Broken English or not, our athletes are global heroes

There’s a clip that has been doing the rounds, showing one of our athletes speaking to a journalist from a Western country.

The young man had just won Kenya a medal, and as normally happens, the sports journalists on the ground surrounded him, looking for that must-have soundbite.

For some reason, this young man, whose command of English was markedly poor, also felt the need to employ an American twang, the result being one could only barely make out what he was trying to say. As expected, the many Kenyans who viewed the clip had a lot to say. There are those who thought that he was an embarrassment to Kenya, and suggested that since our athletes are “national treasures” the government should invest in teaching them English, so that they can be better ambassadors.

I totally disagree. I know that twice or thrice I have said how appalled I get when I receive ungrammatical emails from university students seeking internship. That is a totally different case though, because these are people aspiring to work in the media, and the media in Kenya largely communicates using English. And they are in university, for heaven’s sake, where the language of instruction is English!

NOT ONE WORD OF ENGLISH

Our athletes, however, renowned the world over for their unmatched prowess on the track, don’t even have to know one word of English. After all, they aren’t inspiring to be journalists or authors, though I say this tongue in cheek. The fact is that they are already at the pinnacle of their immensely successful careers, limited English or not.

And no, they certainly did not get where they are because they could speak English, they got there because of their resilience and hard work. Okay, allow me to stop being modest — they got to the top simply because they outdo most of their fellow track athletes. They are pros, period, broken English or not.

I am not done yet. They are stars, stars that every Kenyan, irrespective of tribe, and you know how tribal we are, is proud of. Our athletes are the only people who manage to unite us as one people several times a year, when we gather around our TV sets at home and in pubs to cheer them during the various yearly sports meets.

An enlightened person in an online group I am in composed of women in media and PR, is of the opinion that if the foreign journalists who interview our athletes find it difficult to understand their English, then their media houses should hire an interpreter. Our athletes can then be allowed to discuss their spectacular win in the language they are most comfortable with — their mother tongue or our national language, Kiswahili.

These athletes are the newsmakers after all. Without them, those journalists would have no story to tell that day. Yes, our athletes are at that point of their careers where they don’t have to impress anyone.

I am old school, and one of my favourite musicians of all time is Julio Iglesias, the now 70-something Spanish singer known for his mushy love songs. I find his heavily accented English charming, and I could listen to his songs all day long.

And yet when I hear my countryman speak English that is heavily influenced by his mother tongue, his first language mark you, I am embarrassed on his behalf and on behalf of the other people of Kenya.

How hypocritical! If anything, what we should be embarrassed about as Kenyans is that most of us can’t speak Kiswahili fluently, or our mother tongue. What a shame! Perhaps it is time we emulated our West and Central Africa brothers and sisters — they speak their Pidgin English with such pride, ‘proper’ English be damned. The BBC went ahead and introduced a new digital service in Pidgin English.

[email protected]; Twitter: @cnjerius. The writer is the editor, MyNetwork, in the Daily Nation