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- Topic: Swahili >
- "Mchele"
3 Comments
335
They are using words that are in fact not interchangeable. They are doing this because they don't speak good Swahili. I live in Kenya and I know for a fact that some Kenyans don't speak good Swahili for three reasons:
1) Slang is common in poor areas. Slang that mixes Swahili and English is called Sheng.
2) British-education based high schools are very common in Kenya and there is a generation of middle class Kenyans who speak poor Swahili as a result of attending these schools and not formally studying Swahili in the traditional Kenyan 8-4-4 system.
3) Tanzanians rely more on Swahili than Kenyans. In Kenya, business transactions such as contracts are almost always done in English. You will never find a Swahili business contract in Kenya. Here is a link demonstrating how Tanzania relies more on Swahili than Kenya.
https://qz.com/355444/tanzania-dumps-english-as-its-official-language-in-schools-opts-for-kiswahili/