• Forty percent of Kiswahili words derive from Arabic.
• Kingazija has been since 1957 the national dialect of Kiswahili.
• In Kiswahili, many of the consonants are named by their sounds, without aspiration.
• Some of the sounds are softer than in our language: the p is less aspirated; the b sounds like a burp by itself.

Here’s a little alphabet song he taught us:

A-E-I-O-U
A-E-I-O-U
Hizi ni herufi kuu
Tamka kwa sauti kuu
Sema…
A-E-I-O-U

• They don’t have words ending in vowels unless they’re borrowed words.