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Swahili
Swahili

Chinese
Chinese



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Swahili
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Chinese

Swahili vs Chinese

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Countries

Countries

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

Total No. Of Countries

45
0 46
👆🏻

National Language

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

Second Language

Not spoken in any of the countries
Republic of Brazil

Speaking Continents

Africa
Asia

Minority Language

Not spoken in any of the countries
Indonesia, Malaysia

Regulated By

Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa (Kenya)
Chinese Language Standardization Council, National Commission on Language and Script Work, Promote Mandarin Council

Interesting Facts

  • Swahili language has borrowed many words from Arabic language.
  • The oldest written scripts in swahili language were found in 18th century.
  • Chinese language is tonal, since meaning of a word changes according to its tone.
  • In Chinese language, there is no grammatical distinction between singular or plural, no declination of verbs according to tense, mood and aspect.

Similar To

Burundi, Rwanda, Malawi Languages
Japanese and Korean Languages

Derived From

Arabic Language
-

Alphabets

Alphabets in

Alphabets

2426
18 247
👆🏻

Phonology

How Many Vowels

524
0 32
👆🏻

How Many Consonants

2123
9 60
👆🏻

Scripts

Latin
Chinese Characters and derivatives

Writing Direction

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

Hard to Learn

Language Levels

36
2 12
👆🏻

Time Taken to Learn

36 weeks88 weeks
3 88
👆🏻

Greetings

Hello

Habari
您好 (Nín hǎo)

Thank You

Asante
谢谢 (Xièxiè)

How Are You?

Habari gani?
你好吗? (Nǐ hǎo ma?)

Good Night

Usiku mwema
晚安 (Wǎn'ān)

Good Evening

Habari za jioni
晚上好 (Wǎnshàng hǎo)

Good Afternoon

nzuri Alasiri
下午好 (Xiàwǔ hǎo)

Good Morning

Habari za asubuhi
早安 (Zǎo ān)

Please

tafadhali
请 (Qǐng)

Sorry

pole
遗憾 (Yíhàn)

Bye

bye
再见 (Zàijiàn)

I Love You

nakupenda
我爱你 (Wǒ ài nǐ)

Excuse Me

Samahani
劳驾 (Láojià)

Dialects

Dialect 1

Kiunguja
Mandarin

Where They Speak

Zanzibar island
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan

How Many People Speak

75,000,000.00960,000,000.00
1.5 960000000
👆🏻

Dialect 2

Kimrima
Wu

Where They Speak

Dar es Salaam
China, United States of America

How Many People Speak

75,000,000.0080,000,000.00
700 274000000
👆🏻

Dialect 3

Kimgao
Yue

Where They Speak

Kilwa
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam

How Many People Speak

75,000,000.0060,000,000.00
2 230000000
👆🏻

Total No. Of Dialects

1210
0 188
👆🏻

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?

150.00 million1,051.00 million
0 1200
👆🏻

Speaking Population

0.42 %16.00 %
0 89
👆🏻

Native Speakers

15.00 million873.00 million
0 873
👆🏻

Second Language Speakers

75.00 million178.00 million
0.01 400
👆🏻

Native Name

Kiswahili
中文 (zhōngwén)

Alternative Names

Kisuaheli, Kiswahili
Zhongwen, Hanyu

French Name

swahili
chinois

German Name

Swahili
Chinesisch

Pronunciation

[swaˈhili]
[ʈʂʰíŋ] [huà]

Ethnicity

Swahili people or Waswahili
Han

History

Origin

6th century
1250 BC

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 Chinese

Language Position

211
1 120
👆🏻

Signed Forms

Swahili Sign Language
Wenfa Shouyu 文法手語 ("Grammatical Sign Language", Signed Mandarin (Taiwan))

Scope

Individual, Macrolanguage
Individual

Code

ISO 639 1

sw
zh

ISO 639 2

ISO 639 2/T

swa
zho

ISO 639 2/B

swa
chi

ISO 639 3

swa
zho

ISO 639 6

swa
zho

Glottocode

swah1254
sini1245

Linguasphere

99-AUS-m
79-AAA

Types of Language

Language Type

Living
Living

Language Linguistic Typology

-
Subject-Verb-Object

Language Morphological Typology

-
Analytic, Isolating

Swahili vs Chinese Speaking Countries

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

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

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

Swahili and Chinese Language History

Comparison of Swahili vs Chinese language history gives us differences between origin of Swahili and Chinese language. History of Swahili language states that this language originated in 6th century whereas history of Chinese language states that this language originated in 1250 BC. 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 Chinese Language History.

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

Swahili vs Chinese Difficulty

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