Some additional notes

Speech Accent Archives:

- leave out transition words such as "a", "the", "at"
- Fricatives become [s] instead of [z]
- Some plurals are left off entirely
- Vowels lengthen or shift to become entirely different sounds
- R's are rolled, usually if in the middle of the word
- Emphasis in the word often determines part of the accent

Kanyoro stress pattern list (1991)

Kanyoro has a small list of East African English words (pp. 403-404):

1. safari = journey
2. sufuria = a cooking pan
3. Ujamaa = the Tanzanian form of socialism

She also has a list of stress pattern distinctions between British English and East African English (p. 408):


British English Stress Kenyan English Stress
‘execute exe’cute
pho’tography photo’graphy
‘demonstrate demon’strate
‘argument argu’ment
‘convict (n) con’vict (n)
‘progress (n) pro’gress (n)
‘present (n) pre’sent (n)


Kanyoro, M. R. A. (1991). The Politics of the English Language in Kenya and Tanzania. In J. Cheshire, English Around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives (pp. 402-419). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kanyoro (1991) notes

Kanyoro, M. R. A. (1991). The Politics of the English Language in Kenya and Tanzania. In J. Cheshire, English Around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives (pp. 402-419). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Here're some more notes from an academic article on East African English:

Kanyoro says there is definitely a distinct East African English. She also acknowledges that there are differences between the variety spoken in Kenya and that spoken in Tanzania. She attributes this to the differences in the political systems and how each promotes English in the schools. For example, in Kenya, since the time of independence, they have had a capitalist system dependent on foreign investment. In Kenya the schools revolve around students gaining fluency in English and they dedicate many resources to this cause. However, in Tanzania, they have a socialist system that plays up the importance of Kiswahili. In Tanzanian schools English is a secondary subject and the goal is for students to gain proficiency in reading comprehension.

Abdulaziz (1991) notes

Abdulaziz, M. H. (1991). East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya). In J. Cheshire, English Around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives (pp. 391-401). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Abdulaziz explains that there is a distinct form of East African English found in Kenya and Tanzania. However, while the variant of these two countries has much in common, there are also differences that came about due to the role that English played in each country after they gained independence from England. For example, in Kenya, English continued to be embraced in an official role in the schools at all levels, the judiciary system, parliament, etc. On the other hand, in Tanzania, English was removed from the primary schools and its other official capacities. Instead, Kiswahili was emphasized as the official language and lingua franca of the country. In fact, Kiswahili plays an important role in both countries because there are more than 140 languages represented between them. So when people from different tribes need to communicate in their day to day activities, they use Kiswahili. English is used more in the work place especially in the cities and for international communication. It is seen as the language of upward mobility and modernity.

Abdulaziz also says that East African English is marked more by its intonation than anything else. Morphology, syntax, and vocabulary are all relatively levelled.

This is from the Speech Accent Archive. Just some linguistic aspects of how someone fluent in both English and Swahili pronounces words and what happens to their speech. Enjoy!

Phonological Generalizations

In order to say something about the phonetic transcriptions in this site, we have developed a series of phonological generalizations. Generalizations are general rules that describe a speaker's accent. Generalizations are made based on a comparison between the sample and our own dialect which happens to be General American English (GAE). We are not presuming to say that our accent is the only true English accent in comparison to which all others are deemed sub-standard or faulty. However, it would be impossible to make generalizations about our samples without some dialect to compare them to. Since we are American, we chose GAE, specifically English 1.

Our generalizations look at what non-native and non-GAE speakers do that is different from GAE. Each generalization must have two or more instances in the sample to be considered a general rule for that speaker. And each generalization must have two or more instances among a set of speakers to be considered a general rule for that language set. We divide the generalizations into 3 types: consonantal changes, vowel changes, and syllable structure changes (additions or subtractions of consonants or vowels):

Consonantal Change

• voicing change
• final obstruent devoicing
• consonant voicing
• + p --> b
• + s --> z
• stop --> fricative
• interdental fricative change
• th --> t/d
• th --> s/z
• th -->f/v
• palatalization
• retroflexing
• alveolar approximant change
• r --> trill
• r --> uvular fricative
• r --> l
• l --> r
• r-->flap
• w -->fricative
• w --> v
• w --> bilabial
• dentalization
• h --> velar fricative
• sh --> s
• stop --> implosive
• labialization

Vowel Change

• vowel raising
• vowel shortening
• vowel lowering

Syllable Structure Change

• vowel insertion
• consonant deletion
• r-deletion
• cluster reduction
• consonant insertion
• glottal insertion

I found a website of blogs and such. It could be a help in the syntax category. Just an idea!

www.mashada.com

Idiom from Jenkins

Jenkins (2009, p. 31) attributes the following idiom to East African English:

"To be on the tarmac" = To be in the process of seeking a new job

East African English Borrowings From Indigenous Languages

Here's a short list of East African English borrowings from indigenous langauges from Jenkins (2009, p.31).

• chai = tea
• duka = shop
• manamba = laborer

East African English Syntactic Patterns

Here're the East African English syntactic patterns discussed in Jenkins (2009, pp. 29-30):

• A tendency to use a specific/non-specific system for nouns rather than a definite/indefinite system, e.g. I'm not on scholarship.
• A tendency NOT to make a distinction between the third pronouns he and she, e.g. When I first met my husband, she was a student.
• A tendency to extend the use of be + verb + ing constructions to stative verbs, e.g. She is knowing her science very well.
• The formation of different phrasal and prepositional verb constructions, e.g. Her name cropped in the conversation.

Contemporary News Story from Kenya

Here we have another YouTube clip that relates to Kenya. It's a disturbing report about current internal political conflicts. There are two interviews with people on the streets of Nairobi that are especially interesting for our project.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXzMOWJD6g>

I'll try to transcribe the interviews later.

YouTube video with examples of Kenyan English

Here's a quick video with an interview of a speaker of Kenyan English:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgq0C4O9chE>

And here's the script:

Martin Dungu Kamandi: “The Sunday Catholic program is a five hours program. Full of Catholic music and Catholic teachings and everything that entails Catholic. The first of all is a prayers station where we have prayers: callers praying. And we also have the Catholic prayers and the Catholic music.”

Martin Dungu Kamandi: “...[R]epresents the saints of the coming week and the feasts. Between 7 am to 8 am we have a recorded holy mass. That is we record. And on 8 to 9 we have a discussion and then 9 to 10 is exit hour where we have greetings, callings and some teaching of the Catholic faith.”

Kenyan English Word List

*Note: some of these words were not corroborated by the Ice corpus.

From the webpage Wikibin

http://wikibin.org/articles/lexical-differences-in-kenyan-english.html

Lexical differences in Kenyan English

List A-B*Bhang/ bangi - marijuana
*billion - as in the UK this officially means a million million. Nowadays the American usage (one billion is one thousand million) is almost exclusively used.
*biscuit - same as tea biscuit
*bonnet - hood of a car
*brinjal - eggplant (from Portuguese berinjela, also used in Indian English) Known as biriganya in Kiswahili.
*bundu – (slang) a wilderness region, remote from cities . Same as in South Africa.

C-E
*call - when someone says that they will "call" this typically means that they will make a telephonic call, not visit in person, phone and (less commonly) ring are also used.
*candy floss - as in Britain this is used for cotton candy
*chang’aa – cheap and illegal alcohol with an extremely high alcohol content. It is made from various ingredients which can include methanol, antifreeze, and has been known to cause blindness and death.
*chang’aa den - illegal drinking establishment.
*chemist - besides meaning a scientist specializing in chemistry the term is also used for a pharmacist and for a drugstore (short for chemist shop in the latter case)
*chips - used for french fries
*chop – intelligent person (probably outdated)
*costume - besides meaning attire worn to a dress-up party/play it also refers to a bathing suit (short for "swimming costume" or "bathing costume"), sometime abbreviated cossie
*crisps - potato crisps are what Americans refer to as chips.
*dam - used to mean a water reservoir *dhania - coriander known in the US as cilantro
*doolah/ dwanzie – stupid person (probably outdated)

F-J
*flat - as in Britain this is used for an apartment
*Form -besides other meanings referred to a school grade for secondary school. Currently there are Forms 1-4. Followed by University.
*football - typically refers to soccer*globe - as formerly used in Britain, a light bulb.
*housegirl(boy) or maid – domestic worker, usually female.
*jam - a fruit preserve spread whether containing pieces of fruit or not, never called a jelly in South Africa similar to use in UK
*jelly - when referring to food this always means what in American English is called 'jello', ie. a flavoured gelatine dessert never a fruit preserve spread

K-L*kamuti - witchcraft (from Kamba muti)
*kiosk - refers to a small convenience store usually found in residential areas.
*kombi - (slang) a minivan, esp. Volkswagen (from the Volkswagen 'Kombi' van) *lift - as in Britain this is used for an elevator; also used for a ride in another person's vehicle
*loo – slang for toilet

M-N
*main road - what is generally called a high street in Britain
*maize – corn
*matatu – minivans used for public transportation. They are both a substitute and supplement to public buses.
*miti shamba – traditional medicine (herbal medicine)
*mushkaki - a kebab on a stick
*mutura - traditional sausage from Kikuyu language (usually made with goat or beef)

O-R
*Parking boy - homeless boys found mostly in the cities. Also abbreviated to ‘parkies’ or chokora – coming from the Kiswahili phrase ‘chokora mapipa’ (scavenges in the rubbish bins). There a many girls fround within these groups today hence chokora is more commonly used.
*pound – in addition to it’s other uses, in Kenya slang for 20 shillings
*queen cake – cupcake
*rubber - as in Britain, a rubber eraser

S
*samosa – Indian meat samosa, it is rare to find a vegetarian samosa Kenya
*shamba boy - a male gardener (of any age). Another vestige of colonialism. The Kiswahili name : ‘mfanyi kazi’ i.e. ‘worker’ is more respectful.
*shilling - currency, divided in to 100 cents.
*shop - as a noun the same as American store
*skive/ skiving - (slang) playing hooky, skipping school/class
*spit - as a verb this is only used for the present tense unlike in America where it is also used for the past tense. The form spat is used for the past tense.
*standard - besides other meanings referred to a school grade for primary school children. Currently there are Standards 1-8.
*sweets - confectionery, candy (singular sweet used for an item of confectionery)

T-Z
*tackies - (slang) sneakers, trainers.
*tea room, tearoom - has the same meaning as 'cafe', a corner shop or convenience store
*thorn – (slang) ugly person (i.e. thorn in my eye) also thwack (probably outdated)
*ugali - the staple food of Kenya made from maize meal. It is somewhat similar to American grits, and is known as pap in South Africa
*up-country – refers to the rural areas from where most people have their homes. This is usually where their families are originally from and where their parents/grandparents still reside.
*Zebra crossing – pedestrian cross walk.

Journal Entries

Let's back track and re-type out our journal entries from last week here. That way we will all have a chance to see each others work.

-Alise