Katondoozi and the question of minding our indigenous languages

It does not matter which schools you have been to or how widely you have travelled or if you can speak English with an accent or how sophisticated you are. You shall always be an African, Ugandan and in my case a Muganda, no apologies!

Congratulations to President Museveni, Ms Alice Muhoozi, Prof. Emmanuel Muranga, and Mr Gilbert Gum’oshabe who together authored the 22,000 word thesaurus titled Katondoozi y’Orunyankore/Rukiga.

Katondoozi is an addition to the already existing language treasures like the dictionary; Kashoboorozi y’Orunyankore Rukiga and for Luganda Enkuluze ya Oluganda eya e Makerere by K. B. Kiingi -all published by Fountain Publishers. Of course there are many other commendable efforts to preserve our local languages which have not received publicity.
Like Mr Museveni said, “if we lose indigenous local languages in Africa, the entire humanity would lose. To lose a language would be a crime.”

Those who are following the ‘developments’ in our education sector must have been taken aback when Museveni said these word. It is all ironical that there is a policy in the pipeline to stop the teaching and examining of indigenous languages in favour of Chinese and other “international languages which will grant them better opportunities and global competitiveness.”

I was one of those who were punished at school for speaking ‘vernacular.’ Now here I am speaking and writing good English but cannot take up the opportunity of writing columns in Luganda because my written Luganda is full of mistakes. That has not increased my competitiveness or given me greater opportunities.

To say the least, this is the height of confusion, madness and lack of imagination. The Chinese, Indians, Koreans and Japanese whom we want to emulate have all progressed because they treasure their indigenous language, history and culture and preserve them as well.

Languages conceal history and culture. For instance, in English one cannot understand the expression ‘a Trojan horse’ unless one knows the history of the war in which this ‘horse’ was used.

What the world has lost by these silly policies that stifle the development of indigenous languages is a lot of knowledge regarding traditional/ herbal medicine, farming techniques, character building and matters to do with marriage and sexuality, etc. Ask yourself if cancer, tuberculosis and malaria did not exist before the colonialists came to Africa? How were these ailments treated? Didn’t God exist before the missionaries landed here? So did all the Africans who died before Speke and Grant plus all the other Arab and European explorers (exploiters) go to hell?

The biggest problem that ‘modern’ Africa has suffered is the lack of serious analysis when attempting to find a solution to a problem -that is how we keep adopting wholesale; World Bank and IMF strategies and then cry about lost decades.

We just jump on the next ‘in thing’ and move on until we hit a dead end. Many in Europe and US are studying Chinese and the languages of the Far East to understand the culture and counter the growing tigers and dragons that threaten their pole position. But they have not stopped the teaching of English!

When the colonialists came to Africa, they attempted to ‘civilise’ us by teaching us their ways. That is how we adopted English names as ‘first’ names as meaningless as they are. The same applies to worship, marriage (which now includes same sex unions) and of course language.

Now we think by learning the languages of those who are making speedy progress, we too shall progress. Nonsense! Baganda have been the greatest critics of this language policy because Luganda is the most common indigenous language which has been taught and examined at all levels for the longest time in our history and are unnecessarily threatening court action.

There is an opportunity here. Like the Nabageraka, Lady Sylvia Naginda whose Kisakate initiative is already in place, all nationalities should arrange holiday classes to teach young people not only their language but also culture (music, food, medicine and etiquette). Our illiterate grandparents passed on this knowledge by word of mouth around the fire place. Now we have phones and computers where we can transmit lessons, far and wide yet we are still pleading with the government.

Take the initiative by starting with your own children. It does not matter which schools you have been to or how widely you have travelled or if you can speak English with an accent or how sophisticated you are. You shall always be an African, Ugandan and in my case a Muganda, no apologies!

Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues. nicholassengoba@yahoo.com