Street Debate: Is it time to promote African languages?
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- How many languages do you speak? Most Africans grow up multilingual. At school they're taught in the languages of former colonial powers, like English, French or Portuguese. At home they speak a local lingua franca like Swahili, Hausa, isiZulu or Pidgin, and another mothertongue. In this Street Debate ask: how do we promote African languages, while staying ahead in a globalized world?
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#DWAfrica #the77percent #languages #african #zulu #pidgin #swahili #hausa #english #french #preservingheritage #heritage
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77 percent of Africans are younger than 35. Africa's youth holds the key to shaping the continent’s future. On our platforms we share their stories, their dreams and their challenges. Are you part of the 77 percent? Join the debate here on CZcams, and on the following platforms:
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As a kenyan i enjoy my swahili and kikuyu language 😁😁😁😁😁😁🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪..i express myself better in those two languages because i feel close to my creator
As well it should be, Long Live 🤎🤎🤎
Why not continue teaching all subjects in Kiswahili.But add English as a subject right from kindergarten,so at least the transition is easier in secondary school..
Because of the colonial effect. We live under Eurocentric Globalization where English is the most used language in the world. Individual countries are not allowed to disengage from that global community and pursue their own non-eurocentric understanding of "progress/development". Consequently, Tanzanian parents want their children to be proficient in English in order to increase their opportunities in the global corporate slavery market
@@kokoyaro ...ok..But that's why am saying,they can just add English AS A SUBJECT right from the lowest level.Teach everything else in Kiswahili like they already doing but make English a separate subject.
Children learn languages faster than adults. My daughter started learning English at 10 years old and was fluent in only 1 year. I am very glad that her foundation was in Kiswahili.
Korea doesn't use English, neither does Japan.@@kokoyaro
@@listenup2882 Korea wasn't colonized by Britain, neither was Japan
Swahili is a bantu language, it's not Arabic neither is it similar to Arabic it has borrowed some few words of Arabic, but an Arabic speaker cannot understand swahili
@@davidelba6676 the tribes of the Eastern coast the mji kenda and others speak a language which is similar to Swahili, any swahili speaker will understand their language, but an Arabic speaker will not understand swahili and vice versa
its exactly what she sais she didnt say ,swahili is arabic either
💯 I don't understand why people try to make it an Arabic dialect.
As a diaspora I respect what the group says FIRST. Having said that, my opinion is Education and material should be taught in Swahili but English taught as a business language offered in college. Africans have the opportunity to learn english from the community as they grow up. Language matters. Africa is not England..In the diaspora we had our language stripped from us forcefully and that affects us to this day. It affects our unity in ways you on the continent wouldn't understand. So you should be demanding and promoting Swahili as a continental language and English as the second language. Never the other way around. If you are learning from English written books you are being indoctrinated and don't realize it. It changes your way of analyzing thought.
@hizstory1813 Kiswahili is primarily an East African language, no one is about to abandon their home language or prioritise Kiswahili over another regional language. That Kiswahili suggestion has been made for several years but fails to pick-up because of that reality.
So 448million west Africans should start learning Swahili from scratch, a language being spoken by only 200million East Africans. Let’s be reasonable
@@lebo5281Even in East Africa, it was chosen by the governments in Tanzania and Kenya as the official language. Not everyone in those countries spoke Swahili. At some point, we have to choose one language, Swahili has the advantage of being very advanced. There are already a lot of learning materials available in Swahili from primary school all the way to University.
@mwenengofero Did their Swahili help them with social cohesion and tribalism in any way?
We are not about to create a new problem by elevating one language over others, count us out in the South, we have watched our cultures be eroded and some languages die along the way because of the dominant groups.
@@lebo5281 As I said, I don't need respect for my "thoughts" because I was not raised on the continent. having said that : you are writing in English and it seems to "me" that Africans have the ability to learn multiple languages quite easy. I applaud this "gift". Having said that ... I believe that it is "vital" for Africa to "settle" on an African language for universal communication. The main problem that Africa is facing is unity and the unwillingness to set "feelings" aside for the good of the many. I would not suggest any "tribe" to abandon their "language" , Only that an "African" language be chosen for the sake of the diaspora because we are in many places and we have a VERY large population and for the sake of African identity for Africa. "Choosing" English is a reflection of the indoctrination that Africans are experiencing and actually wasn't chosen but implanted and forced upon you. This is about the future and that's is a concept that the continent seems to be disconnected about. Wake up Africa they want you to stay sleep because as long as you are sleep you are helpless.
While all languages need to be preserved, let's not forget the importance of a lingua franca. To understand each other we need a common language and making that choice will always be difficult as there's no way for any unanimity!
Do you think Swahili would be a good lingua franca. If not whichcwpuld u suggest?
@@OloRishaCreole504a language being spoken by only 200million East Africans doesn’t stand a chance of being adopted as a continental language in a continent of 1.2 billion people
So the common language needs to be an European language? So there is unanimity for neo-colonialism thats what you saying here 😂
@@wolebbf thats why I asked in my 2nd part if not then which language would be preferred
@@ratxabadiu257 we didn't chose English or French. They were imposed on us but I agree with some people who see the languages as one good thing that colonialism left, if well used. It's left for us to organise ourselves and decide which African language to adopt as lingua franca. I don't see that happening soon. Not in this generation! Look at what's happening at the African Union. Do you think our leaders are intentional about development and growth? If in countries like Germany, France etc, many postgraduate degree courses are taught in English that does not mean that they love English more than their languages. They're being realistic. English is the lingua franca of the word whether we like it or not. The ball's in our court to organise ourselves to preserve our languages while still using a foreign language that gives us a global advantage!
We black people never promote our own languages. Even African Americans only learn European languages. Mark Meets Africa in the only African American who has immersed himself in the culture.
I agree . yeah, we speak a little spanish now hahaha... but that's the point. right ?
Africans want to be accepted never will happen no race likes blacks period they don't care for Africans.
As an AA it pisses me off how we were stripped of our native languages.
Suppy and demand
in my country Ghana, there are now a push to use the local language to write STEM books but truly speaking most of the local languages are not developed enough to be used in writing STEM books. unlike English, french and others our local languages have not evolve. it is difficult to interpret simple scientific term in a local language without using a whole lot of words. As much as we want to promote our local languages we must make an effort to modernise the languages to make it easier to be used in writing STEM books without changing the context.
Both Languages should be taught from the elementary level, so it’s not difficult when they get to high school. Also, am sure some of these people will be traveling outside Tanzania where the language is English.
You are wrong
Thanks for your contribution!
Japanese educate their children in Japanese from kindergarten to University. Japan is the only country where Japanese is spoken yet this has not kept Japan from developing and becoming a great country in the world. Africans need to be more confident and use African languages at all levels of education.
The Kiswahili language wasn't formed by foreigners. Kiswahili is a bantu language and pre-dates the arrival of the arabs at the coast. The basic structure is bantu(African languages). The Arab words are minimal. Kiswahili currently borrows more words from English like many world languages. The local dialects at the coast ( East Africa) are so close to Kiswahili you can actually hear them. It has evolved and borrowed words from Arabic, Portuguese, English, German, Hindi and other languages like any other language. All World languages borrow words from other languages.
We also have new and old Kiswahili. Old Swahili was called Kingozi. There are some researchers that have touched on this. Pretty much researching which Coastal East African languages are very close to Kiswahili word for word. Several languages are very close. Africans in East Africa have spoken and mixed African languages longer before, than after Arab contact.
Here's how you know its Bantu(African). The core of Kiswahili is what's known as Ngeli (noun-classes). Bantu languages have 15-22 Ngeli. Kiswahili has 16. A language like Kikuyu has about 17. Arabic has a different system. This is how you know how a language existed in its primary form. Syntax.
Modern Standard Arabic also has three categories of pronouns: singular, dual, and plural. You use dual pronouns when you're talking about two people. And plural is for three or more people.
Verbs in Arabic grammar: Tenses and conjugations
Verbs need to be conjugated to match the gender and the plurality of the subject.
One thing to note is that conjugation can be as little as changing the “harakat” (short vowel marks) at the end of the word. With Arabic verbs, changes can happen at the beginning of the word, not just the end as is common with languages like Spanish.
Arabic has a two-gender system that classifies all noun, animate and inanimate, as either masculine or feminine. Verbs, nouns, adjectives, personal, demonstrative, and relative pronouns that are related to the noun in the syntactic structure of the sentence show gender agreement.
Kiswahili is one of the most identifiable language that uses noun classes.
Generally, a noun class would be a broad semantic category of nouns, such as “people”, “plants”, “animals”, “diminutives”, or what have you. And the plurals are a separate category from the singular, often times. All nouns in a category would share an identifier, like a prefix, which would also trigger agreement in verbs, adjectives, pronouns, etc.
The thing you can do with noun classes is that from a single root you can derive more words by changing their class. The Wikipedia page for Swahili gives mtoto “child” as an example: change to watoto for “children” or to utoto for “childhood” or to kitoto for “infant”.
There's the argument that, noun classes are genders when there are more semantic categories than “masculine”, “feminine”, or “neuter”. So noun classes can be categorized in a different way as "noun gender" when it's an Indo-European or Semitic language (Where Arabic falls under) and each of the sets of nouns are stereotypically associated with a particular human/animal gender, but there's a clear difference when compared with languages with noun classes.
Well said. Are you a linguist?
Thank you for taking out time to engage on this content and sharing your insights too. We love that you are watching!
Watching from Black America I think its time to promote everything African , how to involve are selfs in politics, infrastructure and switching education opportunities. Their are many Africans who want to come to America and they don't believe it but its double in black communities who want to come to Africa and build a generation of wealth for their children. I'm one I would trade off my property to anyone of them to obtain a property in Africa maybe one day we can have this discussion. The need to connect the diaspora to the people in Africa is a must and should be an agenda in 2024!!
19:00 I definitely understand what she's saying about singing, performing any art or simply speaking/doing a voiceover etc in a local language vs English. I came across someone who had a very good voice for doing documentaries and other types of media. In my ears, he sounded _magnificent_ when he spoke in Kiswahili, but nothing extraordinary when he spoke in English, the language he was insisting on. The English versions lacked a certain type of finesse/excellence. The Englishman was not his authentic self. The difference was night & day.
i love this series so much. THANK YOU.
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Great discussion and such enlightened enthusiasm! I live in USA and only speak English but I feel every student should learn two or more languages. I assume the language barriers in Europe are similar and I think in most EU countries English is a second language other than GB? IDK, but I think France is different?
I work at a public library in the USA. My library offers Mango Languages for free to the members. Mango has Swahili, Igbo, and Arabic. After hearing your discussion, I'm interested in learning Swahili. My library also has easy basic Twi on CD and in Hoopla. I learned some Twi and spoke it with a colleague, who is Ghanaian. Twi has some similar words with Haitian Creole and even Chinese, lol.
Jabari, ninatoka haiti, ninasema Kiswahili kidogo, ninasema haitian-kreyol, kingeereza, kifaransa and Spanish. My Kiswahili is not perfect yet, but I’m working on it. Kiswahili is a beautiful language.
Nipo nawe. Usidhoofike 🫶🏾
Good you try it better🎉🎉🎉
@@MichaelJoseph-uc4zk asante
@@jonelgervil6004 karibu Tanzania.
Most Tanzanian speaks Swahili and English and Swahili is usually the first language to most, but some born in the villages usually speak their local languages first before Swahili, most Tanzanians learn English in secondary schools for those who study in government schools, but for those who study in private schools they learn English in from primary school, but it's very rare to find Tanzanians speaking English to each other most speak swahili
we have language proffesors, in Africa ...one wonders why they have not collaborated from cape to cairo to research and come up with one common language which is completely African not inspired by other races...research for similarities in all these languages and come up with an authentic African language,..that will even make it easier to interact and trade amongst ourselves...we should not continue with this colonial mindset of using what is handed to us
Underrated comment
Africa is not United it can never be united
Interesting conversation. Language is like Currency , the Value depends on its popularity to communicate and do commerce. English might be the biggest ( developed countries are heavily investing in Education……English ) language that falls in this category worldwide. It doesn’t mean tribes/countries/regions will discontinue speaking ethnic languages.
Absolutely true
I'm black American, and I say black people that are actually African should preserve your native language! For black Americans we did not have a choice, due to our ancestors being enslaved here in America, all we know is English! So please do not give up your Native language. It's ok to learn English, but continue to teach your children their native language!!!
Absolutely!
I’m a Black American in the USA learning Kiswahili.
This discussion it’s make sense
Keep up it’s important part to have shared
colonization was not a joke the damage is real ,,,,, just watch what is going on in Africa it is sad ........
Asante sana kwa habari
Karibu sana!
Much love from Malawi 🇲🇼
Yes it is yime to promote African Languages.
In most European countries, children are educated in their native language. However, during primary school, they also learn two or more additional languages as subjects. This approach ensures that as adults, they possess multilingual skills without losing their cultural identity.
Would that approach not be better ?
18:15 Well said technology should follow the language
Yes indeed, it's long over due
Take for example Cameroon or Nigeria where almost three hundred languages are spoken. We need to choose the lingua franca and be ready to fight if you have to pick one of the languages. It's more complex than it appears to be.
Nigerians are biggest population in Africa they tend to hate other Africans and Nigerians think they are the best.
absolutely time! i second the notion
This is really interesting for many reasons:
#1: I believe English should be spoken by as many Africans as possible because it's our only "peaceful option" as far as a continental linguafranca.
Without English, how will we decide which African language should be the continental language?
#2: No one in this group acknowledged the fact that During the colonial era, the English rulers made slavery illegal. For example, when Sudan and Nigeria were invaded by the British, one of the first steps they took was to Abolish Slavery. So, how are we supposed to feel about the English language? Should we acknowledge this fact or brush it aside?
#3: If you look at African countries that are heavily influenced by the English language,they tend to have higher literacy rates, better treatment of women (review the annual global gender gap report),
and a more business-friendly atmosphere/peace...etc.
Last but not least, without the English language, we Africans become foreigners to one another-and that's not good.
English is the way to go if you ask me.
@deemk.so why is it that other Europeans don’t have this kind of problem?😂 Italians speak Italian, so do Spanish pple, Germans speak Germans, yet they still trade with each other. It’s not an excuse to learn and embrace ur own language. U r speaking from a point of being g colonized. That’s y u want to hold onto English. Chinese, Russians speak their languages. Their countries r doing amazing. Embrace ur own languages and ditch this colonial mentality.
@@simplymilyeconomical development and technological advancement was locally developed by all of those countries you mentioned. They do academic researches in their own languages, hence foreign culture and languages didn’t stand any chance endangering their native languages and culture. Every technology we consume in Africa are foreign and imported to us, our educational curricula were handed to us by the Europeans, we can’t even build local systems of governance and economy that work for us, we copy every thing western. That’s why our culture and languages would continue to struggle for validation.
@@wolebbf well we can also do that in our own languages coz that’s very possible instead of forcing foreign languages on Africans.
@simplymily it's not about what we can do, it's about what we have done and what we are currently doing. Decades after the colonialists left Africa, we are still no where to be found close to self dependent in technology and economical development
Thanks Edith
In kenya we have a first language, then swahili is learned from lower primary school as our second language and finally English.
What's that first language?
I am Teso. That's my first language and a priority. Swahili is 2nd to enable communication with other Kenyans from different tribes. English is official and international
“All of us have a collective responsibility to promote the languages that feel the most realest to us. And the world will make room for that if we do that.”
Language is a political tool used by the colonialists. emphasising foreign languages rather than African languages is a big mistake! (Chinese learn and emphasise Chinese throughout their nation of diverse ethnicities, Japanese, Russians, French, Italian, Spanish... etc) Kiswahili should be the lingua franca of EA. ( Maybe even the whole of Africa due to its diversity and accessibility- it is Bantu-based therefore a majority of African tribes can easily learn and assimilate if it were to be emphasized in schools from early ages)
economical development and technological advancement was locally developed by all of those countries you mentioned. They do academic researches in their own languages, hence foreign culture and languages didn’t stand any chance endangering their native languages and culture. Every technology we consume in Africa are foreign and imported to us, our educational curricula were handed to us by the Europeans, we can’t even build local systems of governance and economy that work for us, we copy every thing western. That’s why our culture and languages would continue to struggle for validation.
Africans should do the same.. Just like the Asians. Translate everything into African languages@@wolebbf
African Anthropologists should be sent to Europe to study Europeans and take only what is useful for African development.(other than copy and paste trying to be like them.)
Your languages still don't have words for a whole lot of technology, geographic, historical and scientific stuff. You're woefully handicapped competing with the developed nations.
Swahili should be the main medium of communication but ultimately people should be speaking the languages of their ancestors and breathing life in to their local language
The first and most important thing for the success of a country and it’s community, is asking themselves the question, how can I, how can we, contribute to humanity in significant ways. Well, in order to do that, one’s ideas and offerings and that of it’s country(s) has to be communicated on the global stage. Setting aside the one global language, in my opinion, will impede that objective. Anyone can learn to speak any language, but it’s of importance that everyone learn to speak English..
I think African people should remain multilingual. It’s a gift that the continent has that other continents don’t. But the proportion of the languages used should shift.
Keep Arabic for the north
Hausa is already a trade language in west Africa so I think it’d be a great choice for west Africa and the Sahel. It shares linguistic similarity to Arabic and other Niger Congo and Nilo Saharan languages in the area. This fact makes it easier for people to learn
Keep Swahili for central, southern, and Eastern Africa. It is a Bantu language and shares much in common with the surrounding indigenous languages. Thus, easier to learn.
These regions can be unified under these languages. And in the case of wider international communication, English can still be taught in primary school as a separate course, all the way up to university. But the regional trade language must be mastered before university
The average African person could graduate university speaking their home language, Arabic/Hausa/Swahili, and for those who need to communicate internationally on a frequent basis, English. Juggling 3 languages is VERY realistic.
Thanks for your take!
I do not believe promoting African languages should be our focus in Africa. That is the very least of Africa's many problems. Most of Africa already speaks English, very fluently too. Speaking/Writing English is needed to compete in today's global space and being able to compete in our current global market should be our main focus.
No. You're speaking nonsense. Colonial languages, religions, cultures, etc. must be eliminated at all cost in Africa if we want complete decolonization.
@@ariikwek7795 You have a right to your opinion. My question to you is: What will "complete decolonization" do for Africa?
@@gracenmercy1085 First, are you black African or not?
@@ariikwek7795 Good Morning. Let's start with the meaning of the word - Decolonization. According to Google, it means: Process by which colonies become independent of the colonizing country. Can you please tell me in what way any of our 55 African countries have become independent of the British, French etc.? In what ways as any of our African leadership improved our lives since these people "left" our shores. In my country, we still have the same bridges that they built for us since the 60s and they are falling apart. So my question is: how do we decolonize when we are still fighting the wrong battles? You are talking about eliminating this and that, but are we even inclusive in Africa? These very things like tribal languages, religion, cultures, that you want us to "keep," are the same things that have been dividing us for generations. Why is Africa not United? As an African, you cant even travel throughout Africa visa free but Europeans and Asians do! We don't even treat each other right! Look, we have not made much progress since Colonization so why Decolonize? This is why I had stated that we need to focus on growing our economies so we can compete globally. By the way, I am Proudly African, Nigerian, Black Beautiful Woman. Thank you.
No you talking nonsense. Go tell europeans to stop promoting their languages. To us , African languages is our identity we need to promote it
All Africa countries from the next generation generation generation generation generation generation generation generation generation generation generation generation generation generation generation generation should be thought Mothers Fathers languages
Yes
Due to business ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Swahili is not a west Africa Africa language. West africans don't speak Swahili. It's an eastern and central African language
Regional languages are way forward. Southern Africans we should adopt fanagalo, East Africa should do Swahili the rest of africa i dont know
I am from zimbabwe and we do not know a language called fanagalo here. why shld we be forced to speak that language?
BonganiMagadu: the rest of Africa you don't know 🤣🤣
Don't think South africa is the only souther african country
I love Africa but I dont agree when Swahili is called Lingo Africa; what proportion of Africa speaks Swahili?
Some have proposed that it should madr an official language in thr entire Africa; but in Cameroon we do not know swahili just as many other African nations.
In kenya,we can speak both swahili and English,its not a sin to learn english but its a sin to abandon swahili.1.most of kenyans speak swahili more than english,matatu in stage call people using swahili,vendors sell in swahili,the large population speak swahili more ,english is only spoken on flrmal setting e.g,schools but the moment students step out of the school they automatically speak swahili,at home we communicate more in swahili,also the media but on media 7pm news is in swahili and english is in 9pm.for me kenya is balanced in language,we can interact with tanzanians even make jokes and they laugh,again we can communicate in english.the thing that killing as is stereotypes. 2.kenyans we have a good way of integrating different languages to suit our communication, we have english and swahili in one sentence and it will sound swahili,e.g,ni how much,naenda wera or nimepata job,nitumie fare,story za jaba.also 99%of kenyans can speak in swahili but a good number can understand english .in clubs people speak swahili
Great
I am sad to know the hash legacy of colonialism after hearing these experiences.
Africa must identify a day of reflection, a day of therapy from colonial trauma and actively address all these colonial wrongs.
Africans havecto love themselves, thier languages and traditions.
It should be must to introduce African languages in all schools and universities and our institutions
It does not matter ! you learn a language that will make your life easier , English , French , German ,Spanish , Arabic , Mandarin etc ... learninag a dead language even of your ancestors is a bonus nothing more ....
And what language(s) do you consider 'dead' and not worth learning?
Swahili should be the lingua franca of Africa, PERIOD!
In addition, when students are forced to speak English, they become frustrated and cannot express themselves. Your language is abandoned, and your narrative becomes invisible because you become perceptible to another language, English.
Yes it is time, they want us to forget about who we are. Africa is on the rise keep our history alive.
Parts of Africa are not united and many African countries hate each other due to culture ,behaviour and mindsets . WEST AFRICA doesn't like East Africans.
I speak one of the most spoken indigenous african languages called LINGALA.
I think in lingala , dream in lingala and plan in lingala .
Nkolo azala na bino.
Nalingi bino mingi
You'll be surprised that quite a few Kenyans can speak Lingala very well. And many know many words. I know quite a few words myself. We learned it from Congolese music, which is big in Kenya especially in the > 30 age group. That's why Mbilia Bel sang _Nakei Nairobi_
@panafrican.nation wow. Thanks for sharing your story about Lingala in Kenya.
By the way ,I also speak a little bit of kiswahili, but it's kiswahili from Congo, which is mixed with French borrowed words .
Asante ndugu. Nimefurahi sana.
Lingala isn't a indigenous language.
@@FreedomBiafra Lingala isn't what ? Can you please elaborate?
Tanzania should know Swahili started in Kenya.
1:37 4 Languages props bro
It has been discovered that those who speak more than one language are simply more intelligent than monolingual speakers.
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Edith am your fan
That's great and all but all these Colonial languages help us with communication alot. I'm Congolese and we have 400 languages. I sometimes speak to my Congolese friends in English or French coz we all have our own language. Favouring one language over another can cause conflict. Look at countries like France, Netherlands and Japan they have their own language but they still learn English to help with globalisation and communication with other countries. Africa is far too diverse for this to work. Plz don't hate me this is just my opinion.
Thank you for your opinion and perspective!
As much we need to keep our languages, we can also learn other languages to interact with the world.
The world doesn't want to interact with Africans other countries don't like blacks or trust them.
absolutely spot on!
Why not go all the way to University in Swahili?
I love this conversation. Yes we should promote African languages. Re bue dipuo tsa rona ka mehla
Kiswahili is the more spoken language in east africa, it's widely spoken overall,but I'm from rwanda our language (ikinyarwanda) seems to be useless for real ,,I wish I knew kiswahili
I hope that you will come to a place of deeper appreciation of your language ikinyarwanda. For no language is useless.It is part of your identity and who you are.Take some pride in it too 😊
What about if i can't speak my native language but only understand it I'm igbo
The advocacy is to be able to learn, understand and speak as well. It will do you more good to be able to speak as well. The good news is that it is not too late to start learning. Give it a shot!
@@DWThe77Percent nahh it's too late
I identify as an English Man
16:38 kikuyu 🇰🇪 represent
I understand why you hate English, forcefed food always leaves a bad taste. Yet still I want to promote it for the sake of humanity getting onto the same page quicker. English is an international language while others are trying to get this same status. Knowing English will help you learn anything you like, on your own, as much information is readily available in English free on the internet. English can bring the world to you, and you unto the world.
I speak 2 and half languages, English, Khmer, and broken Spanish. Speaking English has never affected the respect I have for my own little culture. In my country we were never forced to learn English but it has become the second language there. We never lost our culture for this choice, we've manage to tell more people of our culture through English. As a result of the sharing, we've become an international hub. Because of the stories told in English, many people around the world come to see our culture for themselves.
Difficulty upon kids to learn multiple languages is false. Children readily absorb the languages spoken around them much more easily than they will when they are older.
Swahili unites Africans, the same way English will unite the world. If you choose a language for Africa, let it be the one mostly spoken. Its important to love yourself, and language plays a part in that equation sometimes. You can't offer anything to the world unless you come from a good place. Promote Swahili and do what makes you feel good, but don't forget about the world. We want to hear Swahili folklore through your own voice. Hearing your stories through an interpreter is so monotone and doesn't quite add up. Build up Swahili and build up yourself, then tell the world your story in the language we understand.
Teachers punishing you for losing focus is a good thing, believe me. If the job is to teach English, they really have to get you to live and breath that topic. Whatever the topic the teacher passes on, they are an excellent teacher when they have you breath every second of whatever is taught.
At the end of the day, balancing it all out is key. You want to preserve your identity and connect with the world. Some cases do lose their identity when we lose sight of where we from. Stop telling your story and we forget. If Swahili stories and identity are passed on in English as much as they are told in Swahili, losing one's identity won't be a problem.
Thank you so much for taking out time to share your thoughts and insights on this. We appreciate your contribution
Ndiro zita re chirapalapa lol
Imagine promoting african languages while speaking foreign language😂
That's insane😂😂
What "culture" are they talking about?
They are confused. They should be asked if they practice their native religions or fashion.
The Zimbabwe lady should have sat this topic out with all the factual errors she made each time she spoke, on international television! But then again, it is a “street” debate...
I disagree everything she said was true
So you can’t speak your own language outside of school, home ect ….abit of a confused interview .
Why does DW like to discuss things that has to do with division in every culture and country, especially in Africa?
Interesting. We strive to talk about topics and issues that concern us as Africans. We don't want to divide, we want to discuss and listen to each other's different perspectives so we can work on building a better future! Unfortunately uncomfortable topics forms part of it.
English should be the medium of learning instead of mother tongues swhili is now the mother tongue so it will always be learned in the household. But english will allow way more opportunities in business and getting exposure when meeting other english speakers from other parts of the world. Kenyans get a better experience with foriegners than Tanzania. Also swahili vocabulary is too basic its hard to get a straight understanding bcuz definitions are very broad. Culture is important but the culture is already dying from arab influence and social media and that has nothing to do with language. The economy and quality of life is very low so that should be the focus right now and english will provide more opportunities to excel in global trade etc. Onee problem in tz ppl have too much pride they rather have pride more than knowledge. Im half tz so im not just talking shit but being honest. Pride is keeping tz behind
the next video should be about white people who go to university in Africa
You people have such entitlement you don't matter go to university and shut up you follow the rules of the region and mind your role as an immigrant
Ok, that sounds like a good twist to bring on. What aspect exactly would you want for us to explore? We would be glad to hear your views. Thanks for your suggestion as well
14:51 cultural erasure
I dont give a damn about the rest of Africa...I care about Kenya, and then fellow east africans...the rest I dont have any affiliation or desire to be assosciated with
😂😂😂 What exactly is your problem ? Your comment is out of the box based on this video topic .
Did your partner leave you ?
@@imhotep1613 yechnically all i sid is that charity begins at home
🤔
@@imhotep1613 Nah he's right. East Africa can have it's language and the rest of us can have our own.
@@imhotep1613 why are you making me laugh like this😂😂