FYI, an article on New Vision (Uganda) at http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/459/472506 (link seen on a Google alert). DZO
Kiswahili should not kill local languages Friday, 23rd December, 2005 By Manuel Muranga THE promotion of Kiswahili as the language of the East African Community is a commendable undertaking that should be embraced by Uganda, which has not kept pace with Tanzania and Kenya. But Kiswahili should not lead to the neglect of the many viable, culturally, educationally and economically valuable languages of East Africa. Just as much as many people should seek to earn their living through a career dependent, inter alia, on a good or even excellent knowledge of Kiswahili, so also many should seek to earn a living through a career drawing on a good or even excellent knowledge of at least one indigenous East African language. It would not be culturally, historically, educationally, politically or economically wise for the East African countries only to promote Kiswahili and to do nothing about the other languages until they are overcome by the might of Kiswahili. This scenario is already obtaining in Tanzania. The current effort to document the indigenous Tanzanian languages under the LOT project is good but not enough; the better thing would be to start teaching the languages in schools and elsewhere. The same scenario is beginning to obtain also in Kenya, for there too people have not generally realised the importance of retaining and promoting their mother tongues, except for the lone Ngugi wa Thiong'o and a few others. Uganda is still considerably uncomfortable with Kiswahili, though those who theoretically (not practically!) embrace Kiswahili may not realise its threat to their local languages. Multilingualism and multiculturalism are part and parcel of our human heritage not only in East Africa, but in the entire world. The situation began at Babel, as it were, and will continue. Work against multilingualism and multiculturalism in order to promote one world language (which would hardly be Kiswahili!) is what some have called cultural imperialism and arrogance. Consequently, the rational promoter of a regional language like Kiswahili should equally be a promoter of the local languages, for he recognises that the regional and the local language each have their own cultural, educational, political and economic value. Therefore, there should be no danger of Kiswahili suffocating the other languages in East Africa. Such danger is real because the effort to promote Kiswahili is not matched by efforts to promote the other languages. This should not be the responsibility of the local language patriots only. Governments should also promote those efforts through good policies and finances. If this were to happen, we would soon see our inherited multilingualism and multiculturalism begin to bear fruit and to enrich us in many ways. We would see more newspapers and books, including literature in our languages; the best of this literature would be translated into English, Kiswahili and other languages by well-trained translators. Remember that, as Johann Gottfried Herder said at a time when his own mother tongue German was still suffering from the centuries-old suffocating influence of the then world language Latin, "a poet cannot be a true poet until he writes in his own mother tongue." Many a gifted poet in Africa has remained unable to rise above his potential simply because he thinks he has to write in English, French or Portuguese. I earned a doctorate through a study of poetry of urban misery between 1880 and 1920 in one European language (not English!), writing the thesis in the appropriate academic jargon - a hard, though rewarding, intellectual experience. Literature in two other European languages were my subsidiaries - the local doctoral system demands two "minors", besides the "major". Nonetheless I did not quite come to a full enjoyment of "poetry" until I discovered the works of poets who wrote in my Ugandan mother tongue. Reading Mubangizi, Karwemera, Muhungirehe, Tibanyendera and Bazarrabusa was for me a wonderful literary experience. Re-reading the two Runyankore-Rukiga Bibles the older one of 1964 and the newer one of 1989 inter alia in search of some more literary-aesthetic adventures turned out to be a very enriching experience. And I know that my experience is not isolated. Many who have tried to read such written poetry as there may be in their mother tongues will admit that the poetic power of these languages is great but untapped. Suppose we also learnt how to write in them and taught them to our children? What if we learnt how to translate out of them and into them? Suppose we remembered what Nyerere did for Kiswahili when he, the busy politician, translated Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Merchant of Venice into this language? Suppose we emulated Nyerere and translated our favourite English literary and other texts into our mother tongues? Today's "great" languages (e.g English, German, French, Spanish), as well as the smaller languages (e.g. modern Greek, Czech, Dutch, Danish)and even small but robust ones (e.g. Icelandic, Slovenian, Estonian, etc) have greatly benefited from translation into them and out of them. The Icelandic novelist Halldor Laxness won the Literature Nobel Prize in 1955; he wrote in Icelandic, a language spoken today by only 230,000 people and his novels were translated into "greater" languages. We in East Africa need to nurture and utilise our multilingualism, multiculturalism and our diversity to greater effect. Diversity is enjoyable and manageable. Fortunately, there are languages that can "unite" us to some extent: English and Kiswahili. There is also an academic discipline that can further enhance this cross-language understanding: translation. We are not alone in this. India is multilingual and they are proud of that heritage. They have Hindi and English to unite them across the nation plus an active translation industry. South Africa embraces and finances its eleven official languages. These are taught in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. Even Namibia, despite her small population, promotes all her 13 languages. In Nigeria, you can write a PhD in Yoruba in the subject of Yoruba Studies at some universities. Yoruba language literature boasts of over 120 writers, not counting the authors of non-literary texts. The Akan languages of Ghana too can reportedly be studied throughout the educational system. In multilingual and multicultural Europe, we note that in spite of their promotion of English, they still attach a lot of value to their own languages which they teach up to university and in which the poets express their deepest feelings, and their talents freely blossom and flourish. Mother tongues are man's first linguistic identities. We can and should be happy to live with our multilingualism and multiculturalism. That is our heritage. Let us promote Kiswahili as much as possible but let us do so in tandem with promoting our many rich languages as well. The averagely educated East African of the future should at least be competently trilingual in hearing, speech, reading and writing in a mother tongue, English and Kiswahili. What a greater understanding and enjoyment of Economics, Science, History and Philosophy we would achieve if we could read the standard textbooks both in English and in our mother tongues an experience which competent, well-trained translators could help us have. One relatively well educated man in Kabale once told me that if he had gone through school with his mother tongue Rukiga as the medium of instruction and reading, he would certainly have made it to university because he would have understood and responded to the subject matters of the many disciplines far much better. So we should advocate an East African policy of trilingualism (mother tongue, English, Kiswahili) in our education system. The writer is the Director of Institute of Languages, Makerere University ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Know an art & music fan? Make a donation in their honor this holiday season! http://us.click.yahoo.com/.6dcNC/.VHMAA/Zx0JAA/TpIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
