The Fountain of Knowledge at the University of Nairobi. SALATON NJAU
Writing in The End of Poverty, Jeffrey
Sachs argued that transmission of technologies and the ideas underlying
them is the single most important reason for the spread of prosperity.
Ideas about science and technology are spread through language.
Over
the last fifty years, there has been intense debate on the role of the
languages of Kenya in national development and entrenchment of
democratic values.
One argument has been that Kenyans
are better off with English as the official language and medium of
instruction in schools. After all, the argument goes, English is the
language of global interaction.
On the other hand,
there are those who believe that in order to reduce socio-economic
inequalities, the country needs to develop a strong sense of Kenyanness
and enhance intercultural exchanges through the languages most Kenyans
use.
In other words, we ought to pay greater attention
to multilingual education. More specifically, we will need to promote
Kiswahili as the language of national consciousness and develop other
languages of Kenya to capture our diversity, creativity and cultures.
This latter view does not seek to downplay the place of English; it seeks to anchor linguistic rights in national development.
Evidence
from Rwanda and Somalia has shown that although a national language is a
necessary condition to nationhood and development, it is not
sufficient. Other considerations such as freedom of expression, justice,
accountability and transparency in leadership, participation in
production, equality of opportunity and inter-ethnic trust and
understanding are important ingredients for nationhood.
Prof
Mohamed Abdulaziz of the University of Nairobi has argued that if
Africa is to benefit from advances in technology, it must domesticate
science and technology through national and community languages.
“By developing the language of technology, we own the concepts and engage machines in our own terms,” he said
That
is what Japan did; it developed the language of industrialisation. As
Junzo Kawada, the Japanese cultural anthropologist, has taught us, the
deliberate development of Japanese language influenced and enabled the
adoption of Western concepts of technology and industrialisation into
Japanese culture.
Through linguistic engineering, the Japanese ‘owned’ Western concepts and applied them into their technology.
Kenya needs to take language seriously in the coming decades if we are going to compete with the rest of the world.
Prof Njogu is chairman of Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa (Chakita). (Kimani.njogu@gmail.com
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