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Swahili
Swahili

Cantonese
Cantonese



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Swahili
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Swahili vs Cantonese

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Countries

Countries

African Union, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East African Community, Kenya
Hong Kong, Macau

Total No. Of Countries

42
0 46
👆🏻

National Language

Burundi, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Tanzania
China, Guangdong

Second Language

Not spoken in any of the countries
Not spoken in any of the countries

Speaking Continents

Africa
Asia

Minority Language

Not spoken in any of the countries
Hawaii

Regulated By

Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa (Kenya)
Civil Service Bureau, Government of Hong Kong, Official Language Division

Interesting Facts

  • Swahili language has borrowed many words from Arabic language.
  • The oldest written scripts in swahili language were found in 18th century.
  • Cantonese have lot of slangs, many of them include words that do not make sense at all and some also have English in them.
  • Even though Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects of Chinese, Cantonese has 8 tones instead of Mandarin's 4.

Similar To

Burundi, Rwanda, Malawi Languages
Chinese Language

Derived From

Arabic Language
-

Alphabets

Alphabets in

Alphabets

2428
18 247
👆🏻

Phonology

How Many Vowels

58
0 32
👆🏻

How Many Consonants

2120
9 60
👆🏻

Scripts

Latin
Chinese Characters and derivatives

Writing Direction

-
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom

Hard to Learn

Language Levels

310
2 12
👆🏻

Time Taken to Learn

36 weeks88 weeks
3 88
👆🏻

Greetings

Hello

Habari
您好

Thank You

Asante
谢谢

How Are You?

Habari gani?
你好吗?

Good Night

Usiku mwema
晚安

Good Evening

Habari za jioni
晚上好

Good Afternoon

nzuri Alasiri
下午好

Good Morning

Habari za asubuhi
早上好

Please

tafadhali

Sorry

pole
遗憾

Bye

bye
再见

I Love You

nakupenda
我爱你

Excuse Me

Samahani
原谅我

Dialects

Dialect 1

Kiunguja
Guangzhou

Where They Speak

Zanzibar island
outside mainland China

How Many People Speak

75,000,000.0071,000,000.00
1.5 960000000
👆🏻

Dialect 2

Kimrima
Xiguan

Where They Speak

Dar es Salaam
Hong Kong

How Many People Speak

75,000,000.0071,000,000.00
700 274000000
👆🏻

Dialect 3

Kimgao
Hong Kong

Where They Speak

Kilwa
Hong Kong

How Many People Speak

75,000,000.0070,000,000.00
2 230000000
👆🏻

Total No. Of Dialects

123
0 188
👆🏻

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?

150.00 million60.00 million
0 1200
👆🏻

Speaking Population

0.42 %16.00 %
0 89
👆🏻

Native Speakers

15.00 million52.00 million
0 873
👆🏻

Second Language Speakers

75.00 million71.00 million
0.01 400
👆🏻

Native Name

Kiswahili
Kwang Tung Wa

Alternative Names

Kisuaheli, Kiswahili
Guangfu, Metropolitan Cantonese

French Name

swahili
cantonais

German Name

Swahili
Kantonesisch

Pronunciation

[swaˈhili]
[kʰɐn˧˥tʰœːn˧˥sɨ˧˥]

Ethnicity

Swahili people or Waswahili
Han Chinese

History

Origin

6th century
17th century

Language Family

Niger-Congo Family
Sino-Tibetan Family

Subgroup

Benue-Congo
-

Branch

Bantu
-

Language Forms

Early Forms

No early forms
No early forms

Standard Forms

Swahili
Standard Cantonese

Language Position

211
1 120
👆🏻

Signed Forms

Swahili Sign Language
Signed Cantonese

Scope

Individual, Macrolanguage
-

Code

ISO 639 1

sw
No data available

ISO 639 2

ISO 639 2/T

swa
yue

ISO 639 2/B

swa
yue

ISO 639 3

swa
No data available

ISO 639 6

swa
yue

Glottocode

swah1254
cant1236

Linguasphere

99-AUS-m
No data available

Types of Language

Language Type

Living
-

Language Linguistic Typology

-
-

Language Morphological Typology

-
-

Swahili vs Cantonese Speaking Countries

There are plenty of languages spoken around the world. Every country has its own official language. Compare Swahili vs Cantonese speaking countries, so that you will have total count of countries that speak Swahili or Cantonese language.

  • Swahili is spoken as a national language in: Burundi, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Tanzania.
  • Cantonese is spoken as a national language in: China, Guangdong.

You will also get to know the continents where Swahili and Cantonese speaking countries lie. Based on the number of people that speak these languages, the position of Swahili language is 21 and position of Cantonese language is 1. Find all the information about these languages on Swahili and Cantonese.

Swahili and Cantonese Language History

Comparison of Swahili vs Cantonese language history gives us differences between origin of Swahili and Cantonese language. History of Swahili language states that this language originated in 6th century whereas history of Cantonese language states that this language originated in 17th century. Family of the language also forms a part of history of that language. More on language families of these languages can be found out on Swahili and Cantonese Language History.

Swahili and Cantonese 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 Swahili and Cantonese greetings helps you to understand basic phrases in Swahili and Cantonese language. Swahili word for "Hello" is Habari or Cantonese word for "Thank You" is 谢谢. Find more of such common Swahili Greetings and Cantonese Greetings. These greetings will help you to be more confident when conversing with natives that speak these languages.

Swahili vs Cantonese Difficulty

The Swahili vs Cantonese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Swahili Alphabets and Cantonese 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 Swahili and Cantonese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Swahili and Cantonese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Swahili is 36 weeks while to learn Cantonese time required is 88 weeks.