A sketch of more unique features of ‘Kenyan Swahili’ (KS) will help the reader to better understand Sheng or ‘Sheng talk’ as integral to ways of speaking Swahili in Kenya. KS is markedly different from the ‘official’ Standard Swahili (SS – Kiswahili Sanifu) which is the ‘textbook Swahili’ taught in Kenyan (and Tanzanian) schools. Since its creation, ‘standard Swahili’ was grudgingly accepted by East Africans because some saw the standardization of Swahili by European scholars, missionaries and colonial administrators as a transformation of Swahili into, ‘something lifeless at best, unintelligible at worst…it was pejoratively called Kizungu (“European language”) or Kiserikali (“Government language”)’ (Whitely 1969:87). In Kenya today, some call it ‘Kisanifu’ instead of Kiswahili Sanifu, in a deliberate tongue-in-cheek violation of SS's own rule that an adjective of Arabic origin such as ‘sanifu’ should not bear a concord agreement marker (i.e. the prefix ki-). Notwithstanding, SS based on Kiunguja (Zanzibar) dialect was successfully implemented by a series of coordinated actions of the East African Language Committee, which was established in 1930 to succeed the Interterritorial Language (Swahili) Committee of 1925. The standard orthography of Swahili quickly took hold in the British ruled east Africa where it was promoted through textbooks, a new dictionary edited by Frederick Johnson (1939), ‘correcting’ texts before their publication, translations, and training of teachers and authors (ibid:90).

Different political ideologies and state practices produced versions of Swahili, each with a distinctive character and flavour, ‘ways of speaking’ that make one or the other nation identifiable as a very large ‘community of practice’ (Wenger 2000). The variations in what is essentially the same language is a literal marking of boundaries of ‘us’ and ‘them’ that in itself mirrors national identity. The phrase ‘Sisi Wakenya…’ is commonly heard to preface commentary about linguistic (and social or cultural) peculiarities that are shared by members of the speech community of Kenyans who, for example, are famously known for using imperatives rather than polite forms, when making requests. Some literally ‘order’ for food or services at a ‘hotel’ – which means a cafe, restaurant or kiosk in Kenyanese – thus it is normal to hear without necessarily being seen as rude, Nipe chai! (Give me [a cup of] tea) or Leta chai mbili hapo! (Bring two [cups of] tea).