Writing POC 101

Kenyan Characters - @marjitude

Hey guys! It's Marj here, and today I'm going to be talking about Kenyans. I know that African characters have already been covered, but this piece might help if you want to be more specific when it comes to your African character.

For all those not aware, Kenya is a country located on the Eastern side of Africa, next to Indian Ocean. Now, I'll try my best not to make this into one long Social Studies lecture, so here goes . . .

First things first, let's do away with the stereotypes.

1. STEREOTYPES

We do not have lions for pets. We do not carry spears when we walk outside. We do not wear animal skins for clothes. We do not live in mud houses (there's an exception though . . . I'll get to that shortly).

Please please please don't label Kenya as a "hotbed of terror". Terrorism is still an issue, yes, but it really offends the majority of us, especially Muslims, as the government is trying its best to curb terrorism. Not all areas are affected by it but when it happens, it is a national tragedy.

Not all of us are Maasais who wear read lesos and jump ten feet high as a way of dancing and herd numerous cattle and go hunting and gathering. Please!

And, for heaven's sake, we don't have the same accent! Most movies that I've watched which cast Kenyans have the actors talk in this same accent all the freaking time! I'll have you know that Kenya is pretty diverse when it comes to accents and cultures, which brings me to my next topic.

2. LANGUAGES AND ETHNICITY

The official languages spoken in Kenya are English and Swahili. But mostly Swahili because a percentage of people struggle with English. Swahili is mostly used when it comes to communicating with people of all kinds of caliber (non educated, old and young etc)

So, in short, if you want to include a Kenyan character in your story, make them know Swahili, even if it's just a bit. If you need to use words, don't go overboard with it when you use Google Translate. Simple terms such as Sema/Jambo/Habari (hey, hello, hi), Hapana (no), Ndio (yes), Asante (thank you), Tafadhali (please) will just do.

You don't have to stress yourself googling a whole sentence in Swahili (but if you want to, you can. I ain't stopping you) because like I've already said, Kenyans speak English. About 75-80% of us.

There's also a kind of slang language used in Kenya and it's called Sheng. It's mostly used by the youth and it began as a way of youngsters communicating so that the elder people around wouldn't understand what they were saying. I'd say the language is a kind of pidgin because it isn't official and the vocabulary is fast changing since it uses words from not just two but almost all the tribe languages in Kenya (which are 40 plus). I can't keep up with Sheng myself so I won't dwell on it. It's pretty risky to write about it if you aren't Kenyan in the first place and don't understand how it works because the language changes super fast (I don't think there's a reliable source on the net about Sheng). If your character's a youth, you can mention that he/she "said/cussed out something in Sheng."

I already said that the languages in Kenya are 40 plus. It may come as a shocker to some of you but it's true. I won't mention all of them or we'll be here all day. All the language tribes are categorized into four major groups; Bantus, Nilotes, Cushites and Semites.

Each major group has subgroups that consist of different languages. The language tribes are categorized as so if they have similarities in the form of speaking or some vocab or the origin.

Personally, I'm a Nilote and my tribe is Luo. So if you want to do a bit of profiling of your Kenyan character, give them a tribe. I'll give a few examples: when you Google Bantu, the Kenyan tribes that come up can be Kikuyu, Kamba, Meru, Kisii etc. Nilotes can be River Lake Nilotes (Luo only), Plain Nilotes (Maasai, Samburu, Turkana, Teso, Njemps etc) and Highland Nilotes (Nandi, Sabaot, Bok, Tugen, Keiyo, Bongomek etc). Cushites can be Southern Cushites (Sanya and Dahalo only) and Eastern Cushites (Oromo, Borana, Burji, Somali, Bilin, Rendile etc). For the Semites (they're quite few) they are Arabs, Tigreans, Amharas, Falasha, Bagarra and Nubians.