Multilingualism is a fact of daily life for most Kenyans. Whether in the home, school, or the street, Kenyans live, work and speak across various languages. For a majority, this linguistic facility and experience is usually their first introduction to language, which in most cases may be reflected through their mother tongue used in conjunction with Kiswahili and English, the official and national languages in Kenya. In urban areas such as Nairobi, speaking in Sheng, the most rapidly growing urban language, and or the casual mixture of the various languages of the nation, has become as normal as breathing. Many do it without assigning any conscious significance beyond the fact that this is the makeup of their orality. It is the way they experience their linguistic landscape. There is a constant movement between the languages, a switch that occurs to suit every purpose in navigating daily, ordinary life. And beyond the three or four languages that are natural to a larger percentage of Kenyans, the interactions between various language communities make it easy for Kenyans to learn each other’s languages and enlarge their multilingual facility. It is not uncommon to see that some Kenyans have a perfect oral knowledge of other Kenyan African languages they have picked up from the communities where they have lived and worked, even if those languages are not their mother tongues. This is fairly common among linguistically intelligible languages such as Kiikamba, Gikuyu, Embu, Meru, and so on.
While multilingualism in Kenya continues to flourish orally, Kiswahili and English remain the languages of writing and translation. Many Kenyans who speak their mother tongues almost with near-perfect facility may never have encountered a textual representation in those languages save for the Bible, which has been translated into most Kenyan languages and made widely available. For these Kenyans, this oral facility and knowledge of their mother tongues cannot be translated into written forms, and their attempts to do so often prove very difficult. It is not uncommon to hear a Kenyan say that reading in their mother tongue, a language they speak fluently, is a very difficult task. It should be normal for a person to begin knowing the world on the basis of their own culture and language. However, for Kenyans, learning about the world and exploring knowledge is emphasized in Kiswahili and English right from the start of their education. And therefore, the facility of their mother tongues to create and advance written knowledge is clipped.
Both volumes one and two of the Ituika Multilingual Anthology of Stories in Kenyan Languages bear witness to the possibility of Kenyans embracing the true essence of their multilingual nature beyond these binaries. Beyond orality in mother tongues and written literacy in the national languages. And demonstrating, through a very collaborative process of producing a multilingual anthology, that we can write in our mother tongues and bring our stories in conversation and available to the world languages through translation. To write and publish only in Kiswahili and English for a Kenyan audience limits the experience of Kenyan readership because the Kenyan experience with language is not limited to these two languages. And yet, to create bridges and allow others to access our stories, we cannot ignore these languages of wider communication and the invaluable place of translation.
The two volumes contain stories in 14 different Kenyan languages – Dholuo, Kiswahili, Somali, Kiikamba, Sheng, Lulogooli, Ekegusii, Gikuyu, Maa, Kimeru, Bukusu, Kiembu, Kiduruma, and English. Our call is not for readers to learn and read in each of these Kenyan languages. It is for them to bear witness to the musicality of languages in their plurality. To see, in textual form, the writing of stories beyond their mother tongues and access these in the languages they share with their Kenyan neighbors.
Reading a work in one’s mother tongue and simultaneously accessing the same in two or more other languages is a great pleasure. And it is a pleasure, too, to witness the writing in other languages and embrace solidarity with those efforts by reading in languages common to us all through translation. It is a welcome call for all who read these volumes also to attempt to read those languages contained here that are mutually intelligible with their own.
A majority of these stories started their journeys in their Kenyan languages and were translated into Kiswahili and English. A few started their journeys in English, and some in Kiswahili, which were then translated into other Kenyan languages. The most important aim and commitment to us and to the spirit of this project is to enrich Kenyan mother tongues, which have for a long time been inadequately represented in writing and publishing. However, for Kenyans to enjoy each other’s stories written in their mother tongues, translation is needed into languages of wider communication. Kiswahili and English become an unnecessary evil in creating the bridges we need as we work towards future cross-pollination of Kenyan languages without needing English as a bridge.
We believe these two inaugural Ituika Literary Platform volumes will ease some of the anxieties associated with the textual circulation in Kenyan African languages. The fact is that the many languages of Kenya do not need to be associated with problems in communication, political stability, or complexities in education. The Ituika Anthology demonstrates the capacity for these languages to exist together in conversation without blocking each other’s light or their individual ability to exist. This is what is natural for this great country. May the Kenyans and those beyond our national and linguistic borders who read these volumes bear witness to the ease with which we can deconstruct the argument that multilingualism and multilingual publications are too demanding for human and material resources. We can, if we believe, collaborate, and create, make possible what has been perpetuated as impossible in our postcolonial conditions. May the dream for the flourishing of African languages continue in its multiplicities.
Copies of the two volumes will be available in print from December 2024. For information on how to obtain a copy, please check our website and social media for continued updates.
You may write to mkilolo @ ituika.org with any questions.
Munyao Kilolo, Editor-in-Chief