The Ugly Stain of Colonization: Speak your mother tongue!

It’s been 54 years since Kenya gained independence, that’s a little over half a century, but sadly we still see the remnants colonialism in everyday life. This might get a little confusing, but follow me closely and you’ll get where I’m going with this.

I watch Nairobi Diaries RELIGIOUSLY! I remember when it first came out and my girlfriends wanted to catch an episode before we went to the club; I watched it and thought to myself, “this is absolute trash” and never paid mind to it until 2 years later. I was bored, school was done and I had 2 weeks of downtime before I started my new job. An episode of this “trash” show was on my YouTube feed so I decided to watch it, and I’ve been hooked ever since. The drama is just hilarious honestly, but I’m not here to market for K24.

If you watch this show, you’ll notice that a lot of the cast have very interesting accents, where “girl” transforms to “grrl” and “because” morphs into “bcurz” but when they switch to Kiswahili, it sounds damn near perfect. Honestly, I love hearing these guys talk in Kiswahili cause firstly it sounds more authentic and secondly it amplifies the drama. I constantly ask myself why these people need to constantly fake their accents when speaking English; having an accent doesn’t make your English sound any better. It doesn’t make you sound classier or of a certain status.

Now if that’s not enough, scroll down onto the YouTube comments and see how Kenyans go IN on the cast for their English. You’ll see a lot of people correcting them, making jokes about the things they’ve said – basically a “RIP English” fest in the comments section. Here’s the thing, we forget that as much as their misconception of equating an accent to being proper is silly, going in on them for not speaking in a normal way is even sillier. Let me break this down.

I had the opportunity to attend a talk that Ngugi wa Thiong’o spoke at and he was talking about how English has colonized our minds, hence he decided to start writing in his mother tongue; Kikuyu. One particular thing he said that stuck with me was “It’s so embarrassing when two Africans laugh at each other for shrubbing.” (Side note: speaking with a fake accent is the same thing as shrubbing cause in both scenarios the pronunciation of the word has been completely changed) So yes, the Nairobi Diaries cast members look silly when trying to twang but we as KOT and YouTubers look even sillier when we clown them for their English speaking skills.

Now how is this related to colonisation? Well first off, as we all know English is not our mother tongue, it was the language forced upon us so that it would be easier to colonize us. As much as times have changed and English is now our official language, its history still remains and as long as you aspire to “perfect” your accent or clown other people who don’t speak as well as you do, my dear, your mind is still colonized.

Speaking this language in a certain way does not make you superior to anyone and not being able to speak it a certain way doesn’t make you inferior either. So dear Nairobi Diaries cast, it’s okay, just speak in whatever language that makes you comfortable and please drop the accents, we will still understand what you’re saying. To the Kenyan YouTubers and KoT, let’s stop this foolishness and go in other things, like the ridiculous outfits or the nonsensical fights, not how a certain someone pronounces the word “because.”

Kenyan Mwananchi is a blogger at https://wondalandavenue.blogspot.co.ke/ and enjoys long drives through neighborhoods she can’t afford to live in.