When I was in Kenya over the summer, I talked to an owner of a local store. I told him I wanted to learn Swahili, and he agreed that it is a beautiful language. He told me in disgust that almost no one these days speaks true Swahili. He explained a transition occurring across Kenya, of young people mixing English and Swahili within the same sentence. They call it “Swenglish,” and he seemed disturbed by the tainting of the original Swahili language.
After reading Canagarajah’s perspective on codemeshing (1), this transition does not seem surprising at all. Languages only adapt to fit our needs, after all. As English becomes widely taught in primary schools, it becomes part of everyday communication between young people.
I also witnessed this when watching a reality television show in Kenya about young adults dating. The characters would fluently switch from Swahili to English, leaving me a little confused. Overall, however, I was able to understand what was happening, and I even learned some Swahili phrases.
Now, I realize that I was able to understand the television show due to what Canagarajah calls translingualism (6). Everyone has the capacity to understand more than one language because communities are fluent and always mixing. In this way, we are all multilingual to some degree, whether we are fluent in one language or ten. This gives me hope in my language-learning endeavors.
Canagarajah, Suresh. Translingual Practice. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.