A reply to Ndemo: How Sheng’s appeal made it defy all expectations

What you need to know:

  • In fact, although Prof Ndemo dismisses the influence of Kikuyu in the formative stages of Sheng, it has been hypothesised that the coded aspects of Sheng had to do with the secrecy surrounding the anti-colonial resistance and Mau Mau activities which, in Nairobi, were not restricted to Gikuyu people.
  • I was met with scepticism when I argued that students are not linguistically deficient when they use Sheng, and even suggested that teachers could use Sheng to teach or correct their students’ English or Kiswahii grammar (a method known as “contrastive analysis”) rather than refuse to even listen to the “gutter” language.
  • Well, Sheng has prevailed and found a comfortable place between the high-status English and low-status vernaculars, with Kiswahili seen as too formal and “difficult” to master and use as comfortably as coastal speakers do.

Prof Bitange Ndemo’s article — “The Evolution and economics of Sheng”— was a valiant attempt to give colour to a complicated, on-going socio-linguistic phenomenon that has preoccupied a number of scholars over the last three decades.

The article implicitly draws a parallel between the emergence of Sheng and the evolution of the creole languages of North America and the Caribbean, where Africans of different linguistic backgrounds were put together to work in plantations under the supervision of European overseers.

A pidgin or simplified language of convenience emerged and was used by those who did not share a common language based on the dominant European language, English or French. It evolved into a stable code or Creole. US Black English is a de-creolised form.

Significant differences are evident between the emergence of Creole languages and that of Sheng. Creoles of the world emerged over a period of about 400 years of close contact between Africans and Europeans.

The nearest such situation on the African continent might be the South African mines, from where a Creole type of code — Fanagalo — emerged and continues to be used by workers from all over southern Africa.

The Kenya railway project started in 1896 in Mombasa, reached Kisumu in 1901, Thika in 1913 and Mt Kenya in 1931 — less than 30 years of railroad building.

Also, significantly, there was an existing lingua franca, Swahili, that was readily available to Kenyan railroad workers, who included Hindi and Gujerati language speakers and Europeans who made diligent efforts to learn it.

LANGUAGE OF THE MAJORITY

Third, if indeed Dholuo speakers were dominant in numbers because they were preferred by the British for the reasons cited in the article, Dholuo would have served as a common language of the majority; the minority workers would have had to adopt it, pidginise it, or learn Swahili.

Clearly, the ethnolinguistic diversity found in Nairobi, socio-economic disparities and the length of the period of coexistence between speakers of many different languages would provide the right conditions for Sheng to have developed there, not along the temporary settlements of the railway line, not in Mombasa or Kisumu where such diversity and numbers was far less.

In fact, although Prof Ndemo dismisses the influence of Kikuyu in the formative stages of Sheng, it has been hypothesised that the coded aspects of Sheng had to do with the secrecy surrounding the anti-colonial resistance and Mau Mau activities which, in Nairobi, were not restricted to Gikuyu people.

A language that could be used as code while appearing to be Swahili would have served patriotic Kenyans well, as they actively or passively sought to subvert the colonial government.

Sheng has defied many Kenyans’ expectations while living up to predictions I made back in 2002, when I published my first research findings on Sheng in the UK-based Journal of African Cultural Studies.

Teachers were emphatic that Sheng had no place in schools or in the curriculum; because it is a low-status code used mainly by youths, unsavoury characters and poor inner-city residents, it would never get into the mainstream.

MET WITH SCEPTICISM

I was met with scepticism when I argued that students are not linguistically deficient when they use Sheng, and even suggested that teachers could use Sheng to teach or correct their students’ English or Kiswahili grammar (a method known as “contrastive analysis”) rather than refusing to even listen to the “gutter” language.

I argued that Sheng’s popularity was linked to socio-economics and its appeal can only be best understood within the wider social context.

Well, Sheng has prevailed and found a comfortable place between the high-status English and the low status vernaculars, with Kiswahili seen as too formal and “difficult” to master and use as comfortably as coastal speakers do.

Sheng’s appeal is due to its youthful, dynamic attributes such as extensive code-switching between the English and Swahili and any other fashionable vernacular word or phrase.

It is logical that the corporate world — local and multinational — recognise this appeal, in order to harvest from a demographically dominant code. The commercial rise of Sheng is the result of its appeal to a significant sector of the modern market: the creative, innovative, youthful, savvy Sheng generation.

Prof Githiora teaches English and Linguistics at Kenyatta University.