Could this be under the influence of Arabic script? After all, Swahili used to be written in that script.
[Edit: In particular, I meant because Arabic is written right-to-left; I think the parent commenter was saying that Swahili speakers think of a clock as moving what we would consider counter-clockwise.]
claims that it's because these countries are near the equator, and their sunrise and sunset times are very consistent throughout the year (exactly 12 hours apart). So, they have twelve hours after sunrise and twelve hours after sunset.
"Kal awoge?" "Will you come 'kal'?
"Kal ayeh?" "Did you come 'kal'"?
My mother speaks Urdu. She too confuses the English versions sometimes. This mispeaking of hers is one the great sources of love we have for her. And she tries her best not give us a chance to show it!
This is true in Urdu and Hindi as well.
I will be at home tomorrow.
I was at home tomorrow?
Sounds rather efficient :D
1. In kirundi (a common language in Burundi) there is one word for both yesterday and tomorrow. They don't confuse the meaning because of the context of the sentence. But when my friend speaking Kirundi spoke french with me on the phone, he often interchanged the two... I never knew if he would visit the next day or had already visited me.
http://amajambo.ijuru.com/?q=yesterday&lang=en&start=0 http://amajambo.ijuru.com/?q=tomorrow&lang=en&start=0
2. In swahili (at least in Tanzania), time is told inversly. Think of a circular clock where the 12 o'clock is 6 o'clock, 3 o'clock is 9 o'clock. 9 o'clock is 3 o'clock. Yes it was very confusing to me, but you can get used to anything.