Draft:Challenges facing the Swahili language

Kiswahili is one of the ten most popular and widely spoken languages on the African continent that owes its origin from the ethnic Bantu languages around East Africa" These words were said by UNESCO Director general in his statement for the World's Swahili Language Day (July 7, 2023).

In 2024, The African Union adopted Swahili as one of its official working languages. The step followed other achievements that Swahili language has made: becoming one of the official languages of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (E. A. C). These adoptions show the importance and dignity of the language. Despite the growth, maturity and dignity earned by Swahili, its stakeholders have revealed that the language is facing multiple challenges. In their article written in Swahili titled (translated), the London based broadcasting corporation's wing, BBC Swahili  cautions, kuna haja ya tahadhari (Swahili for 'precaution is needed') The radio station's article topples in the following list of challenges faced by the language

Personal and Politically Motivated Mistreatments
Some of the Swahili speakers and journalists replace original Swahili words/terminologies with unnatural ones. Onni Sigalla, BAKITA Senior Editor, corrected the community of sports journalists via Clouds FM radio that they have always been wrong with their favourite expression kupata matokeo (' getting results ') while what they intend to say is 'winning the game'. Their influence is so far reaching that the majority of Tanzania ns follow them. Unfortunately, the influence is not in favor of Kiswahili's health

Misuses of Some Words
Doctor Nasra Habibu of the Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies of the Open University of Tanzania in her contribution to "The 4th International Symposium of Swahili Broadcasting Stations" offers examples whereby Swahili speakers have been misusing some words either by lack of knowledge of their proper meanings or through sheer recklessness. For example, the wrong usage of the word 'sura' in place of the word 'uso'. Sura denotes the morphology of the organs on one's face (thus, is it ugly, handsome or beautiful?), while uso simply means 'face'. If someone would feel so ashamed following an event, he/she might regretfully say, nitauficha wapi uso wangu (where shall I hide my face); NOT, nitaificha wapi sura yangu (where shall I hide my looks). Another example is the use of the word binti (daughter) in place of the word msichana (girl). It's not correct because not every daughter is a girl and not every girl is a daughter of the speaker.

Misconceptions in the use of sayings, proverbs, idioms, etc.
Entry 29 in Scribd.com ' Swahili Proverb s ', offers a good example of distorted meaning of a proverb. Kufa kufaana has a figurative meaning of: ' in times of need the community comes together ' (relatives and neighbors helping the deceased family). However, the Swahili people of today take it to mean 'a demise leaves behind plenty of opportunities' (as confirmed by Scribd.com (a near literal translation which yields a tit for tat tone). Again, some sayings have their original morphology (phrasing) being changed. For example, mali bila daftari hupotea bila habari (unrecorded wealth will be lost unnoticeably), is now phrased as mali bila daftari hupungua bila habari (unrecorded wealth will decrease unnoticeably). Daftari (a book) insists on the recording to keep track of movement of the wealth, not to curb a decline

Misleads by Some Council Officials
" Mtindo wa kuondolewa maneno asilia na kuwekwa maneno mengine kwa sababu ya utashi wa watu au wa kisiasa tu ni dosari kubwa inayotishia uimara wa lugha ya Kiswahili " - Mohammed Abdulrahman.

'The tendency of replacing the original words with other words because of personal will or mere political motivation is huge flaw that endangers the firmness of Swahili' - Mohammed Abdulrahman.

Abdurahman (a retired BBC Swahili presenter) wrote the statement in the article Kiswahili becomes an official AU language: What opportunities this unveils to its speakers? criticizing the undue replacement of words. Neno la siri is a natural equivalent to "pass word" but BAKITA officials announced the unpopular nywila as a replacing term. In 2023, while paying visits to radio stations such as Radio One and TBC, an official told listeners in a live broadcast that it's wrong to say "bahati mbaya" (bad luck) because 'bahati' (luck) can never be a bad thing. The officer proceeded by saying, "substitute the expression bahati mbaya for isivyo bahati, which is a queer equivalent to 'unlucky' or 'unfortunate'. The expression bahati mbaya and its equivalents in other languages, have same idiomatic meaning. They are not to be literally examined.

The foreign language equivalents to bahati mbaya (which happen to take the 2 word phraseology as bahati mbaya itself) are provided by Google Translate as: English _ bad luck, French _ mal chance, Luganda _ emikisa emibi, Lingala _ makila mabe/ chance ya mabe, Espanol _ mala suerte, Portuguese _ mà sorte and Arabic _ Haza sayi

Effects From Less Skilled Journalists
They are not to be referred to as unskilled for they are journalists with insufficient degree of proficiency in Swahili. Doctor Kamfipo Gidion, lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, tried to examine the challenge more closely and revealed the underlying factors in his paper named Kiswahili language deficiencies in print media In the article, Kamfipo reveals the use of in-depth interviews as insufficient for employing editors and reporters for Swahili newspapers. They can enact on-the-job training policies aimed at fostering mastery in Swahili. Remedies proposed by other sources have a projected outcome of promoting and developing the language.

Free content creation by writers who display their content via various platforms on the internet such as social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, Threads, Reddit, etc.), website s, blog s, and the like also affect Swahili. Content creation and display on such platforms don't have to go through formal scrutiny of any editor. Any error or discrepancy affecting Kiswahili go unchecked through to the audience. Such errors and discrepancies include misspellings, mispronunciation, misuses and other linguistic noises affecting the literature and grammatical structures of Swahili.

The concerns which have been raised about misuse, abuse and misconceptions relating to various aspects of Swahili, mean that Swahili language stakeholders have a work to do: strategizing to overcome the challenges facing the language and the formulated strategies should be both; preventive and curative.

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