{"id":28218,"date":"2021-05-27T16:18:14","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T20:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=28218"},"modified":"2025-07-23T12:41:29","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T16:41:29","slug":"ucf-student-receives-boren-scholarship-to-study-swahili","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/ucf-student-receives-boren-scholarship-to-study-swahili\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF Student Receives Boren Scholarship to Study Swahili"},"content":{"rendered":"

Language has an incredible ability to make us feel connected. For Abigail Reynolds the first time she connected through a foreign language was during a first-year UCF study abroad trip to South Africa, where a local woman gave her a Zulu name.<\/p>\n

\u201cI helped run a clothing drive and I had the greatest time working with some of the women in the local community and hearing their perspectives\u2019 on life,\u201d says Reynolds, a senior political science<\/a> major. \u201cOne of the women I was working with gave me a Zulu name \u2014 Mampho (pronounced mam-po), which means gift. It was really impactful for me to feel like I belonged. It was a defining moment during the trip that influenced my decision to study African affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"
Political science senior Abigail Reynolds (center) participated in a UCF study abroad trip to South Africa in Spring 2019 that inspired her to focus on African affairs. Reynolds helped organize a clothing drive while there. (Photo courtesy of the Burnett Honors College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now the Fort Meyers, Florida, native is a Boren Scholar and will study Swahili \u2014 one of the most commonly spoken language in Africa \u2014 through a virtual summer program at the University of Florida and a four-month trip to Tanzania this fall. As an initiative of the National Security Education program, Boren\u00a0scholarships provide opportunities for undergraduate students to study less commonly taught languages in regions critical to U.S. interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really excited to be around other Swahili speakers who are still learning the language and can understand what it\u2019s like to be learning a language that\u2019s less commonly taught,\u201d says Reynolds, who is also minoring in philosophy<\/a>. \u201cLearning a foreign language is hard, especially when you\u2019re lacking a support system or resources, so this opportunity will make it easier to practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reynolds, who wants to pursue a career in international relations with a focus in African affairs, began studying Swahili with a personal tutor in August 2020. While the language is not taught at UCF, faculty and staff here \u2014 including the Office of Prestigious Awards<\/a>, which encouraged Reynolds to apply for the scholarship \u2014 have supported her interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot of really amazing people \u2014 like Morgan Bauer from the Office of Prestigious Awards, Dr. Tyler Fisher from the Department of Modern Languages<\/a>, and my research mentor and Associate Professor of Political Science Jonathan Powell \u2014 supporting me and my academic and professional endeavors. I can\u2019t name them all, but basically all the faculty at UCF have been really wonderful and supportive of my interest in Swahili.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really excited to be around other Swahili speakers who are still learning the language and can understand what it\u2019s like to be learning a language that\u2019s less commonly taught,\u201d \u2014 Abigail Reynolds, UCF student<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Worldwide, about 100 million people speak Swahili, which does not have a gendered structure that languages like Spanish and French do. While Reynolds says Swahili pronunciation is fairly easy for her, the complexity of the language\u2019s structure has been the biggest challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have masculine or feminine nouns in Swahili, which is great, but they have [more] noun classes, which makes agreement a lot harder,\u201d she says. \u201cSo instead of two different noun groups there\u2019s six that you have to remember and make sure the adjectives, the prepositions, and the conjugations all agree.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she has enjoyed learning about the entire diversity of Africa, Reynolds is especially interested in the eastern region, which her study abroad destination of Tanzania is located. During her trip, she says she hopes to hike Mount Kilimanjaro and take in as much of the culture she can.<\/p>\n

At UCF, the Burnett Honors Scholar<\/a> has explored African culture, politics and history through her coursework, as well as extracurricular activities. Reynolds has interned at UCF\u2019s Office of Global Perspectives and International Initiatives<\/a> and is involved with the university\u2019s United Nations Association<\/a>. Through the student organization she has also had the chance to learn more about international relations, including participating in a committee about the Rwandan genocide and empowering women in the country through economic and reconciliation processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t learn a lot about African history in high school, so there were a lot of question marks in African affairs, history and politics for me,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s been really rewarding to begin to fill in those blanks. The continent is just very diverse and there are so many different cultures, traditions, languages and political systems. There\u2019s so much potential across the continent that I\u2019m really excited to learn more about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Language has an incredible ability to make us feel connected. For Abigail Reynolds the first time she connected through a foreign language was during a first-year UCF study abroad trip to South Africa, where a local woman gave her a Zulu name. \u201cI helped run a clothing drive and I had the greatest time working […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":28219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[38,13,16,28,6514,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-news","category-political-science-departments","category-top-news","category-ucf-today","category-undergraduate-student-news"],"yoast_head":"\nUCF Student Receives Boren Scholarship to Study Swahili - College of Sciences News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/ucf-student-receives-boren-scholarship-to-study-swahili\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UCF Student Receives Boren Scholarship to Study Swahili - College of Sciences News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Language has an incredible ability to make us feel connected. 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