Draft:Challenges facing the Swahili language

Kiswahili is one of the ten most popular and widely spoken languages on the African continent that owes its origin from the ethnic Bantu languages around East Africa".

In 2024, The African Union adopted Swahili as one of its official working languages. The step followed other achievements that Swahili language has made: becoming one of the official languages of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (E. A. C). These adoptions signify an important milestone attained by the language.

Challenges

Despite the growth and maturity depicted by Swahili, its stakeholders have revealed that the language is facing multiple challenges. In their article written in Swahili titled (translated), Kiswahili becomes an official AU language: what opportunities this unveils to its speakers? the London based broadcasting corporation's wing, BBC Swahili cautions, kuna haja ya tahadhari (Swahili for 'precaution is needed') .

Personally and Politically Motivated Mistreatments

Some of the Swahili speakers and journalists replace original Swahili words with unnatural ones. Onni Sigalla, BAKITA Senior Editor, corrected the community of sports journalists via Clouds FM radio noting that they often misuse the expression kupata matokeo (' getting results ') when they mean 'winning the game'. Their influence is so far reaching that the majority of Tanzanians follow them but this influence is not in favor of Kiswahili's health

Misuse of Some Words

Doctor Nasra Habibu of the Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies at the Open University of Tanzania in her contribution to "The 4th International Symposium of Swahili Broadcasting Stations" offers examples of Swahili speakers misusing some words due to lack of knowledge or through sheer recklessness. For example, the wrong usage of 'sura' in place of 'uso'. Sura denotes the morphology of the organs on one's face (whether it's ugly, handsome or beautiful), while uso simply means 'face'. If someone feels ashamed following an event, they might say, nitauficha wapi uso wangu (where shall I hide my face); not, nitaificha wapi sura yangu (where shall I hide my looks). Another example is using binti (daughter) in place of msichana (girl) which is incorrect because not every daughter is a girl and not every girl is a daughter of the speaker.

Misconceptions about the use of sayings, proverbs, idioms, etc.

Entry 29 in Scribd.com ' Swahili Proverbs ', offers a good example of distorted meaning of a proverb. Kufa kufaana has a figurative meaning of: ' in times of need the community comes together ' (relatives and neighbors helping the deceased family). However, the Swahili people of today take it to mean 'a demise leaves behind plenty of opportunities' (as confirmed by Scribd.com (a near literal translation which yields a tit for tat tone). Again, some sayings have their original morphology (phrasing) being changed. For example, mali bila daftari hupotea bila habari (unrecorded wealth will be lost unnoticeably), is now phrased as mali bila daftari hupungua bila habari (unrecorded wealth will decrease unnoticeably). Daftari (a book) insists on the recording to keep track of movement of the wealth, not to curb a decline

Misleading by Some Council Officials

" Mtindo wa kuondolewa maneno asilia na kuwekwa maneno mengine kwa sababu ya utashi wa watu au wa kisiasa tu ni dosari kubwa inayotishia uimara wa lugha ya Kiswahili " ('The tendency of replacing the original words with other words because of personal will or mere political motivation is huge flaw that endangers the firmness of Swahili')

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learning has no end

Effects Caused by Less Skilled Journalists

They are not to be referred to as unskilled for they are journalists with insufficient degree of proficiency in Swahili. Doctor Kamfipo Gidion, lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, tried to examine the challenge more closely and revealed the underlying factors in his paper named Kiswahili language deficiencies in print media In the article, Kamfipo reveals the use of in-depth interviews as insufficient for employing editors and reporters for Swahili newspapers. They can enact on-the-job training policies aimed at fostering mastery in Swahili. Remedies proposed by other sources have a projected outcome of promoting and developing the language.

Free content creation by writers who display their content via various platforms on the internet such as social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, Threads, Reddit, etc.), websites, blogs, and the like also affect Swahili. Content creation and display on such platforms don't have to go through formal scrutiny of any editor. Any error or discrepancy affecting Kiswahili go unchecked through to the audience. Such errors and discrepancies include misspellings, mispronunciation, misuses and other linguistic noises affecting the literature and grammatical structures of Swahili.

The concerns which have been raised about misuse, abuse and misconceptions relating to various aspects of Swahili, mean that Swahili language stakeholders have a task to perform: strategizing to overcome the challenges facing the language and the formulated strategies should be both; preventive and curative.

References

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Categories:

• Swahili language
• Swahili words and phrases