SOLUTIONS TO KENYAN GRAMMAR? -
03-05-2002, 11:54 AM
Kenyans have proven time and again that they are simply not capable of communicating well in Kiswahili. So, I suggest that we leave it altogether and adopt English as the national language. All we have to do is modify it to suit our purposes, just the way West Africans modified theirs and came up with Pidgin English.
Many Africans have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult - for example, cough, plough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased program of changes to iron out these anomalies. The program would of course, be administered by a committee of staff at the top level by the participating tribes.
In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's' instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities and munispalities would resieve this news with joy.
Then the hard 'c' could be replaced by 'k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one les leter.
There would be growing enthusiasm when the sekond year, it kould be announsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be written as just 'f'. This would make words like 'fotograf' twenty per sent shorter in print.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are posible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double leters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. We would al agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's, 'h's and 'r's in the languag is disgrasful, and an uncalled motivation to srubbing. Therefor, we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend.
Kambas kould legitimiz not aving to pronounse the 'h', so that a sentence like "Helen has hired a housemaid", wil easily flow out as "' Elen as ired ha ousmaid".
A Luo being shased by a shark while swimming, would yel for help thus: "sark!! sark!! sark!!" without geting sy about it, wile a Kalenjin kan soot a monkey that's a moving taaget mor akuratley.
By this tim, it would be four years sins the skem began and even some resident non-English-speaking Europeans would be reseptiv to steps sutsh as replasing 'th' with 'z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v', vitsh is, after al, half a 'w'. In zis kase, an Asian seling a Volvo, will pronauns it korektly, insted of teling us "Haw you seen my WolWo, registration number K-Wee-Wee?".
Shortly after zis, ze unecesary 'o' kould be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers, zer vud be no mor trubls, difikultis and evriun vud fin it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drems of the Kenyans vud finali hav kum tru, and pepl wil not be asking that leters be riten in English, but in Kedgin. I am oping, with my fingers krosed, zat my drems vil one day kome tru tuu.
WHAT DO FOLKS THINK ABOUT THIS?
'If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants' - Supa Fly
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