3 replies to this topic

[Magpie]

Random as it is, I've been wondering for ages how to pronounce mkali

I was told it was swahili meaning fierce but I'm at a loss for how it's actually said, is it like Muh-kar-lee or Em-kah-li

Thanks much

[Juma4]

Its none of those 'Muh-kar-lee' nor 'Em-kah-li'

The 'm' is pronounced as a 'm' without a vocal in front of it. As in 'mmmh'! But much shorter.

That doesn't sound natural to western ears and u will need to practice it a bit, maybe.

so it's pronounced something like 'm-kah-li'. where the 'a' in 'kah' is not as short as it would when pronounced the english way. it's an open 'a'.

british english speakers tend to deform the vocals a bit so that 'kah' would become more like 'koahw'.

anyway the best is to just find s/o who speaks the language who can talk to you...

[kenyangyal]

alrite... wellll... hmm.

to pronounce mkali..

lets start with the first sylable the [m]

if you are familar to the cambells adverts, their slogans is this: 'campbell's mmm good' or something like that..the mmm is as how you would pronounce the m in mkali. a short m with nothing infront or at the end of it. Just m.

then the [ka] you say it as you see it. kah...hmm... oh if you are familiar with boston..try to imitate their accent and how they say car... they don't say ca-r. they say something like ca-h.. "I pahked my cah in the pahking lot"

finaly the [li] you pronounce this as you would the name lee or le. the 'i' you pronounce as you would pronouce the letter 'e' as in abcd[e] so... mmkahlee mkali..

So practice it and if you can ask someone who fluently speaks swahili.. otherwise i hope this helps you out a bit.

[Wachira]

Mkali means "strict, tough, fierce". Sounds like you are new to Swahili.. I'm fairly new myself. I live in the US (Mzungu with a Kikuyu name!). I'm a big fan of hip hop, and as I'm starting to speak Swahili am loving the African hip hop scene. Plus, Hip Hop has become very commercialized and 'watered down' (like everything else once cool and real in the US) and African hip hop is still 'real' (not commercialized garbage like 50-cent styled sell-out bullshit). I travel to east africa yearly, and it's my favorite place (could live there)... in any case, hit me up if you'd like to chat about Swahili, etc. I also have lots of references for learning Swahili, if that's your thang.

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