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