{UAH} Why are Ugandans so hung-up on accents?

Why are Ugandans so hung-up on accents?

Jul 30 2014 1:37PM

I once read a book, A Place called Freedom, by British author Ken Follett. It was about life in 18th century Britain, and about a Scottish coal miner who believes there must be more to life than just working in a coal mine.

 

At one time his mother tells him that if he wants to be a better man, he must learn to speak properly, and asked to always listen to then BBC equivalent to improve his accent.

 

I don't know if any Ugandan mother would tell that to her children, probably not, because we are really hung up about accents. His peers would probably laugh at him for speaking different, or maybe beat him up for trying to be what he is not. That coal miner in Follett's book was equally disparaged by his pals, but he did manage to escape from that life of servitude and get a better life. And because he had listened to that BBC-like radio, his Scottish brogue did not stand in his way.

 

In Uganda our official language is English, or is supposed to be; because the ways it is spoken in the different regions of the country makes it hard to make out if it is really English being spoken. 

 

Somebody once asked me what Uganda English was like – apart from the common grammatical and construction errors most Ugandans make (which have become known as Uglish), there really is nothing like Ugandan English. And definitely nothing like English with a Ugandan accent. The guy from Masaka will speak English very differently from one from Pader; and probably the guy from Kabale will find it difficult understanding the English spoken by that chick from Arua, and vice versa.

 

We are all okay with the different accents, but let any of those people try to speak 'correct' English and the disparaging will begin. If the guy from Pader had spent his childhood listening to the BBC, he would probably have 'proper' English, but Ugandans will call him fake.

 

To my countrymen and women, unless you were born abroad (it does not matter where) or spent one's childhood away, you have no right to speak proper English. One writer put it that if you went abroad after you were 25 years, better keep whatever accent you had, and not pretend to speak proper English.

 

Hundreds of thousands of young and not so young Ugandans have gone abroad in recent years in search of a better life, the so-called 'nkuba kyeyos'. Many of them have done well for themselves and have moved from the literal sweeping of streets to rather decent positions. 

 

Eventually they do come back and their accents tell of where they settled, but the guys they left behind don't want to know, they are just 'fake'. "Only ten years and you speak like an Englishman? Puleese."

 

Interestingly, Ugandans cannot tell between accents, to them they are all American. A friend of mine was born in England, and went to school there, so he has a 'public school' accent, but people always ask him why he has an American accent.

His attempts to explain that it is not American is met with blank looks, "same difference".

 

But the real question is, why does it bother Ugandans so much how someone speaks English? Would they rather that university lecturer take his Kiboga accent to Cambridge? Or that kyeyo guy who did good for himself use the Gisu accent while reading news on a local TV station in Scotland? Now that would be something.

 

Is it an element of envy, that maybe they have been to paces you haven't? Or wish you had? Like that coal miner in Follett's book whose neighbours hated it that he wanted to better than they were, people here see any polished accent as testament of what they are not.

 

Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of Ugandans now live and work abroad, and to fit in the society they now call home, or even to get a job, they have to speak like the natives. The reality is that guy on Winter Street, Waltham who is hiring, will not be impressed with your Kisoga accent. So stop tripping, y'all.

 

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower

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