanzibar town dialect, but as much Arabic as possible was removed (some 50% of vocabulary was Arabic) except where confusion in its admission would result. Words such as Safari have specific meanings outside Arabic's original meaning of caravan convoy or Swahili's mwendo - journey. Also, Kimvita (Mombasa) and Kiamu (Lamu) dialect elements were added. Strictly speaking, the purest forms of Swahili are spoken on the Lamu archipelago
Sheng is the most unstable languages of the world. It is just like a passing wind. A smoke!!!
Robert Ouma 🙌🙌🙌
Sheng is not a language...and it's not a threat to Swahili...Sheng has no future...We formed the initial Sheng in 1966...but the Sheng being Spoken today...I can't comprehend it...
Exactly, its sooo flexible and changeable ad also regional. The sheng being spoken in Luhyaland is different from the one you'll find in Nyanza or Nakuru, Kitale Western, Kericho etc and the one you'll find in Eastlands and the one you'll find in leafy suburbs of Nairobi. The sheng being spoken today is the different fro the one which was spoken 10yrs, nope even 5yrs ago. I cant even understand anything they are saying and I am from low income and have spent almost all my life in low income neighbourhoods, and I am not even 40 yet. Its not like the West African Pidgin English....
🤣🤣🤣🤣 Kenya wanavituko kweli
Sheng is pointless. I’ve always said this. A language that’s not stable can’t be a language. I’ve been young and I’m now almost forty. Yet sheng hasn’t stabilized. And it’s not showing any sign of stabilizing. You can’t study or muster a language that changes every week. Or even daily sometimes.
Sheng is a fad. That keeps changing. All the “monchokas” and “riengs” won’t mean a thing in a year. You basically can’t write a kamusi for sheng. And you can’t even do an etiological study either. Words have such a short half life. There’s no order, no general structure. No body governing it to be developed into a language.
Above all it doesn’t serve East Africans. At a time when we’re trying to come together. It’ll serve to alienate than bring us together.
It is hard for my poor Mzungu ears to determine what is Sheng and what is code-switching! Even in Kikuyu, people will code switch with English, rather than struggle to use a phrase not or construction not readily available in Kikuyu, or any other vernacular. Understandable as quickly switching to English saves a lot of paraphrasing and possible misunderstanding. We do it in English all the time. Latin is the language of medicine and law, trying to say things in English, does not carry the same meaning.
"No kenyan can speak straight english/kiswahili" What the hell is this dude smoking though?
Where are mbogi genje
Seen my brother Rambo in a white T-shirt
👍👍👍👍👍
So, lets see if I got it. So far, just some European and Asian languages had become international and widespread. For the first time, there is an African language that could join this group, allowing to better convey african culture worlwide and opining the possibility for africans from distant regions to speak each other in an african language rather than in a foreign one. But, instead of being proud of it and promote it as quick as possible to insure this place for swahili in a globalised world, you guys create a new mixed or pidgin language that is actually competing against swahili. I have even read that sheng phenomenon is expanding outside kenya into Tanzania.
I think that these European and Asian people who are studying swahili should have done a little research before starting, to be aware that swahili has institutional support, but not from those who could speak it.
Let me order my response to this topic as follow:
Indeed, I agree with your comment! I wish to add that Kiswahili is a language with a source. In other words with a definite root. Kwa mfano; silabu, sarufi, ngeli, kamusi na kathalika. Kwa ujumla, lugha ya Kiswahili ina mafunzo. Yaani, baada ya kutumia Kiswahili kwa mazungumzo, au shairi, utajifunza mambo fulani. Niseme kwamba haya mambo ambayo Kiswahili inafunza, elezea au kuipa mgongo, ni mambo yanayofaa sio tu mtu binafsi ambaye anaitumia lugha hii, bali pia jamaa wake na jamii kwa jumla. Yaani yaana maelezo, yanatia tabia nzuri, heshima kwa wazazi, haki dhidi ya kiongozi mwenye dhulma, na kathalika. Ni lugha yenye manufaa!
Kiswahili should be supported, encouraged and be deeply integrated and institutionalized. It should bear unending institutional support. Creative ways to integrate it into informal language system should be researched and embraced not just in schools, wall street, but also in informal settlements, in the main streets, in media, etc.
Mainstream media should sideline - not ban - sheng as a non-medium of disseminating news or important conversations for Kenyan mainstream broadcast. Although not ban it - since its creative spirit is necessary among the youth. The jobless youth often release their pressure, lack of cash or dream, or poverty, and to relieve in a newfound sense of community among fellow-sheng speaking-youths - all from a diverse ethnic backgrounds. They feel as one. They see themselves, their failures, their poverty, their hardships, in the face of their peers. For them, what a great sense of community and comradery!
It is not a language we should ever allow to trump Kiswahili! Not now, not ever! Meaning; we should double down on Kiswahili with more accumulated knowledge, science, psychology, literature and research about Kiswahili language. Preserve the literature on Kiswahili language so that our children's children (future generations: i.e. 400yrs to come) never get so naïve as to adopt a dirty street, crime-lauding language that their forefathers - objectively and scientifically (not ideological) - warned against!
Concerned Kenyan,
Yohana Ogom.
@@yohanaogom6661thanks 🙏🙏🙏
wanaharibu lugha yetu ya kiswahili
Wachaneni na madocho ye in kuguess anaguess
I don't understand Sheng yet I'm Kenyan.
Sasa hio sheng itawaharibia 😂😂 maana pia inachukua maneno ya Kiswahili
I thought sheng ilikuja na akina nameless 😁😁😁😁 I love sheng ....mimi kiswahili kitukuzwe sikijui
Time to get back to Kiswahili sis. It’s our heritage. The only thing that truly makes you East African.
But ume jieleza kwa kiswahili 🤣🤣🤣 confused like shembeteng it self
Hii sheng ya nowdays is a throw.. ya kitambo ndio sheng.. everybody spoke it
You don't know English, You don't know swahili and Sheng is just there.
Funzwa kiwahili shuleni, bonga sheng mtaani.
We don't speak sheng , we speak a mixture of English and kiswahili
And that is Sheng
Sheng imetake over tayari 👍
Sheng ni Upuuzi mtupu kumanina zenu acheni uhayawani...
kino
@@Wanjohi_1994 Dada tuliza nyege hiki kina kikubwa sio kipimo chako..
@@Wanjohi_1994 unaongea Kikuyu ama lugha gani hii tena?ukitoka hapo uje nikufundishe namna ya kusoma, kuongea na kuandika Kiswahili..Acha ubahauu 🤪😂
@@Wanjohi_1994 umejitahidi kidogo angalau utapata alama 11/100 Kijanan wangu💪
hiyo sheng ni upuuzi mtupo ni lugha ya wahuni tu vijana wakora wamitaani
Bt u know sheng yazamo Kila mtu anainauwo bt hi sheng tezo niblanda Jo ATA mkanya awezi nauwo otherwise sheng iko bie
Madocho ni Mjamo Kanairo na kama hauninauwo itabaki uninauwo Sheng Master.
Mind you Kiswahili came up from two languages Arabic and Bantu and a little bit of portuguese.a language created in Mombasa for transaction of barter trade.
Kwa Ivyo mbona Sheng isi evolve just like kiswahili🤔 plus its created in Kanairo with all the languages of kenya and also to spice it up it we also put foreign languages.
A little history and perspective will help. For starters, language takes a very long time to evolve. That evolution is organic. Having said that, haphazardly borrowing words from other languages and lumping them together doesn’t make it a language. There’s a reason why governments have departments that safeguard their languages. Bc a lot goes into it. Languages is a pretty powerful tool.
All sheng is doing is to dilute the languages it’s supposedly borrowing from. Bc that’s not borrowing. It’s more like theft.
Another thing to keep in mind is how young Swahili as we know it actually is. So if you really are championing for a new language, where the dominant one is not even out of her diapers yet, then it shows a bit of immaturity. Wouldn’t you agree?
Can you write me an essay in sheng. What are the rules of the language? How do you form the nouns, pronouns, articles…? How do words associate? Can you trace origins of words and evolution? (Remember language exists in a cultural context. Always)
SWAHILI?
Mna promote lugha ya masela mavi si kiswahili hicho ni uchizi tu
Toa umbwakni apa
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 kwel hatar
No kenyan can speak straight english or kiswahili!
Have you met PLO, let me not go that far! Have you ever listened to Sanaipei converse?
Kiswahili kitukuzwe
Sheng made me hate kiswahili as a subject in High school. Actually, got a C plain because I was so used to sheng back then.