The key to Swahli (== KiSwahili)

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2011/01/19 07:01 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2011/01/19/10117441.aspx

THE WINDOWS 7 KISWAHILI LANGUAGE INTERFACE PACK IS LIVE!

Click here to download the KiSwahili Windows 7 LIP via the Microsoft.com Download Center.

Please note that the KiSwahili Windows 7 LIP can only be installed on a system that runs an English client version of Windows 7. It is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems on the Download Center.

The KiSwahili Windows 7 LIP is produced as part of the Local Language Program sponsored by Public Sector.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON KISWAHILI

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS:

5-10 million speakers as their first language, 50-100 million speakers as a second language.

NAME OF THE ANGUAGE ITSELF:

KiSwahili

KiSwahili (or commonly called Swahili) is a language widely spoken in Eastern Africa and parts of Central Africa. It is national language in Tanzania and Kenya and extensively used in Uganda and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is understood in areas of Rwanda, Burundi, the Comoros Islands, the southern part of Somalia, the northern parts of Mozambique and Zambia, and even the northwestern coast of Madagascar. While it is native tongue for only 4-5 million people, more than 50 million people know Swahili as second language and use it as a lingua franca, making it the most widely understood language in Africa after Arabic.

FUN FACTS:

Nichelle Nichols, the actress who portrayed Commander Uhura on Star Trek, chose the name Uhura for herself based on the Swahili word Uhuru, which means freedom.
In the Disney film The Lion King, the main character is Simba. The word Simba is Swahili for lion; it is likely borrowed from the Sanskrit word “simha” via Arabic.\
Safari is a Swahili word meaning journey. And originally came from the Arabic word “safarly” which also means trip.

Click here for more information about the KiSwahili language

CLASSIFICATION:

Swahili belongs to the Bantu group of languages which are part of the Niger-Congo language family.

SCRIPT:

The first script used for Swahili was Arabic. The Latin script used today was adopted in the middle of the 19th century.

Enjoy!

John Kimau on 27 Feb 2011 2:36 AM:

The windows 7 kiswahili is not standard kiswahili, I do speak Kiswahili as second language but this one in the park is Kenya's Kiswahili which is not standard kiswahili at all. This kiswahili is not understandable to all East Africa region, standard swahili is undertandable to all region.

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