Why Some Americans Think Kenyans Only Speak Swahili 🤣🇰🇪

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]What's up, so I'm in Kenya on vacation and I'm American, but Kenyans, I want to know why do you all whisper when you speak? I cannot understand anything you're saying like Why Why are we talking so low?

[00:00:13]What are we trying to hide?

[00:00:14]My dear Steve, English is my local language for three reasons. Number one, from the time I was 9 years old it has been beaten into me. It's the language I have spoken. And since I was in a boarding school, for example, I never even had time to practice my vernacular at home in the evening after school. So, I have spoken English and it has been beaten into me. So, I own it. It is my vernacular now. Number two, the reason you are able to converse with me and to connect with me and even to write that I need to stop So, this is because I'm enjoying the Kenyan freedom.

[00:00:46]So, in formal setup, you will never hear Hello everyone. How are you guys doing today? Let's talk about Kenya and English. So, people feel like Kenyans don't know how to speak English. That's very, very wrong. Because English is part of Kenya. That's why the president says, "If you don't you need an interpreter to understand Nigerian pigeon." It doesn't mean that Nigerians don't know how to speak English. He was just joking about that that Kenyans speak the best English. So, for people to always comment like, "Oh, Kenyans don't understand English." Or Kenyan English is like what I don't understand.

[00:01:20]But guys, you all are wrong. English is part of So, forget about the fact that Kenyans always love to speak Swahili.

[00:01:27]Most of the times Kenyans 100% 80% of Kenyans speak Swahili. The majority of the time even if when Kenyans speak English, they'll speak English and next minute they're already in Swahili because that's their mother tongue. Who isn't proud of their mother tongue?

[00:01:41]Kenyans are one people that are very proud of their mother tongue same like South Africans. Anyway guys, I don't know on this channel if you subscribed or not. If you haven't, please don't forget to subscribe, like, and drop your comment. Listen to what foreigners are saying about Kenyan English. I don't know what is wrong with Kenyan in Is it the way Kenyans speak people don't understand or what? Because when Kenyan type in the comment section, I understand everything Kenyans are saying in the comment section. So anyway guys, take a look and watch this video.

[00:02:06]Speaking in English is because you also know English and it has now become our local language. They took everything from us and they gave us a language. We take it, we own it, we use it for conversation, for development, for our own advancement. We are now writing books that everybody can read because now we share a common language. That is the purpose of language. Find utility.

[00:02:21]Find utility in language. Stop being an idiot. Number three, Number three, talk Kiswahili. Talk Kiswahili. I can talk Kiswahili but also that was not available to us.

[00:02:50]You could only talk Kiswahili in Kiswahili language. Number two, reason it has been allowed to advance is because even of its origins. It is considered a superior language within the East African community because of the Arabs. It is the language that was used to trade and transact by the Arabs who came settle there. Some of them colonized Mombasa and Zanzibar.

[00:03:09]Mombasa, the reason in Tanzania it is even more prevalent is because there was this colonial change of superpowers between the Germans and then the British and they have had a moment of limbo. But the consistent colonizer of Tanzania is the Arabs and therefore they wanted to advance it and keep it because it is the connection to the Arabian language. It is This is a colonizer language. That is why Uganda has been fighting very hard to remove it. Why? It was used for that colonization. Africans, by the time we have to realize that things were taken by Arabs and they own them. And then now things look They were here for over They look normal is because they've been here for 1200 years or so. The reason North Africa, North Africa is Arabs is because they came and colonized, genocide and killed all the people and then occupied that land. Those are colonizers. Those are not Africans.

[00:03:52]In this same video, I mean it yes The mind has been so overtaken when I think you had to because your your your your DNA was found in in in Egypt in the Middle East that you come from there that's your origin. You are a black African Nilotes.

[00:04:09]They have been led mis- they have been misled to think like that so that now they start having that connection. So when they set the dry pots in in in in Rift Valley Why your tea why the Kenyan tea is being processed in Dubai is because of that.

[00:04:24]These are lessons they can we are brothers.

[00:04:26]That is why North Africa was taken because they did not want to enslave their own brothers. They come they check they breed they bred the Nilotes specifically. A lot of Nilotes and sub-Cushites bred with them. The men they castrated. No men were allowed so they took the women and since they didn't have the foresight to imagine that the women carry the gene is part of the reason you find 3 to 5% of genetic material connection in Egypt and Middle East and the rest of North Africa is Nilotic. For that reason colonization and slavery.

[00:04:54]So if you're telling me as I'm Kamba even to adopt Kiswahili I don't. I can't speak it I can use it I can understand it has utility for me as a Kenyan because when I meet somebody who cannot speak English most of the time they'll understand Kiswahili better. That's fine. I use it it serves a purpose and the purpose that I've used it is to colonize to help decolonize the Kenyan mind.

[00:05:12]So my mother language is English. Even when you go to my neighborhood you find there mama. So let me name the names. Find mama Jabali have you I'm a total ghost so I speak with them in English. You got next next next next everybody even you Steve. Packaging Whatever your name is Why do want me to waste all that money That was also local money, local effort, local brain that can understand this language well enough to use it here so that we can help ourselves to decolonize and without shame so that even them they hear all of the reasons I've been telling people here that don't speak their language or they don't understand.

[00:05:59]Why? They need to understand we know they never hid what they were doing. You look at the records they were not hiding what they were doing. So, why should we hide? This but we do it unless I'm doing a covert operation. Right now, the language works. It tells them that I'm aware of them. I can see what they are doing and for you you can understand me.

[00:06:17]So, for us we can grow and they can know that we know what they know that they know that they they they knew and then we can now know that since we know what they know and how they knew then we can be able to know what we should know so that we can know what to do. Our knowledge is power and I take my understanding of English and my ability to speak and communicate to my fellow Kenyans as vital. So, if I didn't get this local language because for me it's local.

[00:06:39]I don't think I can only speak Kisungu in Kikamba and I can only speak my daughter or your son, my kimwana, my son.

[00:06:46]Maybe we are ageless cuz now I don't know you.

[00:06:50]My neighbor.

[00:06:52]Hey jirani wewe, whatever you are, who cares?

[00:06:55]There's someone speaking in French and mix with Swahili or mix with other other languages, you know? When it's formal it's formal and you stick to that. When I came to Kenya and realized you walk into someone's office in school you you can just like uh you can throw in an Israeli word or you don't you don't word. I was like, "Whoa."

[00:07:17]This is real. I went to a school that was so strict. They can even suspend you for 3 days for speaking in Swahili. Like if it's French it's French. So, the the languages that were allowed to be spoken in school were uh French and and English, you know? Why English? Najua tu venye nitakuongea English venye najua English.

[00:07:35]>> [laughter] >> So, when I came here even politicians are mixing up languages. You're watching a news in English and then when they're reporting from a Swahili area, they're not translating in English. When I joined two what what I what I what what I get to I was like wow.

[00:07:57]So when I came to Kenya I realized that I was forced to know Swahili to know the Kenyan Swahili cuz it's to Swahili Congo. To Swahili yet to me a Congo Congo but to me I get to me I get Swahili Congo. Yeah. So I was forced to switch so fast so that I'm able to to be Kenyanized so that I can code switch easily. Yeah, thank you for this comment.