Home to more than 2,000 indigenous languages, Africa is a mosaic of linguistic diversity. In most countries across the vast continent, dozens or even hundreds of languages are still spoken vigorously at the community level, with most Africans learning regional and national lingua francas to connect with the rest of their country. That’s certainly the case in Kenya and Uganda, both of which feature several dozen indigenous languages—such as Samia.
More than 480,000 people use Samia as their native and primary language, but it’s generally necessary for Samia speakers to learn Swahili and English, the lingua francas of the region. Samia is thus mostly confined to the local region and is under threat from these bigger, more prestigious tongues, which results in most translation agencies turning away from Samia. But not us here at TranslationServices.com. We believe Samia deserves the same amount of attention as Swahili and English—so we’re proud to present our new Samia translation services.
Just reach out and send us a message if you’d like a free quote for our Samia translation services!
Here are some more details about the Samia language.
The 480,000-odd native speakers of Samia are divided between eastern Uganda and western Kenya, residing in the Busia district of the former and in the Busia county of the latter. Living by the waters of Lake Victoria, the Samia are a subtribe of the Luhya people, and their language, accordingly, is closely related to the other, nearby Luhya languages. While Samia is generally uniform, there is a special dialect called Olugwe, spoken in Uganda’s northern Busia. Ethnologue also classifies Songa as a dialect, although linguistic debate rages as to whether it’s a dialect or a separate language.
What’s clear is that Samia belongs to the Luhya grouping of languages within the Bantu subfamily. As a Bantu language, Samia is related to Swahili, Luganda, Kikuyu, Zulu, and Xhosa, and hundreds of other languages all over central and southern Africa, and its grammar can be difficult for non-native speakers to grasp. Particularly daunting is the noun class system, which features more than a dozen distinct noun classes that function similarly to the grammatical gender of French or German. Since the noun classes also impact verbs, adjectives, demonstratives, and possessives, there’s no way to avoid it—so working with native-speaking Samia translators like our team members is the best way to navigate the grammatical challenges of Samia translation.
Flexible Samia translation services provided by a diverse translation team
We don’t aim to just be any old Samia translation service—we aim to be the best Samia translation service. To ensure we accommodate the needs of as many clients as possible, we’ve recruited Samia translators from all over the Busia region, in both Uganda and Kenya, which allows us to encompass the full breadth of the Samia-speaking community in our team. We have translators of Olugwe and Songa as well. So, whether you’re looking for translation to Samia or from Samia, you can always count on our passionate team of translators.
Our Samia translation services are flexible in terms of the specialties we offer, as well. For professors, researchers, and other scholars, we have an academic translation team, ready to translate your surveys, transcripts, papers, notes, and more to or from Samia. For CEOs, entrepreneurs, and other business leaders, our Samia business translation team can help you translate everything from business proposals and financial reports to ad campaigns and web copy. For writers, filmmakers, software developers, and other creatives, let our literary translators and localization experts help you capture the hearts of new audiences in Uganda, Kenya, and the world with faithful translation to or from Samia. Technical subject matter isn’t a problem, either, since we have experts in various fields on our team.
We’re your one-stop shop for Samia translation services. Send us your first order today!