Kiswahili is our language, embrace it

An old Swahili saying goes: “Hayawi hayawi huwa (What seems impossible will finally come to pass.)

The long-awaited World Kiswahili Language Day is here. Kiswahili is probably the most widely recognised African language outside the continent. With a presence in almost all radio stations within and without Africa, the use of Kiswahili has extended from southern to North Africa and most extensively used among Sub-Saharan languages.

Kiswahili has also found a home as a language and area of study in many universities in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. It is big globally.

It is time presidential speeches were written in Kiswahili. However, baby steps have been made with noticeable progress, with the National Assembly and Senate’s standing orders translated into Kiswahili and debates conducted in the language on Thursdays.

County assemblies should follow suit and translate their standing orders and other official documents into Kiswahili.

Kenyans must embrace Kiswahili as their language and use it with pride. If we all did our part, Kiswahili would eventually take its rightful place and stop being considered a language of the unlearned. It will no longer be the language that people use with reckless abandon and get away with it.

We ought to have a national structure to recognise as national heroes the experts who have moved Kiswahili to such great heights. The likes of the late Prof Ken Walibora, Prof Sheikh Nabhany, Prof Mwenda Mukuthuria and the late Ahmed Nassir should be feted for their contributions.

Lastly, the enviable spread of Kiswahili worldwide should be a wake-up call to the political leaders and policymakers to review budgetary allocations to its research and also motivation of language tutors and linguistics scholars in boosting it.

- Mr Ngotiek ([email protected]) and Ms Afandi ([email protected]) are journalism and communication students at Rongo University.