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THE MAKING AND UNMAKING OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES: ORAL COMMUNITIES AND COMPETITIVE LINGUISTIC WORK IN WESTERN KENYA*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2012

JULIE MACARTHUR
JULIE MACARTHUR*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
*
Author's email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines the history of efforts to create a standard written language in western Kenya. In the 1940s, the Luyia Language Committee worked to standardise one Luyia language out of a set of diverse, distinct, and yet mutually intelligible linguistic cultures. While missionaries worked to imbue translations with ideals of Christian discipline, domestic virtue, and civilisation, local cultural entrepreneurs took up linguistic work to debate morality, to further their political agendas, and to unite their constituents. Rather than subsume linguistic difference, these efforts at standardisation reveal the dynamism of oral communities, and how they encouraged a culture of competitive linguistic work. Examination of these efforts challenges previous historians' insistence on the role of linguistic consolidation in the making and unmaking of political communities in colonial Africa.

Keywords

Kenyacolonialismethnicitylinguisticsmissionaries
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , July 2012 , pp. 151 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank John Lonsdale, Derek Peterson, and three anonymous readers for their critiques and comments on early drafts. The research for this article was made possible through the generous funding of the Gates Foundation, the Smuts Fund, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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