Sheng is a Swahili-based patois, originating in Nairobi, Kenya, and influenced by the many languages spoken there. While primarily a language of urban youths, it has spread across social classes to the halls of the Kenyan parliament and geographically to neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda. While many have adopted Sheng as a vernacular language, others claim that it is undermining standard Swahili. Swahili (also called Kiswahili; see Kiswahili for a discussion of the nomenclature) is an agglutinative Bantu language widely spoken in East Africa. ... Patois, although without a formal definition in linguistics, can be used to describe a language considered as nonstandard. ... Nairobi skyline Nairobi is the capital of Kenya. ...

Originating in the early 1970s in the slums of Nairobi, Sheng is now heard among matatu drivers across the region, and in the popular media. It also evolves rapidly, as words are moved into and out of slang use. It is finding particular use among East African hip hop artists, such as Kalamashaka and Nonini, whose music help spread the language and contribute to rapid changes or shifts in Sheng vocabulary. A fully-loaded matatu. ... Hip hop is a cultural movement that began amongst urban African American youth in New York and has since spread around the world. ...

Although the grammar, syntax, and much of the vocabulary are drawn from Swahili, Sheng borrows from English and from the languages of the various ethnic groups in Kenya, including Gĩkũyũ, Luo and Kamba. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Gikuyu (sometimes written Kikuyu, pronounced Gĩkũyũ) is a language in the Central Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo family spoken primarily by the Kĩkũyũ people of Kenya. ... The Luo are a people of Western Kenya, Central-Northern Uganda, Southern Sudan and Tanzania. ...

External Links

• Talking Sheng: The role of a hybrid language in the construction of identity and youth culture in Nairobi, Kenya.
• English–Sheng/Sheng–English Lexicon