The article is a plea for sustaining the indigenous languages of Tanzania and Kenya. These languages display an impressive richness in diversity which is diminishing currently. It is important to... Show moreThe article is a plea for sustaining the indigenous languages of Tanzania and Kenya. These languages display an impressive richness in diversity which is diminishing currently. It is important to appreciate the value of the current linguistic diversity and that of multilingualism. The article is based on a presentation at a conferenceof the Languages of Tanzania project and hence is biased towards the Tanzanian situation. I argue that the success of the language policy of promoting Kiswahili now opens the ways to support the local languagesthat pose no threat to national unity. Given that this article is a plea and one making ample use of my personal experiences of linguistic research in Tanzania and Kenya the style is more personal and lacks the usual detachment of academic papers. Show less
Youth ‘languages’ are an important topic of research in the domain of linguisticchange through language contact because the change is rapid and observableand also because the social dimension of... Show moreYouth ‘languages’ are an important topic of research in the domain of linguisticchange through language contact because the change is rapid and observableand also because the social dimension of change is inevitably present. Engsh, asa youth language in Kenya expresses not only modernity and Kenyan identitybut also, the status of being educated, and it differs in this respect from Sheng,the dominant Kenyan youth language. The element of Engsh that expresses thisaspect most directly is the use of a grammatical system from English whereasSheng uses Swahili. In lexicon, Engsh draws upon Sheng and urban Englishslang. This is a first extensive description of Engsh. The social function of Engshis interesting in that class is expressed in it, which is not often reported inAfrican urban youth codes. Also the fact that Engsh is a non-exclusive register,which expands through its use in (social) media and most of all in computermediated communication. Show less
