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Created 05-09-20
Last edited
16-01-20
Kiswahili Time (ST)
There is quite a lot to say about how Africans deal with "time" in their lives. For details click The Western versus the African Time Concept. Here we just deal with simple numerical clock-time perspective, this is: how to count.
Western months have no day 0. Westerners count 1,2,3,...etc.
Off course you have never worried about missing that last day in the month, as you are typically out of cash anyway..
Nowadays western year counting has a zero. Since 2000 years ago, I mean in year 0, the zero was not not known, a few people held counting has started at 1 and thus have celebrated the "millenium" year one year after the rest. Modern Western hour counting however surely goes: 0,1,2,3,... to 12 (12 = 0).
The 0 (zero) was invented (Plato would insist "discovered") around 300 (301??) BC by the Maya Indians, the first tribe producing a man who understood there really can be zero apples somewhere.
He must really have been a genius (because Maya's did not even grow apples).
Kiswahili hours counting goes: 1,2,3,... to 13 (13 = 1). "Zero" in Kiswahili is sifuri: "nothing". Zero is nothing. As in western day-counting in the month, Kiswahili hour counting starts at 1. The poisonous snake 1ڳ (thirteen) is concealed by the fact that it is never used (as westerners never say 32 to day 1, "it is the next month" after all) so in Kiswahili one goes from 12 to 1, which even looks natural to westerners who thus tend to be one hour behind all day, though, since it really is always one hour, you of course get used to make correct agreements for meetings.
|
Hour-period Nr. |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 |
||||||||||||
|
(Western Total hour-tops 12 =) |
00:00 |
01:00 |
02:00 |
03:00 |
04:00 |
05:00 |
06:00 |
07:00 |
08:00 |
09:00 |
10:00 |
11:00 |
12 |
|
(Kiswahili Total hour tops 13 =) |
01:00 |
02:00 |
03:00 |
04:00 |
05:00 |
06:00 |
07:00 |
08:00 |
09:00 |
10:00 |
11:00 |
12:00 |
13 |
This is the crucial point: if you count hour-periods (as opposed to hour-tops), the Kiswahili "first hour of the day" goes from hour tops hrs 01:00 to hrs 02:00. At ST 01:30 Kiswahili Time (ST) only half an hour has passed from the starting point (ST 01:00) of counting. In western time, at hrs 1:30 one and a half hour has past from the western start (00:00) of hour counting.
To conceal this better, there are two other hitches. Hitch 1: as far as western time is concerned, East African Time (EAT) is three hours ahead of International Time. Hitch 2: Kiswahili Time (ST) does not count from midnight and midday. Near the equator sunrise time and sunset time are quite stable so there is a 12 hour day time starting with the first hour of daylight, and a 12 hour night time. The start of hour counting, ST 01:00 of the day, is EAT 07:00. So, at EAT 07:30 it is ST 01:30, but only 00:30 minutes, not 1:30, have past from the start of counting.
The easiest way for the mzungu to get around this for all practical purposes is not to memorize ST 01:00 = EAT 07:00, but to use the "0" the Maya Indians taught him and set a self styled "ST=00:00" at EAT 06:00. Hence:
ST=EAT-6
Thus wazungu can simply substract 6 hours. Because - an accidental piece of sheer good luck - wazungu count starting at 0 to 12 hours total, they can just as well add 6 hours. Many wazungu do like this ("plus or minus 6") and never discover any deeper problem. After all, how even to notice a disagreement on whether one is in the first hour or in the second if all know how to agree on the points in time on which things should happen or have happened? From Kiswahili people, now of course being taught the zero and western hour counting at school but not using it in their own hour counting, I hear about western hour counting that it is "confusing", especially "between 12 and 1".