The Complexity of Language in Kenya

Whereas it’s true that most Kenyans speak three languages, the mother tongue, Swahili and English, the confusion lies in which of the two, English or Swahili, is the second language?

I know the answer seems obvious to a casual observer but, pause for a moment if you’re Kenyan and ask yourself, ‘What language did those brought up in the urban settings speak at home? And which one did they use at school? What about those from rural?

Truth of the matter is, if you grew up in the countryside, most of your life you used two languages frequently, mother tongue and English, while Swahili came in handy when listening to the radio, or later when you went to the city to work and needed a language of communication with everyone, learned and unlearned.

I find it difficult to claim Swahili as my second language without a certain amount of qualification. See, to the extent that Swahili sounds much more like my mother tongue as compared to English, then yes, it definitely is my second language. Even the uneducated elderly person in the countryside where I grew up, can bluff his/her way through Swahili.

Which reminds me of one of those times we would go visit dad in the city where he worked. My sister wanted to play with a neighbour who was urban through and through and whose language was by every count Swahili. So my sister called out to her friend, ‘kuja tusake’ (Come we play). Now that may sound strange to you but to my sister it was perfectly okay and sounded Swahili enough. You see, in my mother tongue ‘to play’ would be ‘tuthake’. And so really if you think about it, what much difference is there? Just substitute the ‘th’ for ‘s’ or ‘c’ sound, coupled with a Swahili ‘tune’ (or accent), and you’re home and dry.

Now that is just one example but believe me many of us upcountry got through Swahili that way (still do). I mean you couldn’t really fail to communicate in Swahili just because you are not a frequent speaker. We knew we shared enough words with Swahili (or came close to sharing) for us to somehow muddle through the language. And I expect it’s the same with many a Kenyan dialect as Swahili is a mix of several Kenyan languages.

To that extent then, the familiarity and correlation with our mother tongue, Swahili can be said to be our second language. After all, what does the English language have at all in common with my mother tongue? The only commonality I have found is in the word ‘take’, which is spelt exactly the same as the words in my language meaning exactly that, ‘take.’ The words are ‘ta ke,’ pronounced ‘tah keh’. No difference really except for the added ‘h’ not to confuse English pronunciation. That’s all we, or they, came away with really.

I mean how can my mother tongue, which is full of vowels, have anything to do with English, a language that goes mad with consonants? A language where more often than not several consonants follow each other, with some words having only one vowel – case in point – ‘drill’? In my mother tongue the only consonants that ever follow each other are ‘mb’, ‘nd’, ‘ng’, ‘th’. You’ll be lucky if you can find another genuine one. I know modernity has added ‘ch’ but that is usually simply pronounced ‘c’ as in ‘cai’, (tea). But even if we allowed ‘ch’ that is only five sets of consonants.

The rest of my language demands that every consonant be followed by a vowel, and we have only so many consonants. I mean we don’t trouble ourselves with letters such as ‘f, s, l, p, q, v, x, z’, which explains why we have such problems with pronouncing ‘l’, for example. We don’t have it in my mother tongue and so for the most part we simply pronounce it as ‘r’. Ouch, can you imagine the confusion when we say things like ‘rate’ when we mean ‘late’? Tip of the iceberg, though. Stay around us and you will find out more.

So then you could say English and my mother tongue are as different from each other as light and day. I mean you can hardly bluff your way through like you would Swahili, neither would you hope to speak my mother tongue in an English ‘tune’ (accent’). In that regard English is a totally foreign language which we have to go to school to learn. Which brings me to my other point.

Whereas I used my mother tongue all the time at home, in school I had to use English. From the moment I entered Nursery school (sorry, you dot.comers, I didn’t have to go to baby class) I was taught in English. Except for my mother tongue and Swahili, every other subject was taught in English. In fact, the headmaster / mistress went further and imposed what was called ‘monito’ (I think it was meant to be ‘monitor’, I could be wrong), a gadget one was made to carry for not communicating in English, and which meant punishment at the end of the day. Suffice it to say in this kind of environment, by the time we reached Form 2, we were all certified fluent English speakers, while still just bluffing through Swahili. It is in this sense then that I think for those of us from upcountry English, rather than Swahili, could count as our second language (well, if you did go to school).

The story would be slightly different for those brought up in the towns. With Swahili being the de facto language for almost all urban Kenyan children, it serves as their first language (with a few from upper class areas using English). Second at home would then be the mother tongue and, again, English for school and work life. Now, considering very few urbanites do actually use their vernacular for anything, then English takes the place of the second Language, relegating mother tongue to third language.

To make everything even more complex, English is the language of choice in the office, and most of us prefer to use it in communication even on the streets, unless we reckon the person we are speaking to may not be well versed in the language.

So then it’s a complex concept, this assumption that Swahili is the second language for most Kenyans. Maybe for the nation as a whole, as it is the unifying language easily used, to communicate effectively to both the learned and unlearned from across all Kenyan dialects. In this regard it actually supersedes both mother tongue and English to become the first language, the National language.

For daily practice though, the person upcountry is not that well versed in Swahili, and if they are educated they would sooner use English. Likewise the person in the city is not well versed in vernacular and, will sooner use English or Swahili. Only if they are not educated they will stick to Swahili. But all of us, learned or not, will use Swahili if we want to communicate to all Kenyans everywhere. At least, somehow, we all understand Swahili.

No wonder the New Constitution has turned Swahili into an official language which may be used for official communication, and there are numerous efforts to revive interest in the Swahili language both in schools and in the writing and reading of literature. It’s no secret that, once we are out of High School and no longer required to read Swahili novels, we will probably never again be caught reading anything written in Swahili, except the usual notices here and there.

Indeed there is an onslaught on the Swahili language and it came by default as we worked too hard to make sure every Kenyan could speak fluent English. So now we have established we are good at English, can we promote Swahili without making the same mistake, where again we become good Swahili speakers at the expense of an international language like English? Can we strike a healthy balance where we can then say, our language is mother tongue, Swahili and English, without question marks and grey areas…?