VOA常速英语:Tanzania Maintains Unique Time System

Sunrise in Tanzania’s capital, in the local Swahili language, the first hour of daylight marks one o’clock.
在斯瓦希里语中，坦桑尼亚首都的日出也就是白天的第一个小时标志着一点钟。
“It is always been this way,it’s something we inherited from our fathers.I’ve always seen people reading it as one o’clock instead of seven.I teach the same thing to my child since this is the way my parents taught them to me.”
一直以来都是这样，这是我们从父辈那里继承来的。我常看到人们把它读作一点而不是七点。我把同样的事情教给我的孩子，因为这是父母教给我的。
Swahili teacher Lusunga Benela helps orient foreign students and workers.
斯瓦希里语老师毕尼拉帮助这些来自东方的留学生和工人。
“In Swahili we have 12 hours of daytime and 12 hours of night time.When the sunset we begin to count from one, two, three, four... And we go on like that until day breaks again.”
在斯瓦希里语中白天有12个小时，夜晚有12个小时。当太阳落山时，我们开始计数，一、二、三、四……我们就这样继续数，直到黎明再次降临。
It is a system, experts say that is made possible by Tanzania’s proximity to the equator.Swahili time is not exclusive to Tanzania, Swahili spoken by millions of people around East Africa.But Tanzania unlike its neighbors, has designated Swahili as a sole official language and tries to promote it as a source of national pride.Government offices open at two in the morning or what alien bangles called eight a.m.. Swahili time has remained dominant over the so called English time introduced in the colonial period, but there are signs of change.
这是一个系统，专家称因为坦桑尼亚靠近赤道使得这个时间系统成为可能。斯瓦希里时间并非坦桑尼亚所特有的，东非地区数百万人都在讲斯瓦希里语。但坦桑尼亚与邻国不同，而是把斯瓦希里语定为官方唯一语言，并试图将其作为民族自豪感来源。政府办公室在早上两点开放，换句话说是国外的早上八点。比起殖民时期传入的所谓英国时间，斯瓦希里时间仍占据主导地位，但事情有转变的迹象。
“I set the time on my phone differently from the way I say it, so I look like I’m moving with the modern world.If I set my watch at 10 instead of 4 and say it’s 10 o’clock then people won’t see me as old-fashioned.”
我把手机时间设置的与我说的时间不同，这样我看起来是和现代世界一起移动，如果我把时间设置为十而不是四，并且说十点，那么人们就不会觉得老土了。
The coexistence does create some confusion.
但不同时间系统共存确实会造成困扰。
“A customer will tell you to pick him up at five o’clock and he means five in the evening, I will go pick him up at eleven in the morning, because five means eleven to me.”
一位乘客让我五点去接他，他的意思是傍晚五点，我中午十一点就去接他了，因为于我而言五点就是十一点。
But local say Swahili time is here to stay.
但当地人说斯瓦希里时间会一直保留。
Mohammed Yusuf for VOA News Dar es Salaam.
VOA记者莫哈默德，达累斯萨拉姆报道。