|
Home page List of proceedings Info for readers Info for authors Info for editors Info for libraries Order form Shopping cart |
Selected Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference on African Linguistics: Shifting the Center of Africanism in Language Politics and Economic Globalization edited by Olaoba F. Arasanyin and Michael A. Pemberton ISBN 1-57473-414-8 library binding vii + 220 pages publication date: 2006 published by Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA, USA Table of contents Abstract Mokaya Bosire Hybrid Languages: The Case of Sheng 185-193 (complete pdf) Sheng is Kenya's rapidly growing urban vernacular. Spyropoulos (1987), quoting Mkangi (1985), states that Sheng arose in pre-independent Kenya as indigenous peoples from different ethnic and language backgrounds started converging on Nairobi as migrant workers with the advent of the colonial economy. In terms of structure, Sheng appears to fuse grammatical aspects mainly from English and Swahili, but also incorporates elements from the forty-plus Kenyan languages spoken alongside Swahili and English. How has Sheng grown amid these 'established' languages, especially the co-official languages of Swahili and English? This paper traces and discusses various claims about the origins and characterizations of this code and argues that in terms of form and function, Sheng is a hybrid language defying clear classification into the traditional language contact outcomes (Thomason 1997). |