Swahili Language
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40 free Swahili Language trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Swahili is the language most of the world has heard without noticing. It turns up in animated films, on toy shelves, in science fiction and in the names of holidays and phone apps, usually with nobody stopping to ask what the words mean. This quiz starts with the Swahili you may already half know, then moves on to everyday vocabulary: greetings, animals, food, numbers and telling the time. Later questions cover where the language came from, who speaks it today and the writers and leaders who shaped it. It is written for beginners, travellers planning a trip to East Africa, students and the simply curious. You do not need to speak a word to play, because every question gives you a clue to reason from, and each answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which character in Disney's The Lion King has a name that is simply the Swahili word for 'lion'?
Simba
Simba is the everyday Swahili word for the big cat, not a name Disney invented. The filmmakers collected Swahili words and phrases on a research trip to Kenya.
Q 02Hakuna matata, which Elton John and Tim Rice turned into a song for The Lion King, is a Swahili phrase meaning what?
No worries
No worries is the usual translation, word for word: hakuna means 'there are no'. Lyricist Tim Rice has said he found the phrase in a Swahili phrasebook.
Q 03Which popular game did designer Leslie Scott, raised in East Africa, name after a Swahili verb meaning 'to build'?
Jenga
Jenga comes from kujenga, a verb Leslie Scott knew from a childhood spent speaking Swahili in Tanganyika. The game grew out of one played at home with wooden blocks bought from a sawmill in Ghana.
Q 04Which holiday, created by activist Maulana Karenga, takes its name from a Swahili phrase meaning 'first fruits'?
Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa borrows from matunda ya kwanza, Swahili for 'first fruits', a nod to African harvest festivals. An extra 'a' was added so the name would have seven letters.
Q 05Uhura of Star Trek was named after uhuru, the Swahili title of a novel Nichelle Nichols was carrying, meaning what?
Freedom
Freedom is what uhuru means, and a 1962 novel of that name was in Nichelle Nichols's hands when she read for the part. Gene Roddenberry changed the last letter to make Uhura.
Q 06Safari, a word the explorer Richard Burton helped bring into English, has which plain meaning in Swahili?
Journey
Journey is all safari means in Swahili, so a bus ride from Nairobi to Mombasa counts as one. Swahili took the word from Arabic safar.
Q 07Baba Yetu, the Civilization IV theme that won video game music its first Grammy, is a Swahili version of which text?
The Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer supplies the words, since Baba Yetu is Swahili for 'Our Father'. Christopher Tin composed it for the 2005 game, and the Grammy followed in 2011.
Q 08M-Pesa, the phone payment service launched in Kenya by Safaricom, pairs 'M' for mobile with the Swahili word for what?
Money
Money is pesa in Swahili, a word borrowed from the Hindi paisa, a small Indian coin. By 2010 M-Pesa was the most successful phone-based financial service in the developing world.
Q 09Hatari!, the title of a John Wayne adventure about catching wild animals for zoos, is the Swahili word for what?
Danger
Danger is the meaning, and the shoot earned it: director Howard Hawks said the actors caught the animals themselves. A rhino that escaped during filming had to be recaptured on camera.
Q 10Punda milia, the Swahili name for the zebra, literally describes the animal as a striped version of which creature?
Donkey
Donkey is punda in Swahili and milia means 'stripes', so a zebra is a striped donkey. The kinship is real: the two can interbreed, and the foal is called a zonkey.
Q 11Rafiki, the mandrill who lifts the newborn cub at Pride Rock in The Lion King, has a Swahili name meaning what?
Friend
Friend is the meaning of rafiki, a word Swahili borrowed from Arabic. In political speech it has also served as the Swahili for 'comrade'.
Q 12Asante, a Swahili word borrowed from Omani Arabic and usually followed by sana, expresses which everyday courtesy?
Thank you
Thank you is what asante says, and adding sana, 'very much', makes it warmer. The Arabic original was a compliment meaning 'well done'.
Q 13Jambo, a Swahili noun that literally means 'matter' or 'affair', is taught to tourists as which everyday expression?
Hello
Hello is how visitors learn jambo. The fuller greeting is hujambo, and the reply, sijambo, literally says 'I don't have anything', meaning nothing is the matter.
Q 21Swahili belongs to which large group of African languages, named after a shared word meaning 'people'?
Bantu
Bantu languages number about 600 across central, eastern and southern Africa. Unlike most of its relatives, Swahili does not use tone to tell words apart.
Q 22The name Swahili comes from sawahili, an Arabic word that originally described people or things of what?
The coast
The coast is where the language began, among the Swahili people of East Africa's Indian Ocean shore and its islands. Arabic also supplied a large share of the vocabulary.
Q 23Standard Swahili is based on the dialect of which island, chosen as the model at a 1928 conference in Mombasa?
Zanzibar
Q 14Karibu, a Swahili word borrowed from the Arabic for 'nearby', is used on its own as which greeting?
Welcome
Welcome is what karibu offers, in effect an invitation to come closer or come in. It is also the stock reply when someone shows gratitude, a use copied from English.
Q 15Pole pole, a Swahili phrase made by doubling a word for 'calm' or 'gentle', tells someone to act in which way?
Slowly
Slowly is the meaning of pole pole, though it can also mean 'carefully'. Said once, pole is how Swahili speakers offer sympathy, much like 'sorry'.
Q 16Habari, the key word in the Swahili greeting 'habari gani?', is a noun borrowed from Arabic that means what?
News
News is what habari means, so the greeting that works as 'how are you?' literally asks 'what's the news?'. The Arabic source word is khabar.
Q 17The Maji Maji Rebellion in colonial East Africa was named after a 'war medicine' based on maji, the Swahili for what?
Water
Water, mixed with castor oil and millet seeds, was handed out by the spirit medium Kinjikitile Ngwale. His followers believed it would turn the colonial army's bullets to liquid.
Q 18Tatu, the root of the name of Kenya's matatu minibuses, is the Swahili word for which number?
Three
Three is tatu, and one account says the usual fare was once a trio of ten-cent coins. Many matatus are decorated with portraits of famous people and slogans.
Q 19Jumamosi, the Swahili day whose name contains the word for 'one', falls on which day in English?
Saturday
Saturday is day one in Swahili, and the count runs on to Wednesday, day five. Thursday's name, borrowed from Arabic, also means 'the fifth', so Swahili has two fifth days.
Q 20Ndege, the everyday Swahili word for an airplane, is also the ordinary name for which flying creature?
Bird
Bird and airplane share the word ndege, so the Swahili for airport, uwanja wa ndege, can be read as 'field of birds'.
Zanzibar's town dialect, Kiunguja, became the model, even though host city Mombasa has a major dialect of its own, Kimvita. One standard spelling was adopted at the same meeting.
Q 24Swahili nouns form plurals by swapping prefixes, so which word is the plural of kitabu, meaning 'book'?
Vitabu
Vitabu follows the ki-/vi- pattern shared by many objects, such as kiti and viti for chair and chairs. Kitabu came from Arabic kitab, whose first syllable Swahili treated as a prefix.
Q 25Which UN agency proclaimed World Kiswahili Language Day, held each July and a first for any African language?
UNESCO
UNESCO picked the anniversary of the day in 1954 when the independence party TANU adopted Swahili as its unifying language in Tanganyika.
Q 26Which African independence leader translated Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice into Swahili?
Julius Nyerere
Julius Nyerere, Tanzania's founding president, also put Shakespeare's Julius Caesar into Swahili. Tanzanians knew him as Mwalimu, 'teacher'.
Q 27Shule, the Swahili word for 'school', was borrowed from which European language during colonial rule in Tanganyika?
German
German Schule became shule, a souvenir of the years before the First World War when Tanganyika belonged to German East Africa. The colony ran its schools in Swahili.
Q 28Which Central African country, home to Goma and Lubumbashi, counts Swahili among its four national languages?
DR Congo
DR Congo gives national status to Swahili, Lingala, Kituba and Tshiluba, while French is the official language. Its main local variety, Kingwana, differs considerably from the standard.
Q 29Which street slang, born among young people in Nairobi's Eastlands, is named for its blend of Swahili and English?
Sheng
Sheng is now heard among matatu crews and across Kenya's popular media. It has no official status and is not taught in schools.
Q 30Swahili speakers count hours from sunrise, so 'saa moja', the first hour of the morning, is which Western clock time?
7 a.m.
7 a.m. is hour one because the Swahili day starts at sunrise, not midnight. That leaves a six-hour gap between the time people say and the time on a Western clock.