“Why do you want me to speak when none of you has the ears to listen to my voice?” the old lady asked as she raised her frail 85 year old right hand to shield her eyes from the sun rays. “There is no point in talking the Yaaku Language. It’s dead. Only the funeral ceremony is remaining!” She concluded as the crowd of over eighty people listened keenly deep inside the Mukogodo forest in Laikipia East in Kenya.
Only 9 out of a total of 4000 Yaaku can speak the Yaaku language. The rest speak the Maasai language and until recently were identifying themselves as Maasai’s! The lady, a widow, is among the 9 remaining Yaaku who can still speak the language. Shedding tears, the lady expressed her strong sentiments in the Maasai language to reach her audience which comprised of about 60 “Yaaku” and the rest members of neighbouring communities. The event was organised by the Yaaku community to thank their Gods for the rains after a prolonged drought. Ironically, the Yaaku prayer ceremony was conducted in Maasai by Yaaku elders!
Against this background and visualising the fate of the Ogiek community in the coming decade, my paper will argue that language vitality suffers if closely related or structurally similar to its neighbours. I will show that bilingualism and conscious multilingualism coupled with social networks can be great vehicles for sustaining and strengthening small languages though a difficult task in rapidly westernizing third world countries.
The writer is a lawyer and the Programs Officer, Ogiek Cultural Initiatives Programmes and The Regional Representative, East and Horn of Africa- Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC).
www.ipacc.org.za. His address: Kanyinke Sena, Po Box 59, Ololulunga, Narok, Kenya. Email: kanyinke@yahoo.com. Tel: +254 725 288 402
The Yaaku are a hunter-gatherer community found in Mukogodo forest in Laikipia district in Kenya.
They adopted the Maasai language and cultures for the last eighty years but one of their daughters. Jennifer Koinante, visited Europe and on going back, mobilized the community to go back to their identity-Yaaku.
The Ogiek are a hunter-gatherer group found in Mau forest in Rift Valley province, Kenya.
While the Yaaku have lost their language almost completely to the Maasai Language- a pastoralist community, the Ogiek are slowly loosing theirs to the Kipsigis Language- an agricultural community.
This consciousness is gaining positive momentum in Kenya through civil society networks. Some organizations are already advocating for the teaching of local languages in schools or development of alternative education programs that will teach local languages and traditional knowledge systems.
The emphasis of life in Kenya is to learn the western ways thoroughly. This forces the youths to concentrate more on learning English and other western Languages. Where they are found speaking a local language; it is often corrupted by combining it with many English words. The result is a different language all together.
Laws and policies that favour the development and sustenance of small languages are necessary.This must start with the recognition and respect of human rights including the right to self determination of small communities. And this must go hand with hand with language planning against the background of linguistic and cultural marriages. The intellectual property rights of small language holders must also be safeguarded through national and international instruments against misuse and exploitation by outsiders. This must be guided by the principles of controlled access and benefit sharing and the free prior and informed consent of such traditional language/knowledge holders.
The paper will argue that western education and religion are the great enemies of small languages but the western style of education can be a great vehicle for sustaining and developing endangered languages.
But in Africa the most important instrument of resuscitating and sustaining endangered languages is an African renaissance. A total reawakening that will make the African treasure his identity and stop aping western ways. That will make the African look back and learn from his past and sustainably develop on an African traditional knowledge values based springboard. Religion and language will be instrumental in this process.
There is currently no such laws or policies in place in Kenya. Indigenous communities, the holders of small endangered languages are not even recognized as distinct separate groups. They are often counted as belonging to a neighbouring majority community. However, there is a great push for a constitution review in the country and such minority are pushing to be given a say.
Indigenous communities must be given the right to determine the destinies of their languages including the right to have such languages in the educational system.
International instruments like the TRIPs agreements, WIPO rules etc must be tailored to cater for the interests of minority/indigenous communities. National laws must also be tailored to cater for community rights as opposed to individual rights current advocated for by national and international intellectual property rights regimes.
In Kenya, everybody wants to learn English, French, Spanish etc but rarely an indigenous language. The Government has gone a step further and made English the official language of Kenya. Vernacular languages are never taught in schools in the country and are prohibited from being spoken in schools. The aim is to promote the use of the English language “to make Kenyans competitive in a capitalistic globalizing world!”
Through schools, lectures, radio talk shows etc.
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