DAR ES SALAAM: BEING multilingual is a hidden treasure as it helps one to easily communicate with people from different ethnic backgrounds thereby facilitating the crucial concept of human integration.
All languages on earth are very important as they play a big role in enhancing communication as well as preserving one’s culture hence a need to do whatever it takes to protect them from extinction.
As humans, there is no way one can ignore the importance of languages in sense that in order to perfectly fit in the society, communication has to be made through the use of languages and nothing else.
However, there are some languages which are slowly fading away from usage of people and this is exactly why the 10th International Conference on Bantu Languages (Bantu 10 Conference) was convened at the Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE) recently.
The three-day conference (August 12th to 14th) brought together researchers who are experts of Bantu languages from 23 countries worldwide, including those from Europe, Asia, South America, North America and Africa covering linguistics topics such as Phonology, Phonetics, Morpho Syntax and Language Contact.
Keynote speeches were delivered by prominent linguists, including Prof Koen Bostoen from Ghent University in Belgium, Prof Lee Bickmore from the University at Albany in the United States and Prof Nobuko Yoneda from Osaka University in Japan.
Briefing the ‘Daily News’ at the sideline of the conference, DUCE’s Head of the Department of Languages and Literature Dr Loveluck Muro elaborated that Bantu language researchers do many things aimed at keeping the languages alive.
“Some of the Bantu languages are endangered in the sense that they are not much used hence they are at risk of extinction…as such, these researchers are involved in language documentation as well as studying them to see how they are related and seeing individual characteristics of each language.
“Linguists do believe that all languages are equally important because they are there to serve communication and we also believe in linguistic diversity hence the reason this conference has brought together researchers from 23 different nations.
“All these have interest in Bantu languages and the aim of this conference is to share field experiences after successfully conducting their studies in terms of theories, new findings, challenges,” she said.
On why they chose DUCE, she pointed out that the institution is the stakeholder in the field of languages as it has many experts saying the Department of Languages and Literature has got 61 staff operating in the field of literature and linguistics.
“So, we involve ourselves in the study of languages as well as teaching languages, we have welcomed our fellow stakeholders and it is an opportunity for these researchers who have come from outside to admire our country and integrate with their colleagues.
“Through this, we are also facilitating international cooperation which is the goal of each country and the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) at large and we are gathered here to implement that practically,” she said.
She further revealed that among the foreign researchers, there are linguists from Korea who are teaching Kiswahili language there a thing she said is helping to widen the coverage area of Kiswahili.
“Let me take this platform to urge Tanzanians to embrace and be proud of their tribal languages, when we have linguistic diversity, we use them to enrich our national language Kiswahili since it has many vocabularies that originate from tribal languages,” she said.
In the same token, DUCE’s Director of Research and Innovation Professor Amani Lusekelo disclosed that Kiswahili is the largest Bantu language as it is learnt and spoken by many people within and out the country.
“We have gathered here purposely to share ideas concerning various researches we have done on Bantu languages and in such doing, you get new feedback from your colleagues.
“This is academicians conference and most of the participants are lecturers from different universities around the world and we have a total of 135 researchers who are taking part in this conference,” Professor Lusekelo said.
He also pointed out that such meetings enhances cooperation among universities as it brings under one roof researchers from different universities in all continents of the world.
“The good thing is that Kiswahili language is the largest Bantu language and aside it being used as a national language here in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, it is also widely be used in Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Mozambique, Zambia and Malawi hence it is a lingua franca.
“And through this conference, Kiswahili is also being used alongside English as a form of communication thereby facilitating its growth since most of them are eager to know this language,” Professor Lusekelo who does research in Kinyakyusa, Kisukuma, Kiswahili and Kinyamwezi languages remarked.
On his part, Professor Lutz Marten from SOAS University of London highlighted that Tanzanians should be proud of the linguistic heritage of their country with Kiswahili being their number one language.
“A lot of investment has been made to popularise Kiswahili language and even here at this conference, there are some Kiswahili sessions and I understand that there are more than 100 community languages in the country most of them are Bantu languages.
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“That is also the richness of culture in the society which we should also be celebrating…a lot of talks here are on these community languages, sometimes, they are under described and are less known in terms of vocabulary and grammatical structure.
“So it is very important to have research in such areas and that is the reason why we are here, trying to share knowledge on how we can promote these Bantu languages and make them popular among people,” he said.
Professor Marten who is conversant in Kiswahili language disclosed that he learnt it in Hamburg, Germany where he originates saying many universities in Europe teach Kiswahili language.
“It is a popular language and I started earning it when I was still young…in the beginning, it was hard but the positive thing is that I had a very good teacher who helped me a lot to learn Kiswahili language at ease,” he said.
In her remarks, Professor in French Studies at Makerere University (Uganda) Edith Natukunda who is also the president of Language Association of Eastern Africa (LAEA) insisted that there is potential in doing research on Bantu languages.
It is encouraging to see that Kiswahili is expanding but in our researches, we pay much attention on other local languages which enables us to preserve our cultures and helps us to know our history so that we can become stronger,” she said.
Again, she revealed that the fourth edition of LAEA will be held at the University of Dodoma (UDOM) in August next year.
However, speaking at the opening of the conference, Prof Method Samwel, DUCE’s Deputy Principal- Planning, Finance and Administration, urged the participants to take advantage of this valuable opportunity to establish collaborations with DUCE in order to advance research activities, as the College has sufficient experts specialising in various disciplines.
