Wazua
»
Club SK
»
Culture
»
Kenya's ultimate solution
Rank: New-farer Joined: 7/22/2011 Posts: 46
|
this is one good thread in a looong time,my two cents... tycho wrote:The sum of all our problems is ignorance. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge of how to use time to meet our needs, for as Marx pointed out, the economic system is the base, the rest; superstructure.......
And we can do this quickly by supporting and using sheng as the official language of technology, and constructing a new economic system centered on cyberspace. way back in school,some guyz would mold their own programming language but would never get far.Now for us to have our own set of cyber space that is not 'westernized' we need to come up with assembly languages,codes,OS....using sheng!!if guyz landed on the moon(if it was neva a stage managed photo session)we can do it. However,we need to use the structures that are already in place,my suggestion is going kiswahili way instead of sheng.eg UBUNTU is an african open source OS,while we graduate thousands comp.sci guyz n boost of several prof n masters guyz why dont we come up with a swahili codes and assembly language?then we will start thinking of a cyberspace that is not 'westernized'! ...
|
|
|
Rank: Elder Joined: 12/9/2009 Posts: 6,592 Location: Nairobi
|
tycho wrote:@jasonhill,
I agree that the solutions to our problems lie in our minds and hearts, and that we need to trust each other, and more so, love one another. Now, that I agree with. Another problem we have is resistance to change and worse is some people in power going out of their way to enforce the status quo. We all know what we need to do to make this country better, even worse is we're watching our neigbours around overtake us. Surely how could we just watch Rwanda catching up and overtaking us in IT and we were centuries ahead of them? We take 100bob and vote in an MP we won't see in four and a half years. People on trial for crimes against humanity are busy campaigning to lead us. Wtf?!!! The drought that we all know will come always gets us off guard, how could Kibaki fail so miserably? I tell you my friend, our problem is not ignorance, it's greed ask any Tanzanian.
BBI will solve it :)
|
|
|
Rank: Elder Joined: 7/1/2011 Posts: 8,804 Location: Nairobi
|
@2012,
And why would one be greedy? Is it not because the person doesn't know his/her true needs? And again, isn't greed about not knowing how to relate with others?
I think greed is a symptom of ignorance.
@MCHUNA,
I like the idea of using Kiswahili, it would make a great start. But at the same time I think Kiswahili still has many restrictions when it comes to creating new words, and is always looking up to English for growth.
But sheng has so much dexterity and energy!
|
|
|
Rank: Member Joined: 4/1/2008 Posts: 104 Location: Nairobi
|
tycho.....were we to lay aside all arguments to the contrary and critically analyze your proposal there would be still be one very big challenge facing us i.e. the very nature of sheng itself. How would you propose we overcome the following; 1. The aim of using sheng is seldom the exchange of information. More often, it serves social purposes: to identify members of a group, to change the level of discourse in the direction of informality, to oppose established authority- the minute sheng becomes recognized as an official language, users will change to a sub-sheng in rebellion to the status-quo. 2. it's vocabulary is ephemeral, bursting into existence and falling out of use at a much more rapid rate than items of the general vocabulary. The changes occur with each generational gap, economic standing and geographical location. - how do we keep updated and teach such a transient language? Généralement, les gens qui savant peu parlent becoup, et les gens qui savant beaucoup parlent peu.
- Rousseau.
|
|
|
Rank: Elder Joined: 7/1/2011 Posts: 8,804 Location: Nairobi
|
@savant,
Assuming that indeed sheng is a language of rebellion,validating it would then mean validating the rebel and his world view. This would clearly imply a cessation of rebellion.
As for the stability of sheng; it is worth noting that a language will tend to be more stable in proportion to its use in economic interaction and trade.
|
|
|
Rank: Elder Joined: 10/18/2008 Posts: 3,434 Location: Kerugoya
|
I get so irritated and frustrated when those new young employees attempt to transact official business in sheng. My question is, do I learn the language or do I insist that these kids learn how to communicate officially in english since I am so old school?
|
|
|
Rank: Elder Joined: 10/4/2006 Posts: 13,823 Location: Nairobi
|
anyone who attempts formalizing sheng is wasting his time...you cannot formalize such a dynamic language! by the time you write a dictionary esplaining what Chapaa means! people would already have come up with other funny words extracted from any language in kenya or perhaps some reversal of a formal term...unless you do a dictionary for eastlands, one for westi, one for Naks, one for Kisumu - you are WASTING YOUR TIME! All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!
|
|
|
Rank: Veteran Joined: 12/1/2008 Posts: 1,098
|
@Masukama, i am with you on that. There is no way sheng can be a mainstream language. If you go to Nairobi's Dandora estate, the sheng being spoken there is so different even from the one being spoken a stone throw away in Buruburu. Walk a few yards and enter Ofafa Jericho, their Sheng is not similar to Dandora's and Buru's! What's more, what you learnt a few months as the Sheng in any of these estates has since changed and you have to learn it afresh. It is therefore a futile tool for economic development.
|
|
|
Rank: Elder Joined: 5/26/2009 Posts: 1,793
|
which problems are we going to solve be emulating China?? masukuma wrote:I think we should copy paste what China is doing! Economically, China is following the rest of the world in instituting market based economy. The admission of China into world trade organization is a proof. besides, the Confucian culture that insisted on equality, and largely contributed to communism, is dying out. socially, China has the worst human rights record because of a government that is afraid of its people.
|
|
|
Rank: Elder Joined: 5/26/2009 Posts: 1,793
|
tycho wrote:@2012,
I like the idea of using Kiswahili, it would make a great start. But at the same time I think Kiswahili still has many restrictions when it comes to creating new words, and is always looking up to English for growth.
But sheng has so much dexterity and energy!
the essence of having a uniform language is to communicate...and effective communication must have a common understandable language. what is the point of having a dynamic language, where future children cannot even understand their past because new words will have been formed?? the chinese, a population of almost 1.5 billion people have been unable to teach the rest of the world their language. they have been forced to learn english, to fit in with globalization. I doubt that making sheng a national language in this era of globalization will result in any benefits in our country. what have we done with swahili??? after years of being taught kiswahili in class, we still speak it so poorly. And yes, sheng is not to blame for poor swahili.
|
|
|
Wazua
»
Club SK
»
Culture
»
Kenya's ultimate solution
Forum Jump
You cannot post new topics in this forum.
You cannot reply to topics in this forum.
You cannot delete your posts in this forum.
You cannot edit your posts in this forum.
You cannot create polls in this forum.
You cannot vote in polls in this forum.
|