Last week sometime Brendan Hayes of Young Heores stumbled upon my last siSwati lesson and had a thing or two to add about visiting the site to learn the language. He recommends anybody with a true interest in visiting Swaziland consider volunteer travel to help save the life of an orphan. Apparently there are some 70,000 orphans in Swaziland due to the high rate of HIV/AIDS in the country and with numbers that large I’d say it’s time we all try to take action. Check out the website for additional details on how to help.
Today’s word is a siSwati word used in Swaziland:
kukhuluma – to speak
Also known as Swati, Swazi, and Seswati; siSiwati is a Bantu language from the Nguni group spoken in Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique and South Africa. There are an estimated 1,706,924 speakers across the four countries and is listed as an official language in South Africa and Swaziland only. There are a few sites to visit to assist in learning this African tongue. Start with the Swaziland tourism site. The homepage has a sample dialog including the response to today’s word. Young Heroes has their site set up to learn one word a day, but you can refresh as many times as you wish in one day to learn multiple. Lastly, I would search around Amazon more, but this Essential siSwati might be a good start for those really wanting to learn.
Past siSwati words: ninjani