Saturday, November 14, 2015

The Lion King: Unconsciously, My First Swahili Lesson

I was surprised to find when I got here that Swahili words are in the Lion King.  Two very exciting things have been for me to get to say Rafiki, my favourite characters name and Hakuna Matata all the time.  Rafiki means friend and is used often, and I haven’t heard Hakuna Matata that often but I say it a lot J. I looked it up and there are actually quite a few words in Swahili that are used in the movie!  I found this out when I got here and wanted to know more and found these cool facts, enjoy

Simba means lion

Nala means gift

Sarabi mean mirage

Kopa (Simab's son in a book series) means heart

Rafiki means friend

Pumbaa means stunned or slow wittied

Shenzi means savage

Banzai means skulk or lurk

Kovu means scar

Zira means hate (Originaly she was going to be called Bianca!)

Nuka means stink

Vitani was originally going to be called Shetani which means devil.

All other names are real Swahili names.

Rafiki's song 'Asante sana, squash banana, we we nuga, mi mi apana' means 'thank you very much, squash banana, your a baboon and i'm not'

Some original Lion King characters were a lion cub named 'Mee-Too' a fox and a Rhino. Sarafina was also more of an important character having more lines.

Simba's great grandfather is named 'Mohatu'

The lyrics in Hakuna Matata are 'when I was a young warthog' but originaly they were going to be 'when I was a young Meerkat'