Script guide › Latin

How to recognize Swahili

Swahili is one of 35 languages in Grafle's Latin group. Here's what it looks like, where you'll see it on signs, and how to tell it apart from its lookalikes.

Spot it fast

No accents; every word ends in a vowel, and the m-/wa- word starts (watu, wote, watoto) are everywhere.

What Swahili looks like

Watu wote wamezaliwa huru na sawa katika utu na haki.

Hujambo! Habari za watoto na kazi?

Haraka haraka haina baraka.

Latin scripts: The alphabet you're reading now. Each language gives itself away by its own special letters and accent marks.

Where you'll see it on signs

United Republic of Tanzania
Kenya
Uganda
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Rwanda

Easy to confuse with

Indonesian / Malay — Both are clean, vowel-final Latin — Swahili starts words with m-/wa- (watu wote), Indonesian/Malay uses me-/ber-/di- prefixes.
Tagalog (Filipino) — Tagalog: ng/mga everywhere. Swahili: m-/wa- word starts (watu, watoto) and no stand-alone two-letter words.
Somali — Somali doubles vowels (aa, oo) and leans on x, q and dh; Swahili's m-/wa- prefixes and gentler consonants read smoother.