Share your favourite fun facts about African languages!
For a calendar aimed at promoting African languages to the wider public, we are collecting fun facts about African languages. All your ideas and input are welcome! We are especially interested in:
- words with a surprising meaning
Example: the Iraqw language of Tanzania has a word hhalahhali used for when you have a sixth finger on your hand.
- words with an interesting etymology
Example: the Tswana language of Botswana has a word madi which means both ‘blood’ and ‘money’. This comes from an Arabic borrowing for ‘money’ which happened to be formally identical to the already existing word for ‘blood’.
- riddles, proverbs and idioms
Example: the Tsonga language of South Africa has an expression ’to eat the bones of the head’, which means ’to think’.
- words from African languages that were borrowed in a European language
Example: the word ‘safari’ is borrowed from the Swahili word safari meaning ‘journey’.
Share your favourite fun facts about African languages with us in this form. Thanks for helping us promote African languages! All contributions will be duly credited.