Can You Speak in Your Tongue?

“…hawa watu wanakuwanga* waj*nga sana…” asserted a guy seated next to me in a matatu “…these people are so tribal they want to speak their language everywhere, they think this country is theirs…” went the incoherent arguments by this guy that to some extent we would say he was ignorant. “…wanadhani sisi wote ni wakikuyu?” I wasn’t surprised by the unnecessary outburst that was caused by the mere fact that the conductor of the Nairobi bound matatu was speaking Gikuyu “too much”.

This can elicit different debates especially in Kenya where there are over 50 native languages which has been used negatively by our politician to divide and rule!

In Kenya, and especially the Nairobi metropolitan region there’s a mistaken move of tagging mother tongue speakers with negative stereotypes which as my syntax professor likes repeating is st*pid! Her argument is that we are studying a universal grammar but still insist on studying it in English to verify its validity while we are so rich in terms of languages. In fact in that class we have upto five African languages at our disposal!

Away from linguistics, I’ve wanted to write this article but I always wonder where to start, thanks to guy X above the threshold has been exceeded and my centre can hold no more! Let’s try and tackle it from a political viewpoint; according to the 2010 constitution, Swahili is the national language while English and Swahili are the official languages. A little further, it has been a government policy that children are taught their mother tongues and in mother tongue from class 1 to class 3 in catchment areas while in metropolis like Nairobi, Thika, Nakuru among others they use Swahili or English. Things become complicated here! These children in Nairobi, for instance, cannot say that Swahili is their first language, neither is English. Most of them also do not speak in their mother tongues, so what are we left with? The sheng phenomenon! Unfortunately we cannot blame the children, none of us choses which language we will learn first. I cringe when I hear parents discourage their children from speaking their first languages!

Before joining school, we usually have already acquired a first language; first language acquisition starts as soon as one is born. It is the language that you acquire during this critical period that you will be able to speak flawlessly and even judge when someone doesn’t speak it well. Suffice it to say, you will be a native speaker of that language. Going by the research done in cognitive science, education and language acquisition, the advantages of this first language cannot be overstated. It is this language that should be used for didactic purposes according to certain scholars, an idea that I buy. Take the case of Kenya for instance: English is the language of instruction even with the mother tongue lessons in lower primary. Having ever through a public school, brought up by teachers and even taught (a private school), I can tell you for sure that English is such a challenge and so is Kiswahili. Teachers have admitted that more often than not they’ve had to explain subjects such as science and social studies in mother tongue so that the pupils could grasp. That is in the rural areas, in Nairobi metropolitan the situation might not be exactly the same but is definitely not better. I have been in classes in Thika and Nairobi and you do not want to hear the kind of Swahili that is used even for instructional purposes. The challenges in English and Swahili were evident. My “mini-research” got much more interesting when I observed English compositions from the two regions. Helping a colleague mark English compositions made me afraid of what to expect from the French exam that I’d later administer! This problem isn’t exclusively Kenyan; many other countries such as Nigeria, Namibia and Pakistan are confronted with this problem.

"...a third of the world's languages ar in Africa yet Africa is the only continent where children begin learning in foreign languages..." -Prof Kithaka Wa Mberia

Such findings are only found in academic corridors as theses or conference papers after which they are cast onto the shelves of the library to gather dust. In a conference during the International Mother language Day, a scholar showed how learning is slowed down by lack of linguistic competence in the language of instruction, and the impact on the cognitive ability of the child since attention has to be divided between learning English, the language of instruction, and the concepts to be learnt! United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has for the last 50 years championed for the mother language in learning at the elementary levels. Multilingualism is supposed to be mother tongue based, how well one has mastered their first language has a positive effect on the acquisition of a second language, according to research done in second language acquisition. Other scholars have argued that the goals of education for all are more easily achieve in countries where first languages are used. It has also been found that multilingual children tend to develop better thinking skills than monolinguals, as such most African countries would stand to benefit if there was a good education policy, properly implemented. Kenya for instance is already multilingual, and with individuals, before reaching a foreign language most people will have an indigenous language, Swahili and English. The case of Swahili however puzzles me and is subject to research. In my translation classes, I was rather surprised to see some of us put Swahili as their language C meaning that they could not have Swahili as their target language yet it is assumed that this is the language we use daily.

Even with the poor mastery of English and Kiswahili in Kenya, there are still grave issues with our mother tongues especially in urban and peri-urban areas. Today children are becoming more alienated from their cultures. The inability to communicate with grandparents and even parents is worrying and subsequently leads to a situation where the young generation no longer has a connection to their cultural heritage. “For the sake of national integration…” I hear people argue. But I hear more stereotypes about tribes than things that would foster national integration by use of a common language. As the world’s languages reduce, so do the cultural values carried in these languages.

Evidently, the benefits people who mastered their first languages alongside other languages reap are immense as are benefits that come with second/foreign languages. However the benefits of the latter underlie those of the former thus overlooking them will have far reaching effects!

-        There are 70 languages native to Kenya, however some have become extinct while a few others like el molo have as few as 650 speakers. -        According to UNESCO the literacy rate in Kenya was at 84% in 2010 ranking 4th in Africa. -        Most of the research done on our native languages has been in Europe and America