Baskadia

By CN Mwanga

Kikuyu, or Kikamba, or Ekegusii, or indeed any Kenyan vernacular is neither French, nor Latin nor Greek. You notice many people who, in the midst of a conversation when they want to switch code to mother tongue ruin the whole thing by lying when they switch again to the language of their speech. It is not uncommon to hear phrases like; " in Greek we say", "that is French to say", "for those who understand French" and other such lies. They are all lies! It is a display of twisted thinking. We mother language enthusiasts interpret this as undermining the language that originates the saying, and glorifying the foreign language. It is like saying that Master KG of South Africa did not sing Jerusalema, Ed Sheeran of United Kingdom did. Or Jomo Kenyatta did not champion for Kenya's independence, but John F. Kennedy did. Then you leave your listeners with the responsibility of intepreting what you said to what you meant.

Code switching to mother language before multiethnic audiences does not promote negative ethnicity as some would argue. It is a way of recognizing ethnic identities, and celebrating the huge wealth of knowledge stored in mother languages. Code switching and code mixing is good for emphatic effect and undistorted passing of a message. This is because cultural backgrounds of languages are not similar. When I tell you in Kikamba that mbaa ngeeka meethîiwe mataneka I am simply saying procrastination is bad. But thats not what I said in exact words. What I said is that the clan of Ngeeka was one time caught up with an unfinished task. Ngeeka means I will do it some time later. Or Simply I won't do it today. Now they are named Ngeeka because of their procrastination behaviour. I doubt there's a clan system among the English speaking native communities. So the whole statement and context may not make sufficient sense to them to understand it.

I appreciate that education and exposure inspires us to think beyond our villages. It just did that to me. That's why I am doing this article in English. But I have consciously refused to allow education to take away my first language. I don't repute facts neither. English is global. Unlike Kikamba that's only big in Eastern Kenya. But Kikamba is my home language. Homes are usually smaller than "outside home". Kenya is home. Aside from Kenya are 194 other countries which are not your home. But when you come from wandering around the 194, you come home to one Kenya. That 1 Kenya which is home is more important than the 194 countries, thiugh they are many.So homes are important and must remain there as homes. Your mother tongue is your home language, the language of your ancestors. It is more important than the languages we have adopted from Europe.

There is no shame in mother tongue. Some of us are happy polyglots. We celebrate our President, our beloved son of Kamagut for the kaikai kobarin panan kosir kobarin pesen Kalenjin phrase stated in KICC. He used this in front of African presidents and world leaders. He was courteous to intepret it to us, and the point he was making came out very clear. Shout out to him!

Please, you acquired your mother tongue but your English is only learnt! And there is no language that is superior or inferior. All languages have just one purpose, to provide a medium of communication. Never misstate your language as French, German, English or Latin. It is what it is! We are preserving linguistic diversity!