Month: March 2017

I absolutely loved this article… https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/38230437/posts/4976

The young woman gave several reasons why she is not as proficient in her ‘mother’ tongue as people feel she should be.

I am also the recipient of this questioning. I just learned to speak in chiChewa: one of Malawi’s two official languages, the other being English.

I technically grew up bi-lingual. My mother spoke chiChewa around the house although her native tongue is chiYao. My father, who hails from Northern Malawi, spoke chiLambya, a distinct dialect of Chitipa. To this day, I can’t speak more than a few words of chiLambya. But chiChewa was spoken to me regularly only by my mother. My dad only spoke to us in English.

I had a reasonable comprehension of chiChewa growing up. And I used to easily distinguish between chiYao, chiChewa, chiTumbuka, and chiLambya–the languages most frequently spoken in my house–until I moved out on my own and left for university. Since the age of 18, I have been disconnected from my linguistic exposure. Once kids start school, particularly in English-medium, they can often lose a connection to the language. I used to envy my Spanish speaking friends in America because there was much more exposure to the language including radio, TV and newspapers. As for chiChewa, for most of my childhood, only 8 families I knew growing up were Malawian.

At age 34, I moved back to Malawi. I still struggle to speak but my comprehension is damn near on point now. Shyness is 100% of my hindrance. Malawians are quite rough with native non-speakers of chiChewa and would rather mock rather than assist. But I carry on and I hope by the end of this year to reclaim the title of fully-bilingual speaker of both English and chiChewa.