Chizigula for kids · Coming late 2026
Hinya
Soma na miye!
Learn with me!
Hinya helps children learn Chizigula with Issa the Kasuku, a parrot who sings, plays and listens. Short lessons, songs and games, with every word said by a Chizigula speaker.
Tap a bubble to hear it
Say hello the way family does.
In Chizigula you greet a friend one way and grown-ups another. Children learn both from the very first lesson.
To a friend
To grown-ups, or to a group
More words:
Inside the app
Learn a little. Play a lot.
Lessons take a few minutes. Games and songs bring the same words back, so they stick. Scroll through the real app.
A daily warm-up, quests and Issa’s egg to keep warm.
Short lessons along a path, one topic at a time.
Hold the mic, say the word, and Issa listens.
Join word parts into sentences, wagon by wagon.
Hear a number, tap that many birds.
Sing-along videos with Issa and the family.
Practise on more days and a new friend hatches.
Settings and word sources behind a grown-up check.
Sing with Issa
13 songs to sing along to.
Each song turns one lesson into something children hum all day: greetings, counting, feelings, food, the weather and more.
New · The first Hinya book
Famili yanyu
My Family
A coloring and tracing book about Mame, Tate, Baba, Wau and the kids. Every page has a small “Hear it!” code: scan it with a phone and hear the word.
- ✦ Color, trace and say every family word
- ✦ Ask “Yuno nyani?” and answer “Yuno ni …”
- ✦ A comic, a maze, dot-to-dot, word cards and more
For grown-ups
Every word is checked.
From the dictionary
Words start in the Chizigula–English Dictionary by Dayley, Mberwa and Temkin-Martinez (2020).
Checked by a speaker
A Chizigula speaker checks each word, spelling and phrase before children ever see it. Nothing is machine-translated.
Said out loud
Children hear a Chizigula speaker say every word, at normal speed and slowly.
Sources for parents
Behind a grown-up check, parents can see where each word comes from.
Be first in the nest.
Join the waitlist and we’ll tell you the moment Hinya is ready, with early builds to try before anyone else.
Questions
Chizigula (also written Zigula or Zigua) is the Bantu language of the Wazigua people. Many Somali Bantu families speak it, at home and in communities in the United States, Kenya and around the world.