Check the quality of your Swahili translation
Swahili alphabet and characters
The Swahili alphabet should display only the following characters. If your document is not showing correctly, then first check that the encoding for that program and font supports Swahilian.
Lower-case characters:
Upper-case characters
Swahili grammar rules
Nouns
Swahili nouns are distinctive by prefixes and are grouped in 15 classes. Nouns are not distinctive by gender.
Nouns agree with adjectives, numberals, demonstratives, possesives and relatives by the use of affixes.
Three are two numbers: singular and plural.
Verbs
Swahili formatting rules
Date formats
Region | Tanzanian |
Short date format | dd/MM/yy |
e.g. 17/03/16 | |
Long date format | dd MMMM, yyyy |
e.g. 17 Machi, 2016 |
Numbers and currency
Swahili capitalisation usage
Should be capitalised
- People’s names.
- Geographical names (of countries, counties/states, cities etc.).
- Headings/titles: only the first word is capitalised unless a proper noun is featured
- Names of states, unions, federations.
Should NOT be capitalised
Solutions for Swahili
Stepping Stone provides translation and localisation services for Swahili