Man takes state to court to save dying mother tongue

Mark Obar Asuelaa is a worried man. He fears that, over the years, his ancestors' traditions and language  will die.

His Bantu roots have gradually been eroded and are edging towards extinction, something he argues is by design.

Born an Abasuba, a Bantu-speaking people who migrated from the Buganda and Busoga regions about 300 years ago, Asuelaa says his ancestors left present-day Uganda as a result of internal conflicts.

They settled around Lake Victoria and, over the years, integrated with other communities, including the Nilotic Luo.

“Our ancestors settled primarily on the islands of Mfangano and Rusinga, and in Kaksingri, as well as along the mainland shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya, where they established a unique culture distinct from the surrounding Nilotic populations. Historical records and oral traditions confirm that the Abasuba brought with them the Olusuuba language, which embodies our oral traditions, indigenous knowledge and culture,” he says.

Asuelaa is now in court.

In a unique bid to salvage his dying mother tongue, he has sued the Education Cabinet Secretary, the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) and the Attorney-General.

“Despite our distinct Bantu roots, the Abasuba have faced intense pressure from the dominant Nilotic Luo community, leading to a state of ‘negotiated belonging’, where our language and customs are being swallowed up,” he argues.

He adds that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has listed Olusuuba among the world's critically endangered languages. 

UNESCO indicates that at least 43 languages are endangered. The global body classifies languages into six categories: extinct, critically endangered, severely endangered, definitely endangered, vulnerable, and safe or not endangered.

For extinct languages, there are no surviving speakers, and many disappeared as far back as the 1950s. Critically endangered languages are spoken only partially by the remaining speakers, from the youngest to the oldest generations. Severely endangered languages are typically spoken only by older people; while parents may understand them, they do not pass them on to younger generations.

For definitely endangered languages, children no longer learn the language as their mother tongue. Vulnerable languages, meanwhile, are still spoken by most children, but their use is restricted to specific settings, such as the home.

There are at least 7,170 languages spoken worldwide today, with English the most widely spoken, boasting about 1.5 billion speakers across 186 countries. However, around 80 per cent of English speakers are not native speakers.

Ethnologue, a database of the world's languages, indicates that Mandarin follows English with about 1.2 billion speakers, while Hindi has 609 million speakers. Spanish ranks fourth with 559 million speakers, followed by Arabic with 335 million. French, Bengali, Portuguese, Indonesian and Urdu complete the list of the world's 10 most spoken languages.

According to Ethnologue, 88.1 million people speak an endangered language as their mother tongue, with 1431 languages with fewer than 1,000 first language speakers, 463 with fewer than 100 speakers and 110 with barely 10 speakers.

Closer home, Enthologue further specifies that of the 55.1 million Kenyans, there are at least 61 indigenous languages with 83 per cent being literate.

There are at least 18 institutional languages, 37 are stable, six are endangered, and there is one listed by Ethnologue as extinct. 

UNESCO, however, listed Singa, once spoken on Rusinga Island, as extinct by 2013. Further, Yakunte, also known as Mokugodo, which was spoken by the Yaaku community in Laikipia, has been absorbed into the Maasai language.

In his petition, Asuelaa states that he was born on November 18, 1990, in Kamgere village in the former Suba District of Nyanza Province. He says his national identity card was issued in Mbita, the ancestral homeland of the Abasuba.

However, he laments that his ancestral language was not passed on to him through the formal education system. Instead, he argues, the Basic Education Curriculum Framework does not include Olusuuba among the languages that should be taught in schools.

“Suba children are being subjected to linguistic displacement and are denied the same pedagogical benefits afforded to children from dominant linguistic groups, such as Dholuo speakers. This differential treatment based on ethnic and linguistic origin is unconstitutional and lacks any rational or objective justification,” he argues.

He adds that a Senate Joint Standing Committee report published in 2018 revealed that the situation had reached a tipping point, with the younger generation almost entirely unable to communicate in Olusuuba.

According to Asuelaa, research conducted last year by the South Eastern Conference on Education confirmed that there are no digital repositories or instructional materials available for the language.

He claims the government has remained silent in the face of a looming linguistic catastrophe. 

“There is no other adequate or alternative remedy available to the petitioner and the Abasuba community, as the respondents have failed to act on the recommendations of the Senate. I pray that this Honourable Court grants the orders of mandamus sought in the petition to compel the second respondent to develop learning materials and the first respondent to formulate a policy on endangered languages,  as any further delay will render the eventual success of this petition a pyrrhic victory for a language that will no longer exist,” he argues.

Asuelaa's case is supported by Abasuba Council of Elders chairman Peter Ouma.

According to Ouma, the Abasuba  established a unique culture distinct from the surrounding Nilotic populations.

“Despite our distinct Bantu roots, the Abasuba have faced intense pressure from the dominant Nilotic Luo community, leading to a state of ‘negotiated belonging’ where our language and customs are being swallowed up,” he says.

He states that very few young people can still speak the language. According to him, fewer than 10 per cent speak it fluently.

He believes this is a tragic reality, made worse by the absence of instruction in schools.

Before 1960, he says, Olusuuba was part of the school curriculum. However, a policy shift aimed at creating a monolithic political bloc within the Nyanza region marked the beginning of the language's decline.

“This policy was engineered to sacrifice the distinct Bantu identity of the Abasuba community at the altar of political unification with the Nilotic Luo community, effectively initiating a process of state-sanctioned linguistic and cultural extinction,” argues Ouma.

He accuses, among others, the late Thomas Joseph Mboya, whom he claims sought to consolidate his political influence while living on Rusinga Island, not as an Abasuba leader but as a leader of the Luo nation.

“By virtue of his influential roles as Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs (1963–1964) and Minister for Economic Planning and Development (1964–1969), and through his proximity to the Presidency, Tom Mboya influenced government policies that systematically de-prioritised Abasuba cultural safeguards for political expediency,” he claims.

“I can confirm, from oral testimonies of elders and personal accounts, that children were routinely and severely punished within school compounds for communicating or providing academic answers in their native Olusuuba language. As a direct consequence of the systemic suppression of Olusuuba in educational and administrative spheres, a hybrid identity emerged, with many of our people becoming known as Luo-Abasuba.”

Ouma wants the court to declare the Abasuba a marginalised community. He also wants KICD compelled to prioritise Olusuuba in the curriculum, just as it does languages such as Gikuyu and Dholuo.