[wvoq]

> unfamiliar sounds

Kiswahili has implosive stops, which are pretty weird for English speakers, but it's certainly possible to make yourself understood if you treat implosive consonants like their closest English counterparts.

As a Bantu language, Kiswahili also has a very elegant (and reasonably regular) noun class system that makes grammatical agreement easier, IMHO, than in Latin or Greek. On the whole, I'd agree that it's among the best bets for an English speaker interested in learning a non-Indo-European language.