Many years ago, Kiswahili was born as an obscure island dialect of an African Bantu tongue, but it has evolved boldly into one of Africa’s most internationally recognised languages. It compares favourably with a few languages of the world that boast more than 200 million users.
As a common transaction language (lingua franca) in Kenya and East Africa, Kiswahili is beating all the odds, including the invasive “Sheng”— that started as a hotchpotch of English and Kiswahili — to emerge as the leading subject in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination with a positive trajectory over the years.
According to the just-released Economic Survey 2023, among the five subjects tested in national examination KCPE, Kiswahili — both Insha and Lugha — has had a positive deviation in the past three years in a row.
Kiswahili Lugha recorded a mean score of 51.31 percent in 2020; 52.84 in 2021 and 57.84 in 2022.
Other subjects have been fluctuating in performance; in 2020, English recorded 53.51 percent, 49.06 in 2021, and 49.72 in 2022.
Mathematics dropped to 49.56 percent in 2021 from 54.91 in 2020 while it registered 47.54 in 2022.
Social Studies registered 56.46 percent in 2020 and dropped to 54.62 in 2021, and 52.58 a year later. Religious Education posted 64.43 percent in 2020, 61.50 in 2021, and 61.57 in 2022.
Kiswahili keeps evolving, according to experts. “We are coming up with vocabularies every day; thus, Kamusi (the dictionary) will still be expanded,” says Henry Indindi, a Kiswahili lecturer at Laikipia University. Because of this reality, learners have to be well updated, the lecturer told A Plain.
Indeed, many languages are evolving; English has been adopting local languages and Swahili words across the world. Among them in Kenya are words such as boda boda (motorcycle taxis), safari (Kiswahili for travel), shamba (Kiswahili for garden).
Among other milestones, Unesco on November 23 last year during its 41st Member States session held in Paris, declared July 7 the World Kiswahili Day.
This makes Swahili the first African language to be recognised by the United Nations. Indeed, Kiswahili is one of the official languages of the African Union (AU), the umbrella body of more 50 countries.
Kiswahili is “among the 10 most widely spoken languages in the world, with more than 200 million speakers,” Unesco states in its proposal to Member States last month to proclaim World Kiswahili Language Day.
With its origin in East Africa, Kiswahili speakers are spread over more than 14 countries, namely Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and South Sudan.
Others are Somalia, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Comoros, and as far as Oman and Yemen in the Middle East.
Southern African countries such as South Africa and Botswana have introduced it in schools, while Namibia and others are considering a similar direction.
People are earning top dollar through speaking Kiswahili in various professions and platforms, including newsrooms, teaching at university and schools, entertainment, emceeing, authoring books, editing, and public relations.
Among other international broadcasting stations, BBC and DW are some of the well-recognised users of Kiswahili that keep hiring Kenyan Kiswahili journalists to work locally or at their hubs in London and Bonn respectively.
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