Zugl.: Dresden, Techn. Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2005. / Hergestellt on demand.

Enzi baada ya uhuru baadhi ya tafsiri mpya kwa Kiswahili zilianza kutokea nchini Kenya, zikiwemo tafsiri za riwaya na tawasifu za waandishi Wakenya. Makala haya yanazingatia tawasifu ya Josiah Mwangi Kariuki iitwayo Mau Mau Detainee (1963) inayosimulia kumbukumbu za mateso aliyoya-pata mwandishi mwenyewe wakati wa miaka ya hali ya hatari, na tafsiri yake kwa Kiswahili yaani Mau Mau Kizuizini (1965) iliyofasiriwa na Joel Maina. Kwanza, tawasifu ya Mau Mau Detainee itachambuliwa kwa kujikita hasa katika jinsi mwandishi mwenyewe alivyobuni lugha changamano takitumia Kiingereza kinachochanganywa na Kigĩkũyũ pamoja na Kiswahili. Halafu, tafsiri yake ii-wayo Mau Mau Kizuizini itachambuliwa kwa kina kwa ajili ya kuanza kufafanua jinsi na kwa mbinu gani mfasiri alivyokabiliana na vipengele vya pekee vya matini hiyo wakati alipokuwa anatafsiri kumbukumbu hizo za ukoloni akiwa anawalenga wasomaji wa lugha pokezi.

Kithaka wa Mberia (b.1956) is one of the most innovative Kenyan poets. Until now he has published four collections of poems and three plays. His poems contain a strong political and social criticism, sometimes in the form of animal allegories. He condemns various acts of violence done to women, like rapes of schoolgirls or prostitution caused by poverty. Some compositions seem life-stories of real persons, others are overtly didactic and moralizing, but in all the theme of social justice is almost obsessive. Another group of poems highlights the author’s concern with his surroundings and with the “health conditions” of the Earth in general; thus, for instance, he denounces the devastation of Kenyan soil in order to get foreign currency. His love of nature makes him address affectionate verses to animals, insects and plants. Formally the poems have little in common with the poetic tradition of the Swahili coast as they are in free verse. Kithaka exhibits a rich vocabulary of botanical and zoological terms and is fond of various forms of word-playing like chiming and punning; an important role in his poetry is played by parallelism. Moreover, he introduces into Kiswahili visual poems where typography is relied upon to perform expressive effects. Kithaka wa Mberia, together with other East African contemporary poets, proves that Swahili poetry is able to express universal themes and can reach a high artistic value even without repeating traditional models.

Children''s literature affects the child''s socialisation process, including the shaping the gender roles. But despite this, up to now children have featured less in gender scholarship. Against this backround, this paper seeks to critically interrogate the physical, social, economic and political manifestations of masculinities in selected Kiswahili children\''s books from Kenya. By analysing these works, we hope to demonstrate that power and ideological aspects of masculinites are rooted at childhood. Since special attention will be paid to the ideological and power basis of the masculinities, the analysis of the selected works is done in the encompassing prism of Critical Discourse Analysis revealing hegemonic masculinities.

This paper examines issues that emerge in the attempts that have been made to develop the national language terminology in kenya by committees, Kiswahili enthusiasts and Kiswahili scholars. Attention is drawn to the fact that the problematic national language policy that emerges from the national language`s social history is an important backround to the issues that are discussed. The issues emerging in these attempts are examined in the prism of an encompassing terminology development framework that is synthesised from terminology development literature from different areas of the world. This framework views terminology development as a process that entails: formation of a language institute, setting up of goals, the actual engineering of the terms, the mode of dissemination and evaluation. The case of Kenya demonstrates that the attempts have so far consisted of isolated steps of terminology development rather than the whole set of required action.

Although it has spread mainly as a lingua franca, Kiswahili, Kenya`s national language, is increasingly becoming the language of intercultural communication. Most interestingly, Kiswahili is catching up as the medium of intra-group conversation in many rural up-country areas in Kenya. Not only do most Kenyan women wear lesos and kangas bearing Kiswahili proverbial sayings but the youth form different language communication almost invariably converse and interact through the medium of share or just Kiswahili. This brief paper sets out to speculate on the nature of Swahili lexical diffusion in up-country Kenya. Observation is made of the plorification of common Swahili names in both urban and rural areas far from the Swahili speaking coast. The paper argues that given the ever-growing tendency for non-Swahili speaking Kenyan up-country communities to adopt and use Swahili names represents a forum of intercultural communication. There seems to be a deliberate socio-cultural and political preference for Swahili names not just to denote borrowed Swahili concepts in the up-country communities but to forge a `nationalistic`culture as opposed to a localized and ethnic culture.

This paper argues a case for the preparation of reading materials in Kiswahili and other African languages in order to enhance adult education in Kenya. Adult education clientele are defined as those aged over 15 who (a) were either never enrolled in primary schools or dropped out before completing and (b) `graduated` and currently participate in community extension services. Cognisance of mothertongues as the best languages to begin basic literacy is taken. However, since the literacy so acquired should be useful to the individual at both local and national levels, one needs Kiswahili for wider communication. Therefore, reading materials, especially for post literacy and adult literacy teacher training should be in Kiswahili. This will not only guard against relapsing to illiteracy and misinformation but will also alleviate the scarcity of reading materials in the face of hard economic times in Kenya.

Mass communication through the print and the electronic media has not been spared by the post-Cold-War wind of change that is sweeping across Africa and the rest of the world. According to Wilcox (1974: 37), in 1974 over 70 percent of all the newspapers that were printed in Africa were government-owned; in the same year, almost all radio and T.V. stations were owned by government. In the changing socio-eonomic climate, however, a state monopoly of the mass media in many Sub- Saharan African countries is now a thing of the past (see for instance, Bourgault 1995). Where, for example, there used to be only one or two newspapers owned by the government or the ruling party, there now exists a plethora of privately owned competing newspapers and other publications; and where there used to be only one sycophantic radio and T. V. station owned by the government, there now exist several radio and T. V. stations, many of them privately-owned commercial broadcasters. The general philosophy behind the liberalization of the mass media is what has come to be called `the freedom of speech`. Citing the liberalization of the electronic media in Kenya, this paper argues that the liberalization of the media in many Sub-Saharan countries has not been matched by policies that encourage the entrenchment, spread and full utilization of African indigenous languages. It is further argued that the lack of media policy that favours African indigenous languages is likely to lead to negative consequences for the languages of Africa.

It is a fact that modern science and technology from the west has reached Africa through European languages. Historically, these languages have also served as the vehicles of formal education in Africa to the exclusion of Swahili and other local languages. The deficiency of African languages such as Swahili in scientific and technical registers is both artificial and historically understandable. Secondly, it is easily remediable given that the basic core of the said vocabulary is shared and international in nature (Alexandrie, 1961 ). Therefore such a deficiency should present no barrier to Swahili serving as a medium of instruction in higher education. Whereas English, German and French can boast of self-sufficiency in literature in all fields of study, Swahili is a relatively much younger language of education and lacks literature even in the most basic aspects of the language itself. This situation often forces lecturers in the universities teaching Swahili to undertake `translation´ of concepts or even loan words in order to communicate with their students. Therefore, quite often, lecturing in the Swahili medium entails being able to translate from English into Swahili because most of the material to be taught is sourced from English original publications. As far as the use of Swahili in teaching natural sciences and other technical subjects at the tertiary level is concerned, Chimera (1998) suggests that this should be done gradually as the language grows and develops in its technical domains. If Swahili is to develop and modernise, it has to be more liberal in expanding its technical and scientific domains. The two registers should more or less be of comparable size as is the case with English (Chimera 1998: 37). However, the question that naturally arises here is, how is this ideal to be achieved? Perhaps, by deciding to teach linguistics and literature in Swahili, East African universities want to face the terminological challenge and solve the problems as they occurred. After decades of experimenting, the time has come for all stakeholders to come to terms with the problem.

This paper discusses the conflicts between some cultural practices of the Midzichenda (i. e. divination, healing and witchcraft) and the Kenyan Law. For decades, diviners and healers have been misconceived and condemned wholesale as `witchdoctors´, `wizards´ or `witches´. This misconception has seen many innocent diviners and healers mercilessly arrested, hurriedly arraigned in court, heavily fined and (or) eventually imprisoned, and their paraphernalia confiscated and finally destroyed by the state. The paper calls for proper understanding of the intricate belief in and practise of divination and healing vis-a-vis witchcraft and proposes ways which could help solve the conflicts.