Why we need to mind our language

Communication is one of the most complex, yet indispensable tools we work with.

It is made even more complex when the language of, er, communication is English.

To declare competence in communication means that you have learnt to do something successfully.

And because perfection does not exist, competence therefore implies a perpetual work in progress.

In his Mark My Word column in the Saturday Nation, Mr Philip Ochieng keeps watch over grammar as used (abused?) in newspapers.

Yet, he freely admits that English must be the most “difficult” language in the world.

In one of his columns, he said: “English prepositions give reporters and sub-editors a great deal of grief  — even in countries where English is the mother tongue.”

Yet, despite this challenge, we cannot escape the fact that English is the official language of communication.

We must, therefore, continually (not continuously, as I learnt from Mr Ochieng) strive to come to grips with it. 

So, why do we have difficulties communicating in English? Because it is not a first language for most Kenyans. Mother tongue and/or Kiswahili usually are.

And these influence written and spoken English. Borrowing from Chinglish (Chinese English) then, I contrive Kenglish to refer to spoken English that is influenced by Kiswahili and the many other languages spoken in Kenya.

For instance, “Help me with your ID card,” is a direct translation from “Nisaidie na kitambulisho chako.”

Sadly, pronunciation is not taught in school (it used to be). It is assumed that the student will somehow know.

Small wonder then that “hat”, “hart”, “heart”, “hurt”, and “hut” are all pronounced as “hat” by most of us. And why not?

Pronunciation is a factor of contorting the organs of articulation to the rhythm of a language.

And after two decades of working specific muscles of articulation in a specific way, it is unrealistic to expect the learner to flex them differently overnight.

One might as well hope his pot belly will become a six-pack after lifting weights for an hour.

One’s pronunciation can, however, change through practice — as evidenced by the average Kenyan who has returned from the US after a year of being exposed to the North American accent or one who learns his mother tongue as an adult.

And then there is punctuation. The semi-colon separates two independent sentences and is not interchangeable with the full colon.

British English has the full stop inside the speech marks and American English, outside.

The digital disruption has not spared communication. It is because of social media that “hahaha” became “Lol!”, “you” is now “u”, and one can insert a smile(y) at the end of a sentence as if it is part of punctuation.

Mercifully, there is spell check and predictive texting. This is a double-edged sword, though. On the one hand, it allows users to type faster and spell correctly.

On the other, it is becoming the remote control of written communication.

What to do then? We can join organisations such as Toastmasters in a deliberate effort to improve our use of the language.

We can learn from resources such as Philip Ochieng’s column.

We can insist on writing our texts, chats, and social media conversations in grammatically correct language.

Or we can consciously and deliberately set out to reduce the influence of our mother tongue in your communication.

The issues around the standard of our English (or lack thereof) have escalated and now there is an annual regional conference that interrogates the causes of this and analyses the trends of the language.

I will be at Strathmore University this year for this conference. Perhaps you should too.

Kageche is a writer, educator, facilitator, author and columnist. [email protected].