By: Felipe De la Garza

English in Kenya

Kenya• Capital & largest city: Nairobi

• Population (2013 estimate): 44,037,656 (31st)

• Independence from Great Britain December 12, 1963

• Official languages: Swahili, English

• Spoken languages: 69

• Literacy rate: 85%

Indigenous languagesEnglish is usually second-language in Kenya, therefore the way it is spoken (pronunciation, phonetics and grammar) depends

on the structure of the mother language of the speaker 60+

Indigenous languages are usually divided into:

• Niger-Congo

• Cushitic/Sudanic

• Afro-Asiatic

Kiswahili• Originates in Eastern African coast

• Bantu language with Persian & Arabic influence

• Muslim commercial route

• 1000a.d.

• 1884-1885 Berlin congress

• 1895 British protectorate

Kiswahili• Mombasa original capital

• Spoke Kiswahili

• British colonizers learned swahili to control people

• 1907 Capital moved to Nairobi (less swahili influence)

• Inland there are more languages

• Missionaries🙏 spread Kiswahili among tribes as a mother tongue

Kiswahili

• Most of the languages of southern and eastern Africa are closely related and belong to the Bantu family within Niger-Congo.

• Many of these are tone languages that also contain numerous affixes.

English

• The mother tongue of individual African speakers affects their accent strongly

• double pronouns, such as "me myself, I don't know," or "we, ourselves".

English Accent

• Problems with /r/ and /l/

• Nasal sounds

• Vowels

• Diphthongs

• lamb ram, face dress, mouth moth, Show so, beat bit

English Today

!

• Lyrics are most often in Swahili and English

• English is widely spoken in commerce, schooling and government

Sheng

• Sheng is a Swahili-based mixed language

• originating among the urban underclass of Nairobi, Kenya,

• influenced by many of the languages spoken there.

• earthwire -> neck tie

• shower -> rain

• pack -> live (somewhere)

• dame, shore (sho-reh; from "shawty") -> girl, chick

• Sasa?" (How are you now?), to which the reply might be "Fit sana", where "fit" comes from English t "sana" means "very" in Swahili.

Bibliography

• East African English - Hermann Ingi Ragnarsson

• http://mariefahy.blogspot.com/2011/05/kenyan-english.html

• http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/oct/16/kenya-debates-language-identity