Friends,
This has been a very educative topic and more topics of this type should be generated and discussed exhaustively. I would like to commend the person who initiated this discussion. I however would like to say that as much as we are looking at a language that can not only unify us but also help us internalize the intricacies of the philosophies or knowledge, we need to recognize then fact that we have no choice except to go with English and Kiswahili. I say this because of the following reasons:
1. English is an African language too. When a language is adapted by a people and they use it in all the avenues through which knowledge knowledge is passed from one generation to another, that language becomes their language. Given the characteristics of any language; i.e it grows and can die, English has become an African language it has very many words that are African and it has accommodated a lot of the African idiom. Hence English is not foreign any more. Look at the following words, some which were used even at the Hague without being translated to the Judges; pangas, and rungus,askaris, matatus and now even Mungiki. There are other words that have been included in the Oxford Dictionary and are accepted as East African English. Eg, sufuria, safari, jembe, shamba,etc.
2. Kiswaili also merits to be used in any area of education and its applicability and adaptability to scientific corpus should not be underrated. In Tanzania Kiswahili was developed and many science subjects are taught in Kiswahili. What I do not know is whether the students in Tanzania or Tanzanians in that case are more scientific minded than Kenyans because of Kiswahili. This is an area that requires a research. But my argument is Kiswahili is a lingua franca and a world language that can be used in all areas of study. What we need is just adequate research and leadership in this area.
3. It is not true that education in Africa or Kenya is an import. Education in Kenya takes its shape from the Cultures in Africa. If you study comparative education and the History of Education, you will see that in matters of Religion, Philosophy, Education, Politics, science and technology, perspectives are always universal because all these are governed by the laws of Nature, and are interlinked especially when it comes to the metaphysical. So many nations have learned from each other. China, Japan, Korea for example are countries that have their own languages and their own characters(alphabet) but what they now know in the realm of science and technology was borrowed heavily from the West and many of their students went to the USA, UK, Russia and etc to study. When they go back to their home countries, they only modified what they learned and made it usable in their context.
In Africa to the contrary, we never use the knowledge by developing and improving on what we learned from others, we destroy the final utility of goods. We are consumers and not users of knowledge. With this I would like to strongly refute what some people say that the African is inferior. Our problem in Africa is not Language but leadership.
