Language Policy in Kenya: Negotiation with Hegemony

Background Language policy in Kenya cannot be addressed without taking a historical perspective. It has it basis in the colonial language policy following the scramble for Africa by European powers, which took place towards the end of the 19th Century. The boundaries of the continent were defined by Europeans in the Berlin Conference on December 1884-January 1885. In 1886, a joint commission comprising of representatives from powerful European nations like Britain, Germany and France met to deliberate on the Zanzibar's Sultan authority in the East African Coast. This led to the partitioning of African nations culminating in the European colonization. Kenya became part of the British East Africa Protectorate. There were several issues that the British had to consider in order to facilitate their rule in the colonies. Among these were language and educational policies. The colonial language policy in Kenya is important putting into consideration that it impacted greatly on post-colonial language policy. Contrary to the long held postulation that it was the objective of the colonial government to promote English language in the colony, the colonial language policy was always inchoate and vacillating such that there were occasions that measures were put in place to promote or deter its learning. However, such denial inadvertently provided a stimulus for Kenyans to learn English considering that they had already taken cognisant of the fact that it was the launching pad for white collar jobs. This can be said to have been the genesis of English's hegemonic and divisionary tendencies, between the elite (those who could use it) and the masses (those who could not use it). While barely a quarter of the Kenyan population can adequately use English, it remains the advantaged official language and the medium of instruction in the education system, unlike Kiswahili, the co-official language (Ogechi and Ogechi 2002). However, while the leadership appears comfortable with this linguistic situation and would wish to have the status quo maintained, the linguistic situation among lay Kenyans demonstrates that not all is well on the ground. It is for this reason that they have started both mediation and contestation of linguistic hegemony as perpetrated by both English and Kiswahili, the regional linguafranca. Mediation and contestation take place through abrogation as exemplified by Ngugi wa Thiongo's shift to writing in Kikuyu instead of English; appropriation in form of code-mixing, code-switching or laissez-faire use of non-standard language; and in creation as is evident in the use of argots like Sheng and Engsh. First Epoch of Colonial Language Policy Before addressing the question of mediation and contestation of linguistic hegemony in Kenya, it would be prudent to appraise the reader of the language situation. To achieve this, both colonial and post-colonial language policies require evaluation. With respect to the colonial language policy, two epochs are worthy scrutiny: Pre-Second World War and post-Second World War. In the first epoch, there were several players involved in the formulation of language policy. Among these were the Christian missionaries who thought that gospel would best be spread in mother tongue and the colonial administrators who had an interest in controlled teaching of English to Africans in order to obtain low cadre employees in their administration (Mazrui & Mazrui 1998). There were also the British settlers who feared the Europeanization of Africans through English language lest they became too educated to accept the role of wage laborers. The interests of all these players were always vacillating and inchoate, impacting language policy in a number of ways. Take the Christian missionaries, for example. Among the first missionaries to introduce colonial education were Bishop Steere, Reverend Krapf and Father Sacleux. The language issue, thus the mother tongue, Kiswahili (i) and English; in the realm of education was discussed during the United Missionary Conference in Kenya in 1909. …