Sheng and Engsh in Kenya's Public Spaces and Media (original) (raw)
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Engsh, a Kenyan middle class youth language parallel to Sheng
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 2017
Youth ‘languages’ are an important topic of research in the domain of linguistic change through language contact because the change is rapid and observable and also because the social dimension of change is inevitably present. Engsh, as a youth language in Kenya expresses not only modernity and Kenyan identity but 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 this aspect most directly is the use of a grammatical system from English whereas Sheng uses Swahili. In lexicon, Engsh draws upon Sheng and urban English slang. This is a first extensive description of Engsh. The social function of Engsh is interesting in that class is expressed in it, which is not often reported in African 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 computer mediated communication.
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.
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.
In Kenya, among the youth, traditionally there were established language practice differences where youth in the rural areas would speak the domicile mother tongue while the urban youth redesigned their identity by creating and communicating in 'Sheng'. This is no longer the case as the rural-urban language divide is linguistically flattening due to increased use of digital media, urbanization of rural spaces and globalization. This paper describes new digital media language trends among Kenyan urban youth and explains how globalization and digital media have become the unifying factor between rural and urban youth language practices. The paper contends that the narrowing of the urban-rural dichotomy in language use seems to have created semi-homogenous language practices among the youth in both rural and urban areas. This has been made possible by affordable internet which gives the rural youth access to urban culture and global trends. The paper also describes how urbanization of rural towns and rural-urban-urban-rural migration has created pathways that carry urban language practices to previously rural areas and created a form of African modernity and urbanity in these spaces.
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.
From the Hood to Public Discourse: The Social Spread of African Youth Languages
Urban youth language in Africa is increasingly present in various public and family contexts, rather than being limited to marginalized urban identities–new contexts associated less with resistance than with openness, unboundedness, and inclusion. This implies changes of style, exclusiveness, identity marking, and domains of usage. Analysis of Yanké in Kinshasa and Yarada K’wank’wa in Addis Ababa shows that new unbounded identities of youth language speakers are associated with more fluid and accessible com- munities of practice, reflecting new modes of regulating ingroup boundaries and conveying language rights to outsiders (including older people from all social strata). This accompanies new developments in speakers’ ideologies and con- structions of identity.
African Youth Language: New Media, Performance Arts and Sociolinguistic Development
Sociolinguistic Studies , 2019
The dynamics of language is often grasped in the complexities of human, structural and ideational interfaces that appropriate language and everyday life’s social interactions into discourses, agencies and mechanisms that serve as a catalyst for shaping the present, and at times, offers roadmaps for the future. The essays in African Youth Language: New Media, Performance Arts and Sociolinguistic Development, edited by Ellen Hurst-Harosh and Fridah Kanana Erastus, aptly convey this complexity. Different contributors to this volume explore African youth language and the new media in local context, and simultaneously engage the ways in which they are being influenced in global perspective. The mode of social exchange between language and new media in these essays is adequately designed to conquer space and transform its nature (Berland, 1988). The editors have provided timely and crucial interventions on the politics of language use, identity formation, social change and meaning-making, youth engagement and new media interactions.
Global repertoires and urban fluidity: youth languages in Africa
The linguistic practices and creativity of youths reflect an amazing way of dealing with the dynamics of urban and global African city life. Communities of practice (CoP) emerge, in which global trends, local concepts and cutting-edge styles, identities of resistance and contested spaces all play a role and impact on the linguistic practices of youths. The implementation of linguistic manipulative patterns that are often acquired from other youth languages, as well as strategies such as translanguaging, borrowing, language crossing and bricolage, brought about through local, global and pan-African contact and trends, including music cultures such as Hip Hop and Reggae, have molded youth identities and urban practices. The focus of this article is on youth languages found in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Kinshasa/Goma (DR Congo), where the multilayered range of social and linguistic impacts of globalization has led to new linguistic practices and identities. Both speakers' fluid patterns of contact and manipulation across digital (Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter) and real spaces, and their manipulative strategies in the formation of new " repertoires " , are analyzed in the article. Youth languages, especially in the African context, have usually been described as modern, urban and fluid. We argue that these characteristics also hold for other linguistic practices and non-urban contexts, and that youth languages differ in terms of the speed and manner in which these processes and modifications occur or are deliberately employed.