i would like to know the percent of people Kenya that speak swahili. i neede to know this for my project... so any day now would be nice.
thanks for your help......maybe
Aug 29, 2010
Language Situation in Kenya by: owiro Peter
Language situation in Kenya is a bit complex given the fact that it is a multilingual country. What complicates the matter is the emergence of Sheng and of course code switching.In reality what majority of Kenyans speak is a blend of Kiswahili, English and their respective vernaculars.
Jun 09, 2010
how many people speak english in kenya by: Anonymous
around a few(2)million people speak english in kenya
May 05, 2010
Swahil v English by: Archie Melrose
I think that question has been extensively covered by Chris.
Regards
Archie
May 02, 2010
How many people in Kenya speak English, how many speak Swahili? speak by: Chris - A child of Kenya
Your question is almost impossible to answer accurately.
Kenya has a growing population of over 39 million.
The official Language is English which is taught and spoken in schools and is used extensively in Business.
The National language is Swahili or properly called Kiswahili. It is spoken widely throughout East Africa. There are also more than eleven major tribes in Kenya and some 40 to 50, maybe more indigenous tribal languages or codes. In addition there is a developing language among the youth of Kenya known as Sheng.
The local tribal language is considered their 'mother tongue'.
In towns speaking one language is increasingly becoming not that important to many Kenyans because many more affluent families are tri-lingual, speaking English,Kiswahili and their own tribal language.
Waswahili that became Kiswahili was a language originally developed along the East African Coast and is derived from a combination of many other languages of Africa and used by the Mijikenda people-Nine Coastal Tribes along the coast.
Kiswahil spread inland from the coast and it is fair to say that almost all people in Kenya speak Kiswahili although far inland there are some people who don't speak kiswahili, using their own local trible language instead.
Most Kenyans today speak and understand some English and now the youth of Kenya who represent a huge proportion of the population of Kenya have developed a language known as Sheng. Originally spoken and developed by the young people in Nairobi, this 'language' or code is a mixture of English and Kiswahili with words in Hindi and Gujariti added as well. So who knows what the most widely spoken language in Kenya will be in generations to come.
Nathan Oyori Ogechi, Department of Kiswahili and Other African languages published an interesting paper on 'The Language Situation in Kenya'.
