Countries
South Africa
  
African Union, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East African Community, Kenya
  
National Language
South Africa
  
Burundi, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Tanzania
  
Second Language
Namibia, South Africa
  
Not spoken in any of the countries
  
Speaking Continents
Africa
  
Africa
  
Minority Language
Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe
  
Not spoken in any of the countries
  
Regulated By
Die Taalkommissie, National Languages Committee
  
Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa (Kenya)
  
Interesting Facts
- Afrikaans Language is a mixture of English, Dutch, German, French and some South African language like Xhosa.
- Afrikaans Language lacks case and gender distinctions.
  
- Swahili language has borrowed many words from Arabic language.
- The oldest written scripts in swahili language were found in 18th century.
Similar To
Dutch Language
  
Burundi, Rwanda, Malawi Languages
  
Derived From
Dutch Language
  
Arabic Language
  
Alphabets in
Afrikaans-Alphabets.jpg#200
  
Swahili-Alphabets.jpg#200
  
Phonology
  
  
Scripts
Latin
  
Latin
  
Writing Direction
Left-To-Right, Horizontal
  
Not Available
  
Hard to Learn
  
  
Hello
hallo
  
Habari
  
Thank You
Dankie
  
Asante
  
How Are You?
Hoe gaan dit
  
Habari gani?
  
Good Night
goeie nag
  
Usiku mwema
  
Good Evening
Goeienaand
  
Habari za jioni
  
Good Afternoon
Goeie middag
  
nzuri Alasiri
  
Good Morning
goeie more
  
Habari za asubuhi
  
Please
asseblief
  
tafadhali
  
Sorry
jammer
  
pole
  
Bye
Not Available
  
bye
  
I Love You
Ek het jou lief
  
nakupenda
  
Excuse Me
Verskoon my
  
Samahani
  
Dialect 1
Kaapse Afrikaans
  
Kiunguja
  
Where They Speak
Not Available
  
Zanzibar island
  
Dialect 2
Oranjeriverafrikaans
  
Kimrima
  
Where They Speak
Not Available
  
Dar es Salaam
  
Dialect 3
Baster Afrikaans
  
Kimgao
  
Where They Speak
Namibia
  
Kilwa
  
How Many People Speak?
19.00 million
  
99+
150.00 million
  
13
Speaking Population
Not Available
  
Not Available
  
Native Speakers
7.10 million
  
99+
15.00 million
  
40
Second Language Speakers
10.30 million
  
22
Not Available
  
Native Name
Afrikaans
  
Not Available
  
Alternative Names
Cape Dutch
  
Kisuaheli, Kiswahili
  
French Name
afrikaans
  
swahili
  
German Name
Afrikaans
  
Swahili
  
Pronunciation
[ɐfriˈkɑːns]
  
Not Available
  
Ethnicity
Afrikaners
  
Swahili people or Waswahili
  
Origin
17th Century
  
6th century
  
Language Family
Indo-European Family
  
Niger-Congo Family
  
Subgroup
Germanic
  
Benue-Congo
  
Branch
Western
  
Bantu
  
Language Forms
  
  
Early Forms
Cape dutch or kitchen dutch
  
No early forms
  
Standard Forms
Standard Afrikaans
  
Swahili
  
Signed Forms
Signed Afrikaans (signs of SASL)
  
Not Available
  
Scope
Individual
  
Individual, Macrolanguage
  
ISO 639 1
af
  
sw
  
ISO 639 2
  
  
ISO 639 2/T
afr
  
swa
  
ISO 639 2/B
afr
  
swa
  
ISO 639 3
afr
  
swa
  
ISO 639 6
afrs
  
Not Available
  
Glottocode
afri1274
  
swah1254
  
Linguasphere
52-ACB-ba
  
99-AUS-m
  
Types of Language
  
  
Language Type
Living
  
Living
  
Language Linguistic Typology
Subject-Object-Verb
  
Not Available
  
Language Morphological Typology
Analytic
  
Not Available
  
Afrikaans and Swahili Greetings
People around the world use different languages to interact with each other. Even if we cannot communicate fluently in any language, it will always be beneficial to know about some of the common greetings or phrases from that language. This is where Afrikaans and Swahili greetings helps you to understand basic phrases in Afrikaans and Swahili language. Afrikaans word for "Hello" is hallo or Swahili word for "Thank You" is Asante. Find more of such common Afrikaans Greetings and Swahili Greetings. These greetings will help you to be more confident when conversing with natives that speak these languages.
Afrikaans vs Swahili Difficulty
The Afrikaans vs Swahili difficulty level basically depends on the number of Afrikaans Alphabets and Swahili Alphabets. Also the number of vowels and consonants in the language plays an important role in deciding the difficulty level of that language. The important points to be considered when we compare Afrikaans and Swahili are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Afrikaans and Swahili, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Afrikaans is 24 weeks while to learn Swahili time required is 36 weeks.