OUR KIND OF ENGLISH : Mwalimu’s STATUTE outside Dar Museum!

        The long-standing push to make Kiswahili Bongo’s medium of instruction from primary school to university has basically failed—so far. It means, none of us should mislead themselves into ignoring English. Indeed, even if English were to be proscribed as a teaching language and be relegated to the status of a mere subject, the need to learn it would still be crucial today.

We all need to interact with the rest of the world, so the essence of our people being conversant with the most widely spoken language in the “global village” cannot be overstressed.

For our part as journalists, we must constantly be aware we’re viewed as society’s language role models. The way we write and speak influences many people.

For instance, the disservice that some presenters on FM radio stations are doing to our beloved Kiswahili borders on treason! Anyway, that’s a big topic for another day… or another platform.

Enough of lecturing, so let’s proceed to share a few linguistic gems we picked in the recent past, hoping that our interventions will help those who willing to mend or even uplift their English. So, here we go…

In a story on page 20 of the tabloid closely associated with this writer (Sept 20 edition), a scribbler reporting about music fans who attended the Tigo Fiesta in Arusha, says:

“They came from FAR AND NEAR to have a glimpse of their homemade stars, especially the Weusi…”

We checked in our books on idioms and failed to find the expression “far and near”; what we got was “far and WIDE”, which refers to a large area. Our trusted Oxford Learner’s Dictionary illustrates this idiom with an example, and we quote: “They searched far and wide for the missing child.”

Towards the end of his story, the scribbler writes: “Vanessa Mdee…was up to her penchant OF skimpy dressing (sic) even when the weather dictated against it.”

Nope; we don’t say penchant of… it’s penchant FOR…which means a liking for something.

The scribbler goes on:

“She too was on A ROOT towards revival as she got on stage…”

Root is mzizi in Kiswahili, and that can’t be what our colleague had in mind…we’re certain he was thinking of ROUTE, njia in Kiswahili. Yes, Vanessa Mdee aka Vee Money is on THE (not A) ROUTE TO revival…

Then, on page 4 of the Saturday edition of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet, there’s a captivating photo thus captioned:

“As Tanzanians (gear) towards the 18th commemoration of Nyerere Day, a huge embarrassment is literally staring them in the face. The two persons are seen in this picture passing besides Mwalimu Nyerere’s STATUTE wrapped in a plastic material to conceal a glaring blunder in its inscriptions…”

A Mwalimu statute? Oh, no! A statute is a law passed by a parliament, a council, etc. We for instance, hear of “statutory retirement age” meaning the age, set by the government, at which you’ve to stop working and go home to rest.

This columnist never got the chance to view the image of Mwalimu in front of the National Museum, so he doesn’t have any idea of “glaring” goofs the artists made!

Well, we all make mistakes, and let’s bear in mind that sculptors aren’t literary artists from whom we could justifiably demand faultless texts. Remember the Community SHEILD (to mean SHIELD) that Simba SC was presented with some time ago? Now if you ask us, the buck should stop at the feet of State officials (whoever they were) who gave the nod as the artists proudly hoisted their STATUE (not STATUTE) of Mwalimu near the National Museum. Ah, this treacherous language called English!

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