This article was published in The Citizen Newspaper, Tanzania on April 08, 2025.
Shimbo Pastory
On March 21 as the whole world was marking the world poetry day many questions came to mind, among which is the one chosen as title of this discourse. Just like other cultures around the globe, our culture as Tanzanians, and in a wider sense as Africans, greatly cherishes poetry. Globally written poetry as an art is as old as ancient civilizations, with ancient poems like the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia dating as far back as the 3rd millennium BC.
The complexity and richness in figures of speech and linguistic expression is a proof that oral poetry had existed in human traditions for a lot more years prior to discovery of writing methods. Today, writing helps to preserve the richness of poetry, especially from the danger of disappearance when done solely orally. With time, the written poems (in paper books) might as well be labelled vulnerable, unless digitized.
Poetry is beyond rhymes and play of words, it is an art that enables poets to express carefully deeper thoughts and meaningful mental constructions which simple conversational words cannot present sufficiently. It is an art because we enjoy its richness especially as it informs both the society about itself and the outside world, and the world about itself and in relation to that particular society, respectively, in an inward and outward dynamic.
With language as the vehicle and safeguard for the treasures in poetry, it follows that when a language is polluted, there will be repercussions in the poetry of that language, and in the understanding of the corpus of poetry that has lived generations before such pollutions. Dynamics of languages are diverse and are often irreversible if appropriate action is not taken.
Among young people in Tanzania today, for example, English is considered a more reputable language as compared to Kiswahili or tribal languages, and an international mystery box of opportunities both at home and abroad. It is however a serious issue when young people lose preference of their languages even for normal conversations. The signs of this ‘new normal’ are all around us.
With time our Tanzanian young people will not have good mastery of the languages which are closer to their socio-cultural roots. In that case, they, just like foreigners, cannot be impacted by the richness of poems in our tribal languages and in Kiswahili language as they will not understand them. It is important to note that not understanding poetry denies one access to a crucial and rich corpus of identity, knowledge and wisdom hidden in words.
Locally, in the Tanzanian context a test will be to ask young people around you if they understand any of the popular classic poems written by older generations, such as ‘Muhogo wa jang’ombe!’ and others. The answers will be eye-opening!
Classic Kiswahili poems remind us how much we lack mastery of our language and how much we need to deepen ourselves by engaging with the unknown side of it. But this happens if we are positive about our language, and regard it as valuable. It is ‘local’ to us, but it is valuable!
The unfortunate trend now is mixing of Kiswahili and English, especially among young people, even when the Kiswahili language can supply sufficiently for the intended communication. It is deemed fashionable to know English; but to habitually mix it with Kiswahili after every other sentence or word is a disaster. It is language pollution, and does not impact our language positively, as it renders the communication less representative of the lived dynamics of the culture and traditions behind the spoken language.
For example, when the spoken language mixes Kiswahili and English, the manners of greetings (especially to older persons) are often compromised and do not communicate the same thing because the two languages evolve from completely different cultures. ‘Shikamoo Baba’ is not the same as ‘Good morning Dad’ for example.
Equally, persons are addressed differently across the two languages, with English providing for a possibility of addressing older persons by their names without a respect indicator, while Kiswahili takes a round route to address a person more respectfully, either by their children’s names, or relationship boundaries, such as Mama Blandina, or Shemeji, etc. There are translanguaging limitations across cultural domains.
When young people are raised into a fully functioning Kiswahili language setting they internalize more deeply the values and manners of conduct of our collective culture. Poetry is an important component of this priceless cultural heritage, and it should not be left to die.
Young people should be encouraged to love our Kiswahili language and those who perform well and show artistic interest should be empowered. Our poetry is our richness and it speaks deeply to our lives as a people. Also, our musical artists should be encouraged to use our language in a more edifying way rather than inventing newer curse words and foul expressions.
Shimbo Pastory is a Tanzanian advocate for positive social transformation. He is a student of Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila University, Manila, Philippines. Website: www.shimbopastory.com
