Swahili translation services
Standard Swahili that travels across East Africa.
Swahili at a glance
Swahili is the lingua franca of East Africa. Our network covers East-African resettlement, NGO field work, and tourism / business interpretation across the Swahili-speaking belt.
Standard Swahili is based on the Kiunguja variety of Zanzibar. Written in the Latin alphabet, it's straightforward to produce and shares well across East Africa; the vocabulary borrows heavily from Arabic, with newer loans arriving from English.
Swahili has more than 200 million speakers across East and Central Africa. We cover the varieties listed here and can match a linguist to a specific region or community on request.
- Native name
- Kiswahili
- Script
- Latin alphabet
- Greeting
- Habari! (“hello — what's the news?”)
- Speakers
- 200M+
- Language family
- Niger-Congo, Bantu
- Spoken in
- Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, DR Congo, Rwanda
- Dialects and varieties
- Standard Swahili (Kiunguja), Kimvita, Kiamu
Swahili translation, for every kind of text
Every project is matched to a linguist who knows the subject, then checked against the source before delivery.
Document translation
Contracts, records, manuals and forms translated between Swahili and English by a linguist who knows the subject.
Certified translation
A complete Swahili translation with a signed statement of accuracy, for immigration, court and academic submissions.
Website & app localization
Websites, apps and campaigns adapted for Swahili-speaking audiences, with terminology kept consistent from one release to the next.
Where Swahili translation is needed most
We match each project on language pair and subject, so terminology, names and numbers come through exactly as they should.
- Refugee resettlement
- NGO & humanitarian
- Healthcare & clinical
- Business & trade
Often requested alongside Swahili
Need something translated to or from Swahili?
Send us the files, the language pair and your deadline. We'll reply with a price and turnaround.