The basic principle which was retained to establish the Swahili alphabet, is that every distinct sound or phoneme should always be transcribed by the same distinct written form (either a single letter, or a cluster of letters), and conversely.

The Swahili alphabet includes :

• 23 single letters : a, b, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, v, w, y, z.


• The letters q and x are not used. The letter c, although present, is never used alone.


• 9 digraphs : ch, dh, gh, kh, ng', ny, sh, th, ts.

As you can see in this table, Swahili contains 5 vowels. These are pronounced openly, without diphtongs, like in Spanish or in Italian. They must always be kept short.

Unlike in English, two (or three) written vowels that follow each other never merge together to form a single sound. Each keeps its own sound.

For example : ou is pronounced "o-oo" as in "go", au is pronounced "a-oo" as in "cow", ei is pronounced "e-ee" as in "bay", ai is
pronounced "a-ee" as in "tie", etc.

In theory, any vowel can be in succession with any other one.

It is not unfrequent to meet two similar vowels in succession : they must be pronounced as one long vowel :

While most of the consonants are similar to the English ones and do not offer any difficulty, special care must be paid to :

• f : it has always the sound of the "f" in "fat", never that of the "f" in "of".


• g : it is always hard like in "got". It should never be pronounced soft like the "g" in "gin".


• s : it has always the sound of the "s" in "sad", never that of the "s" in "is" or "easy".

Most of the real difficulties of Swahili are concentrated here. It is however important to try and pronounce these sounds correctly :

• dh and th are both written "th" in English. dh is voiced as in "the", "this", "that", "with" ... While th is unvoiced as in "think", "thin", "both" ... stakabadhi (= a receipt), hadithi (= a story).



• gh and kh are pronounced at the back of the throat. gh is voiced and close to the French "r" in "rare" : ghali (= expensive), shughuli (= affair, activity). kh is unvoiced and corresponds to a scraping of the throat : subalkheri (= good morning).



• ng' although similar in sound to the English "ng" in "singing" poses a difficulty, for it usually occurs at the initial of words. It is luckily quite rare : ng'ambo (= foreign), ng'ombe (= a cow).

The syllable M corresponds to the class prefix MU- (Class 1 and Class 3) whose U has been dropped. However, the "m" doesn't merge with the following consonant and should be pronounced somewhat like "humm !".

The M syllabic can be accentuated (stressed syllable) in short words such as : mtu (= a person), mti (= a tree), mji (= a town, a city), etc..

The Swahili syllable is said to be open, for it always ends on a vowel sound. For example :

                   KI-SWA-HI-LI        (= Swahili)       JA-MBO         (= hello !)         M-ZU-NGU         (= a white man)
                   NG'O-MBE               (= a cow)         N-NE              (= four)            TA-NZA-NI-A    (= Tanzania)

An extra vowel is usually added in loanwords, in order to conform to the open syllable pattern. For example :

                   O-I-LI                     (= oil)              SHI-LI-NGI     (= shilling)         BE-NKI              (= bank)
                   PE-TRO-LI               (= petrol)         NA-NA-SI      (= pineapple)     SHA-TI              (= shirt)

The stress usually falls on the last but one syllabe of a word. There are however a small number of exceptions, on words of Arabic
origin. For example : lazima (= it is necessary) : /'lazima/ .

Compare also : barabara (= a road) : /bara'bara/ , and barabara (= very well) : /ba'rabara/ .

EXERCISE 1 : Read aloud the following words :

Kaa, taa, saa, jaa, njaa, maana, chai, yai, zaidi, faida, laini, hao, wao, au, bilauri, sauti, dau, mzee, bei, cheo, leo, nyeupe, nyeusi, njia, kiasi, kulia, pia, siagi, raia, zii, hii, kiu, kiumbe, kuoa, kupoa, kuzoea, choo, njoo, jogoo, kioo, ndoo, shikamoo, fua, barua,
mvua, adui, kuzuia, huo, uongo, juu, huu, kuu.

Wewe, wiki, dawa, bwana, kiswahili, ya, yao, hayo, yeye, mayai.

Baba, bado, bata, barabara, marahaba, dada, debe, duka, baada, kufaa, fisi, afya, hafifu, gunia, kugawa, gari, kujenga, haba, hapa, hodi, sahihi, jembe, jambo, kujua, jibu, juzijuzi, kaka, kukaa, haraka, kidogo, kibaba, la, lakini, kulia, kubali, mama, muwa, mamlaka, na, naam, nanasi, nukta, neno, papa, pana, pole, kupaka, lipa, ruka, robo, starehe, sisi, siri, sababu, asante, tatu, tele, tisa, tafuta,
matuta, kuvaa, vema, kavu, viti, uvivu.

Chui, cheo, chafu, chache, dharau, fedha, dhahabu, ramadhani, ghali, ghafula, shughuli, lugha, subalkheri, ng'ambo, ng'ombe, ng'oa, nyuma, nyota, nyoka, shida, shilingi, shule, safisha, thumni, hadithi.

Mbu, mbwa, mjinga, mhindi, mfalme, mchezo, mji, mkate, mlima, mnazi, mpaka, msaada, mstari, mswaki, mzungu.

Tafadhali, magharibi, mashariki, nywele, kuchemsha, mchanganyiko, nyang'anya, masalkheri, thelathini, mgonjwa, maharagwe.