Why we are trying to lean our mother tongues now

Africa is home to about 2,000 languages, which is about a third of all the languages being spoken around the world. African Academy of Languages (ACALAN) executive secretary Sozinho Francisco Matsinhe insists that in order for Africa to realise its sustainable development goals, indigenous languages should be used in all spheres of life. To this end, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) launched a campaign in 2016 to incorporate mother tongue into the Kenyan school curriculum, but this failed to take off as planned.
In the modern world, international languages such as English, Kiswahili, French and German are highly coveted, while indigenous ones continue to be neglected and are spoken mainly in rural areas. Has the community failed in passing down the traditional values that our forefathers held dear? What impact has this had on the current generation and how can this be remedied? Four young people help us answer these questions.
Clinton Kitur, 24, broadcast journalist

I can speak only a little Kipsigis, but I understand most of it. It is a shame that I cannot sustain a conversation in my native language for more than two minutes.
The first time I tried to speak it, I was 14 years old and I had been forced to learn because I was just about to go through the rites of passage, and I needed to understand the instructions which were being issued in Kipsigis.
I grew up in Turbo, a metropolitan town in Uasin Gishu County. We did not speak Kipsigis at home. Only my parents did.
When we were growing up, our friends who could speak Kalenjin fluently often struggled with English and Kiswahili, so we looked down upon them and shunned the language because in school, our fluency in English and Kiswahili made us shine. I thought I would lose my ability to speak English and Kiswahili if I learnt Kipsigis, so I never bothered.
I have been to my rural home just three times in my life.
After my initiation, I realised that I could not connect fully with the members of my age set because I could not speak Kipsigis, and this prompted me to start learning.
When I joined university, I observed that all my friends could speak their native languages except me. I felt like an outcast because I could not participate in their conversations. When I forced myself to speak with them, I ended up being a laughing stock because I mispronounced the words or mixed the tenses.
I now know that everyone of us has a background, and identifying with your roots gives you a sense of belonging. If there was a school where I could enrol to learn to speak Kipsigis, I would definitely register.
At the end of the day, we are living in a globalised world, but there will come a time when we will be required to trace our identities. For me, understanding my mother tongue is a very integral part of living a fulfilled life.
Eunice Lusimba, 22, teacher

My parents are from different dialects of the Luhya tribe, so I kept getting confused while trying to speak both languages, and this made learning quite difficult for me. I still haven’t grasped the difference between the two dialects. What I know is that I can speak a little Luhya, but I cannot say which of the two dialects I am more conversant with.
My parents did not teach me to speak our mother tongue, and neither did they insist that I speak it. I learnt by listening to them speak to each other. Also, when I was a child, my mother used to scold me a lot in her mother tongue, and that became another learning avenue for me.
All my life, I have been to our rural home just twice. Once when I was a toddler, and again in 2012, so I’ve never really had any compelling reasons to learn my mother tongue because there are very few people I can speak it with.
Sometimes I want to talk to my mom without involving the other people in the room but I can’t because I am unable to express myself well in our language. Whenever I try, she doesn’t understand because I end up mixing up the two dialects, or getting the tenses and pronunciations wrong.
I envy my friends who speak fluent mother tongue. As I grow older, I have come to appreciate my native language. I try to speak to my mother in her language, and have instructed her to keep engaging me and correcting me so that I can be fluent.
My sister is going to school outside Nairobi and she gets to spend a lot of time with our grandmother. Because of that, she is a better speaker of our mother tongue than I am, and that is challenging me to also learn to speak it.
When I have children, I will teach them to speak their native language to enhance their awareness of their origin and culture, and also to create in them a sense of belonging.
Shirleen Ishenyi, 19, communication student

I can speak a few Luhya words, but I am not fluent. However, when someone speaks to me in that language, I will understand. I am the second born in a family of four, and my older sister also can’t string more than a few sentences in mother tongue. However, my two younger sisters are worse. They struggle to even understand the language, yet we all grew up in the village!
When we were young, we could not always get out of the house and interact with others. We went to a private school where English was the only language spoken from morning to evening, every day. After school, my sisters and I were required to go straight home. My parents used to speak to our neighbours, workers and our extended family members in mother tongue, but not to us. Therefore, I never thought there was any value in learning to speak the language.
Also, when I was young, the inability to speak in mother tongue made me look cool. In school, those who could speak it were viewed as being stuck in the past, and I didn’t want to be regarded that way.
But now, the inability to express myself in mother tongue has proved a challenge because during family events such as burials, my relatives expect us to speak that language.
In such contexts, speaking in Kiswahili makes me feel like an outcast. Even when I try, my accent comes out wrong and that makes me very uncomfortable. My father once complained that we were embarrassing him by not speaking in his language, but we promptly remind him that he failed to teach us. To this he responded that he had learnt to speak in Isukha on his own, and that he did not think that we needed this help to learn.
I really admire my cousins who speak fluent Luhya. I learnt to speak French in school because my teachers explained to me the benefits of speaking it, such as getting prime jobs within and outside the country. However, nobody has ever told me what I would gain if I spoke fluent Luhya, so even though I long to speak it, I would never enrol for a class to learn it.
I know a little bit of my culture and language, which I will certainly teach my children so that they grow up to appreciate their origin.
Some people don’t believe that I am a Luhya because I cannot speak the language. They dismiss me because they assume that I do not know my peoples’ cultures.
I am now making efforts to learn the language by interacting more with my cousins. We hardly ever go to our rural home, so there is even less pressure to learn the language, and fewer people to speak it with.
Still, I believe that my mother tongue is an important aspect of my identity, which is why I making every effort to learn.
Cyril Walucho, 27, sports journalist

I can speak my mother tongue, Luhya, but not as fluently as I would have wished. There are more than 16 dialects in my tribe, but I did not pick the language up early enough because I was raised up in Nairobi.
Whenever my father speaks in his native tongue, he mixes it with a lot of English such that the whole conversation just sounds like English. Growing up, I thought that is how that language was meant to be spoken.
I learnt to speak my mother tongue in school. Neither my mother nor my father spoke to me in this language as I was growing up. My siblings and I rarely visited our grandparents and when we did, they always spoke to us in Kiswahili or English. When I joined the drama club in high school, all my friends spoke in Bukusu, which made them look so cool. I forced myself to learn because it made me feel like I belonged with them and allowed me to interact freely with them.
Now, the only local language I know is Bukusu, which I learnt from my high school friends. However, neither of my parents can speak that language, and this brings about conflict because whenever I speak to my grandmother in the Bukusu language, she gets offended.
I can sustain a long conversation using a mix of Luhya and Kiswahili, but I know that I still need to practice speaking the former because I do not sound anything like my friends who speak it fluently. I feel that we should all know our mother tongues, and parents should take the time to teach their children.
I cannot communicate with my grandmother in her dialect, yet I long to do so. I feel that if I cannot learn my language, I may not be able to grasp my history fully. We are losing important segments of our cultures by neglecting our native languages.
My sister speaks in mother tongue fluently and when I am at home with her, we do not speak any English or Kiswahili. I have noticed that our generation seems keen to preserve our culture, which is impressive. A lot more of my friends are making efforts to learn their mother tongues.
Folk music is the best avenue to learn the pronunciations, meanings and contexts of my mother tongue, and this is what I am currently using to perfect my verbal skills.




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