Engsh, a Kenyan middle class youth language parallel to Sheng (original) (raw)

“Sheng and Engsh: What They Are and What They Are Not”

International journal of scientific research, 2015

Kenya is a multilingual nation with over 40 ethnic languages, many foreign languages, and two codes whose classification is not yet clear. The two codes are called Sheng and Engsh and are respectively language varieties of the slum and affluent dwelling places in Kenyan urban centres – especially in Nairobi. The objective of the present paper is to locate the place of Sheng and Engsh on the Kenyan linguistic scene by finding out what Kenyans feel the two codes are as instruments of communication. Data for the paper was collected by use of questionnaire, interview schedules, participant observation and archival records. The theory used in this paper is Social Identity as developed by Tajfel ( 1970). The conclusion that the present paper gives is that Engsh is but a variety of Sheng and that Sheng can no longer be taken for granted on the Kenyan linguistic scene. The paper recommends Sheng’s proper recognition and planning in Kenya.

Sheng and Engsh in Kenya's Public Spaces and Media

Youth Language Practices and Urban Language Contact in Africa, 2021

This chapter discusses the role of the media in the development in Kenya of Sheng (showing largely African language syntax with salient English lexis) and Engsh (showing the reverse, i.e. largely the syntax of English and lexis from several African languages) in Kenya. While African urban youth languages may start as antilanguages of the streets, many develop a much wider speech community due to their gradual spread from the street and the informal transport environment into song lyrics and thus the radio, and into comic strips and cartoons and thus the printed press. The use of these two youth language varieties in these media has the additional effect of making them acceptable for a larger part of the society, as a style of youth and modernity and rendering this style fit for advertisement and use on television, in soap operas. This development is illustrated with Sheng and Engsh. Keywords: Sheng, Engsh, urban youth, street language, new media, style shift, modernity, matatu, Kenyan English, Swahili

THE CAMOUFLAGING OF SHENG' LANGUAGE IN KENYA SINCE ITS EMERGENCE

This paper reviews the growth and development of Sheng' language as a lingua franca in the regions where it is spoken in Kenya since its emergence. Languages do grow and develop as time passes by and this is evident by the way today's language is somewhat different from yesterday's language. On the other hand, other 'new languages' spring up from the main languages to cater for different linguistic needs at a given period of time as is the case of sheng' in Kenya. To catch up with the ever fast development in the world, these languages, including sheng', have come up with new terminologies and or vocabulary so as to continue being relevant. This has seen a rise in the 'new languages' springing up from the main ones – and being very popular amongst the youth – they have even developed to an extend of being recognized as lingua franca in the regions where they are spoken. This paper affirms that with the passage of time; new ideas, structures, terminologies and or vocabulary have been and continue being coined in these languages. Origin and meaning of Sheng Sheng began it's life as a slang largely used by gangs in the poorest corners of Nairobi. There is no widely agreed upon origin of sheng though most scholars believe that it could have started due to massive migration of people from their villages to the city which resulted in large numbers of young people living in close quarters with their families in low-income neighborhoods in Nairobi. These people came from varying ethnic groups speaking different vernacular languages, mainly Kikuyu, Luo and Kamba, along with Kiswahili and English. Jowal, J. (2015) says, " Nobody can accurately put a finger on when the language came to be, but an undeniable fact is that Sheng is on its course to overtaking all languages in Kenya as the most used language of communication…Although it borrows vocabulary widely, its grammar and syntax remains predominantly Swahili. " Bosire M. (2006) says that children of the different ethnic groups are of two worlds and they want a way to express this duality, this new 'ethnicity'. Sheng is a way to break away and give them a global urban ethnicity; the urbanite: sophisticated, streetsmart, new generation, tough.

Sheng: an urban variety of Swahili in Kenya

This paper critically contributes to the question of what a descriptive approach can contribute to the clarification of the linguistic status of Sheng. As a starting point I take my own experience of the transparency of the transcripts of conversations amongst young people from Eastleigh (Nairobi) which were labeled “Sheng”. From this follows a methodological and conceptual critique of the available literature on Sheng that aims at operationalizing the notion of linguistic practice and language as resource. As one possible alternative I suggest to make use of a repertoire based approach to language description and applying a corpus linguistic perspective to the data. From that point of view, however, categorial distinctions between Swahili, Nairobi Swahili and Sheng lose relevance. Taking (Standard) Swahili as a descriptive background, the results show that the verbal complex is marked by a surprisingly high degree of Swahili linguistic proficiency and some innovation. Restructuring and reduction is mainly visible within the nominal phrase. Therefore the results support the literature with regard to the nominal phrase, albeit from the background of a more “disinterested” data collection. In addition, processes of innovation and restructuring are displayed through the instability of the phenomena that become visible in the corpus. Finally, I suggest understanding Sheng primarily as the name given to urban/urban youth practices of which linguistic practices are but one aspect.

Urban youth languages in Africa

Anthropological linguistics, 2004

Youths in several urban centers on the African continent are continuously creating their own languages in order to set themselves apart from the older generation. These languages also serve to bridge ethnic differences. Cases have been reported for Abidjan, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Kinshasa-Brazzaville, and Yaounde. We show that these urban youth languages have much in common, both in function and in the linguistic strategies that their speakers use. The strategies found are typical for conscious language manipulation in general. Languages that arise through lexical manipulation can be divided into four types according to their function and use. Urban youth languages fall into the category of what Halliday terms antilanguages, but differ from other instances of language manipulation such as argot, taboo, jargon, slang, secret languages, and in-law respect languages. The difference lies not only in their different functions, but also, and related to these, in a preference for the use of certain types of conscious manipulation above others. The primary function of these urban youth languages is to create a powerful icon of identity. The identity in question is established through the reversal of norms, and develops from an underdog type of identity to one aimed at reforming society.

Singh, Jaspal Naveel (2022) Review of: Youth language practices and urban language contact in Africa

Journal of Sociolinguistics , 2022

The book provides detailed descriptive information and insightful theorisations about contemporary youth language practices in South Africa (five chapters), Cameroon, Kenya and Côte d'Ivoire (one chapter each). In the Introduction, the three editors, all renowned sociolinguistics scholars from South Africa, conceptualise youth language practices as hybrid ways of speaking in urban Africa that are 'connected with street corners rather than classrooms' (p. 2) and that are ideologically associated with working-class adolescent men between the ages of roughly 15 and 25.

Kirundi Slang – Youth Identity and Linguistic Manipulations

The urban youth language Kirundi Slang as spoken by a majority of the Burundian youths in the capital Bujumbura emerged in the 1990s as a mixed linguistic practice with strong Kiswahili, Lingala, French and English influences. Ever since the massacres and ethnic clashes in and around Bujumbura in the early 1990s and the resulting migratory waves of migration, Kiswahili had been functioning as the predominant language of Burundian youth culture, music and thus, as the main donor language of Kirundi Slang. The increasing importance of Swahili in the media and music, the locality of Bujumbura close to the Congo border, the close cultural ties with neighboring Rwanda and also the fact of being dependent upon commercial naval routes to Tanzania have contributed to a high degree of multilingualism as well as code-switching within the city limits. These factors have to some extent equally triggered the emergence of a youth language as a new linguistic identity of youths in a post-conflict setting. The permeability of borders in the Great Lakes Region of Africa as well as the absorbance of cultural youth identity fragments from Dar es Salaam (Lugha ya Mitaani), Kinshasa (Yanké), Kigali (Imvugo y'Umuhanda) and Nairobi (Sheng) have shaped a complex new youth culture that is conveyed through phonological, some few morphological, but mainly semantic manipulations and processes of rich lexical borrowing. The present paper aims to analyze the corner pillars of youths' social practices as well as the linguistic scale of manipulation of youths' speech behavior, taking account of the multilingual urban space of Bujumbura as a socio-cultural breeding ground for the emergence of a new linguistic practice.