Re: The language dilemma !

There are certain issues that are just too complicated. Such is the case with the language debate.

Bonyunyu,where I was born and brought up, spoke ekegusii, a language that I speak very well to this day. In grade three, they started teaching me how to write and speak Kiswahili.

As though those two were not enough, they added another language-English. I don't know about you, but I have come a long way in this language, and if anything, the struggle continuous. To help students know how to speak English, schools introduced a small but most feared piece of wood known as a disc.Anybody caught in the very act of speaking Ekegusii was handed one. Do you recall the experience? Oh boy, there were days when I found my pocket carrying two or three. As for the consequences, they included "gotogora egetugi" (uprooting a tree stump).

When I joined a boarding high school,I worked so hard to improve my English. On my return home for the holidays, I was so excited and thought I knew it all such that I started talking to everyone including my parents in English. What a childish mentality.

To make up for my deficiency, when my own tribe arrived, we decided to take them to schools where English was the one and only language.

With time, we migrated to this country where everything is in English and guess what, we are in trouble. How come?

1.Some of my relatives and friends have told me that I have failed my parental responsibility by failing to teach my children how to speak Ekegusii.
2.When my mother visited and lived with us for about 9 months, she was not that excited with abachokoro (grand children) speaking English and not Ekegusii.
3.When my sister visited and lived with us, she too was disappointed.

Which leads me to the following questions:

1.Which language should I teach my children? Kiswahili, Ekegusii or English?
2.Must children know their parent's language? What if parents are not from the same tribe? Must they then know both languages?

Do you now understand what I meant when I said that there are issues that are just too complicated?

Just a thought.

Pr Birai-612-386-4608
www.ThemaranathaSDAchurch.org.