"Alizaliwa mwaka elfu moja mia tisa themanini na tano"
Translation:He was born in nineteen eighty-five
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I asked an African friend (native Swahili speaker) and got a different answer today, so it must be dialectal. I'll ask some of my other friends for regional differences. Perhaps it's because she and I are on close terms and Duolingo is more formal? Don't know. At this point I'm sure American Swahili will be its own thing in a few years, since there are so many dialects mixing here. I guess that's just what America does to languages and cultures.
if you're writing the numerical value, sure, you can do without it. In words, 'mwaka' is used. In English it's different because you'd say 'nineteen eighty five' versus 'one thousand nine hundred and eighty five', whereas it doesn't change in Swahili (I'm a native speaker from Kenya btw, born and raised). Even speaking I'd say 'mwaka' before saying the year.