A Brief Introduction to the Bantu Languages

Bantu languages are spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, including up to 30% of the population of Africa. In fact, you probably even know some Bantu words without realising it – like ‘safari’ from Swahili, or ‘banana’ from Wolof. So we’re really pleased that, when we added Kirundi to the uTalk … Read more

A Beginner’s Guide to Swahili

Swahili is a Bantu language that is spoken by between 50-150 million people mainly across the African Great Lakes region, as well as other parts of Eastern and Southern Africa. It is a lingua franca but also an official language of Kenya and Tanzania. In this post, we’re going to find out more about Swahili, … Read more

Don’t get in a tangle over telling the time in Swahili!

This week, our fabulous JLC finalists have started learning their third language before the final competition in October. Having flourished in Romanian and triumphed in Korean, they are now tackling the African Bantu language of Swahili. Luckily for them, Swahili uses the Latin alphabet (one less thing to worry about!), but there is one peculiar … Read more