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Livingstone Walusimbi
The Government Bill in the White Paper proposing Kiswahili to be
Uganda’s second official language must be strongly condemned and
fought.
First of all, Kiswahili is not an indigenous language of Uganda.
Secondly, it is a language without culture because it does not belong
to any human being. In other words, it is not an indigenous language of
any tribe on earth.
Historically, Kiswahili was created by the Arabs for trade with the
natives at the coast of East Africa.
It started as pidgin Arabic. The word Swahili is Arabic and means
people of the cost (sahil) and Kiswahili came to mean the language of
the coastal people.
After a long time this pidgin developed into a non-indigenous language.
About 85% of the words in Kiswahili are Arabic. Uganda is a very rich
nation culturally because she has a great number of languages.
If Kiswahili, a non-native language and worse still, a language without
culture, is made a national language, our languages and rich cultures
will gradually fade away.
Are Ugandans ready and willing to lose their natural identities?
Following the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United
Nations Organisation, everyone has the right to use his or her language
in any environment.
All language communities are entitled to an education which will enable
their members to acquire a full command of their own language including
the different abilities relating to all the usual spheres of use.
The Declaration goes further to state that all language communities are
entitled to an education which will enable their members to acquire a
thorough knowledge of their cultural heritage — history, geography,
literature, and other manifestations of their culture.
The constitution of Uganda article 37 also states that every person has
a right to..... maintain and promote any culture, cultural institution,
language, tradition....”.
If the said Government Bill is passed by Parliament, many of our native
languages and wonderful cultures will die.
Tanzania is a very good example of countries whose majority of
indigenous languages and cultures have died out because of making
Kiswahili an official and national language. President Nyerere made
this terrible mistake because he was after political unity.
Like the majority of African rulers or leaders, Nyerere thought that
unity was brought about by having one language. He did not have the
vision of unity in diversity. The majority of the native Tanzanians are
today in a pitiable situation because they no longer have indigenous
languages and culture.
Unity is not brought about by having one language. Somalia, Rwanda and
Burundi respectively speak one language but there is no unity in their
countries. Hence, unity can only be enhanced by the quality of the
cultural, language and knowledge systems. These form the basis of any
administration that aspires for unity.
The Ministry of Education and Sports at the end of 2003 set up a team
of consultants to review the Primary school Curriculum. The provisional
findings of the commission show that the teaching of Kiswahili has not
taken off effectively because of lack of trained teachers of the
language and lack of interest by the teachers. Worse still, the team
found out that Kiswahili had negative connotations for historical
reasons and thus was looked down upon by adults in various areas of the
country.
The negative connotation of Kiswahili in Uganda is obvious. In the
past, Kiswahili was recognised as a language of ‘wrong doers’ namely,
the murderers, thieves, torturers and many others. It was and still is
the language of the armed forces and other security personnel. This was
also recognised as a trade language used particularly by the Indians
shopkeepers.
Kiswahili has never and will never be recognised in Uganda as a
language of learned people because it is intellectually still a
‘mimic’.
The writer is a member of the UNESCO Advisory Committee for
Linguistic Pluralism and Multilingual Education< p>
Published on: Wednesday, 15th December, 2004
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