Bantu F languages (Guthrie 1967-71). A brief sketch of Rangi language ..... Gregg Okesson, as well as to Cathy Davison, Miriam Meyerhoff, Louise Nagler, Hugh.
A PILOT STUDY OF WRITING IN RANGI SOCIETY Oliver Stegen (TAAL)
Abstract In this paper, the results of an investigation into the status quo of writing in Rangi society, a vernacular language group in Northern Central Tanzania, are reported. This investigation includes a sociolinguistic questionnaire in which respondents comment on their use of different genres, and a study of both official and personal letters. The main findings emphasize the importance of personal letters in Rangi society, mainly written in Swahili, Tanzania’s national language, but also a surprising number reported as written in Rangi. Writing styles and conventions are primarily shaped by those of Swahili, given that this is the language in which all Rangi writers have learned to write. As literature production both in Swahili and Rangi is a desired outcome of the Rangi language development project, further research is suggested into what the Rangi consider ‘good style’ for each relevant genre as well as whether and how vernacular writing skills should be taught.
1. Introduction
In late 1996, a language development project was inaugurated for the Rangi language. Rangi is the main language of the Kondoa District of Northern Central Tanzania, spoken by approximately 310,000 speakers (Grimes 2000), and belongs to the geographical cluster of Bantu F languages (Guthrie 1967-71). A brief sketch of Rangi language development is given in Stegen (2003). Most project activities so far concerned language description, especially phonology, morpho-syntax and lexicography. A preliminary orthography, established in 1998, was hardly ever used; its recent revision (SIL 2003) has been taught on an individual basis and is being applied in the production of local literacy materials like calendars and posters featuring Rangi proverbs. As the Rangi language development project reaches a stage at which literature production is increasingly focused on, it will be important for the sustainability of the project to identify and train prospective Rangi writers. In order to do so, researching the situatedness of writing in Rangi society in general is hoped to provide insights into the kinds of people and the kinds of writing which will be most beneficial for the progress of Rangi language development. This paper constitutes a first step in Rangi writing research, being the first of its kind being conducted on this particular language. In the following, I will proceed from the general to the more specific. First, the official approach to language standardization in Tanzania will be contrasted with a more socially oriented approach preferred for Rangi language development, giving a rationale for the particular kind of writing investigated in this study. Second, a sociolinguistic study among the Rangi by way of questionnaire will be described, and those responses which are specific to writing will be discussed. Third, the form and content of letters will be described, including the analysis of two letters written in Rangi. The conclusion provides a summary as well as avenues for future activities. 2. Approaches
It has to be borne in mind that the development of any Tanzanian minority language will be influenced by the way in which Swahili, Tanzania’s national and official language, was and is
developed and standardized. The ongoing process of official Swahili expansion and codification follows a prescriptive approach. An exemplary outline of that approach can be seen from the following extract: For all practical purposes, the preferred instrument of standardization is officially commissioned publications, with specific conditions as to the choice of the writing system, the source of borrowing, the dialect, etc. The administrative techniques by which literature of the desired kind can be helped into existence are variegated and complex, and need a detailed study. (Ray 1963: 70) In recent years, however, a move away from prescriptivism and standardization in literacy has led to different approaches: ‘Literacy is best understood as a set of social practices; these can be inferred from events which are mediated by written texts’ (Barton et al. 2000: 8). Also for purposes of Rangi language development, such a ‘new literacy approach’ is considered most beneficial for Rangi mother tongue speakers. The project aim is less the mere standardization of yet another minority language as rather the empowerment of the Rangi people to improve their own situation in whatever aspect they deem appropriate. That the teaching of writing is linked to other abilities leading to such empowerment has been observed by others before: The fact that few people’s lives are so constructed as to permit them to exercise creativity, imagination, criticism, is a fault not of the teaching of writing but of society. Given the lives that most school-leavers will lead, I believe that there are, in addition to these, other skills with which the teaching of writing should provide them. (Kress 1994: 14) As a contribution to this broadened approach to literacy, and in order to progress in the language development project along lines which are meaningful to the Rangi themselves, this study aims to explore the status quo of writing in Rangi society as well as to listen to the desires and aspirations of Rangi mother tongue speakers. 3. A sociolinguistic questionnaire
In response to the recommendation that ‘more attention has to be given to sociolinguistic aspects’ (Stegen 2003: 5), a sociolinguistic questionnaire was devised (see appendix). While it had been hoped to elicit responses in group interviews where many Rangi would write down their answers to one question simultaneously after a brief discussion in case of uncertainties, mother tongue speaker consent for such an activity was not received. They preferred to take the questionnaires home and fill them out individually. This approach led to a lower turnout rate as well as to inconsistencies in answers due to different understanding of individual questions. Consequently, the caveat should be given that the results of the questionnaire are not conducive for quantitative analysis; rather, a qualitative approach will be taken, particularly observing the responses to those questions related to writing. While questionnaires continue to be handed out, the 113 questionnaires returned so far are deemed sufficient for the purposes of a pilot study as aimed at in this paper. However, the sample is not representative in all regards. For example, the respondents represent 18 women against 54 men (41 did not identify their gender unambiguously). The six political divisions of Kondoa District which are predominantly Rangi speaking are unevenly represented with 38 respondents being born in Pahi division, 30 in Kondoa, 23 in Bereko, 6 in Mondo, 4 in Kolo, and only 2 in Goima (10 either did not give their place of birth or were born outside of Rangi speaking area). While the percentage of primary school attendees among respondents is at 91.2% within the range of what can be expected in Tanzania, the percentage of respondents
with secondary education is at 29.2% significantly higher than the district’s average of between 1.8% and 9.3% for the years 1991-96 (KDC 1998). Finally, although no point of comparison is available, the number of respondents reporting to be bilingual may be relatively high (25 with Swahili, 9 with neighbouring minority languages). 3.1 Results and discussion Given the pervasiveness of Swahili in Tanzanian society at large, it should not come as a surprise that almost all respondents report being able to write Swahili; only two explicitly state that they are illiterate, and two others remark that they usually do not write anything. What may be surprising, however, is that 36 respondents claim to be writing Rangi from time to time. Nine actually wrote some Rangi words on their questionnaires, and ten asked about how to write particular Rangi words. The habit of writing in the Rangi language seems to be independent of gender (6 women, 24 men, 6 of unknown gender), age (see table 1) or education (only 10 with secondary education which at 27.8% is comparable to the sample’s rate of 29.2%). Table 1: Proportion of Rangi writers by age group decade of birth no. of respondents no. of Rangi writers % of Rangi writers
1920s 6 3 50.0%
1930s 13 5 38.5%
1940s 12 2 16.7%
1950s 11 6 54.5%
1960s 20 4 20.0%
1970s 29 9 31.0%
1980s 14 6 42.9%
With regard to the language development project’s search for potential Rangi authors, the results do not show a preference for a specific age group. Hence, both young and old can be targeted for training prospective writers. One respondent reported the use of ‘Kirumi’, a kind of secret language, in which every letter of the Swahili alphabet is represented by a different symbol, e.g. A = 2, or N = π. This secret writing convention is confined to the Swahili language only. However, it bears evidence of the complexity of writing habits in Rangi society. When it comes to particular writings which the respondents produce, letters are the form mentioned most often (only 4 claim not to write letters at all), followed by stories, songs, poems, and recipes, and 76 report not to use diaries or calendars in writing. Writing any of these in Rangi is explicitly mentioned for letters, songs and stories, whereas Swahili and even English are mentioned for all categories. Respondents also reported the production in writing of further categories like essays (explicitly on aspects of Rangi culture), translations (both between Rangi and Swahili, and between Swahili and English), and Qur’an verses (in Arabic only). In addition to categories mentioned in the questions themselves, respondents mentioned the following as useful to be written in the Rangi language (in order of frequency): prayers and religious writings (which may actually be due to the language development project being affiliated with the church), the history of the Rangi people, a dictionary, proverbs, riddles, games, newspapers and magazines, political essays, and linguistic information. Almost all of these were also mentioned by respondents as having been tried to be produced but failed, with stories (47) and letters (30) being by far the most frequent categories in the responses to this particular question. Two more categories, mentioned by respondents that they would buy these if available in the Rangi language, were technical instructions and jokes. It should be borne in mind that, apart from letters and stories, most of the other genres mentioned will only have been read, rather than written by Rangi people themselves. Such a distinction between active and passive genres has implications for Rangi writers’ workshops; emphasis should be put on
active genres with which the Rangi are already familiar, and on those passive genres which the Rangi have an interest in producing actively. With regard to importance for writing, Swahili takes precedence over any other language, with the spheres of school, general education, office and hospital work, and letter writing being mentioned explicitly. By contrast, the importance of Rangi is predominantly seen for mutual understanding in conversation, for trade and for cultural activities like circumcision; the only activity mentioned which is directly related to writing is letter-writing. Also, the additional comments given on the Rangi language concern mainly reading, the preservation, and the teaching of the Rangi language. While many would value Rangi literature to be available for reading, only very few explicitly consider the ability to write their mother tongue to be an educational improvement. This seems to indicate that the majority of Rangi may expect to be written to or for rather than to write themselves. This perception of writing will have to be taken into account in the planning of writers’ workshops. For example, the purpose and benefits of such workshops will have to be explained and discussed in detail before Rangi writers will be willing to attend. Through the medium of Swahili, the Rangi are aware of a variety of different genres as mentioned in the responses to the questionnaire reported above. When it comes to writing themselves, the focus seems to lie on personal letters (actually, no respondent mentioned official letters at all). Consequently, that is the form which will be investigated a bit more in depth. 4. A closer look at letters
Bazerman (2000) has identified the genre of letters as the basic genre from which other genres developed, like legal, governmental, political and financial documents, as well as newspapers, scientific journals and the novel. Hence, letters seem to be pivotal in literature production and evolution. Surveying the letters which I received from Rangi mother tongue speakers over the course of six years (1997-2003), it is noteworthy that all of them have been written in Swahili (the occasional Rangi greeting at beginning or end notwithstanding). They can be separated into official and personal letters. Official letters almost exclusively stem from the period when a Rangi language development committee, consisting predominantly of government officials, was in operation (February 1999 - January 2000). Consequently, these letters deal with invitations to meetings, minutes of meetings, notification of meetings being postponed or cancelled, and reports on project activities by the project employee. Their format, especially for invitations and minutes, follows the conventional styles of these genres in Swahili which can be found throughout Tanzania. By contrast, personal letters can be categorized into the following: • requests (for employment, for financial assistance, or for help in other matters)
• • •
thanks (for a gift received) information (that an intended visit is cancelled or postponed, or on personal situation) invitation (to wedding, or to school graduation)
While following some general letter-writing conventions like a letterhead containing address and date, some formalized greetings, and a signature at the end, the style of these personal letters tends to be more conversational.
4.1 Analysis of two letters Of particular interest are a number of letters which have been made available to me, which were written in Rangi. These letters were written to an American who, with his family, had lived in a Rangi village for a period of two years during the time of which he was learning Rangi without learning Swahili. Consequently, those of his Rangi friends, who wanted to communicate with him after his departure from Kondoa District but not able to do so in English, had to write to him in their mother tongue Rangi, an activity none of them had engaged in previously. Of the five authors (all male, and all having written two letters each), some showed signs of heavy influence from English letter writing as evidenced in letterhead, address, style of final greetings and even parenthesized translations of presumably difficult Rangi phrases into English. One of the letter writers is a local government official and hence used to writing letters in Swahili the letter-writing style of which in turn has been influenced by English. The two letters of a 25 year old primary school graduate have been chosen for analysis in this section, as they are presumably least influenced by already conventionalized letter writing styles. While permission has been granted to give examples from the letters’ structure, I am not permitted to divulge of their content due to their personal nature. By way of introduction, something should be said about the setting of these two letters. The first one was written about six to seven months after the American family had left the Rangi village. By that time, a few villagers had already written letters to that family and received answers but the particular author of our two letters had not. So, the two letters represent the very first two he writes to them. Table 2 shows a general overview of the 25 sentences of the first letter. For present purposes, a sentence has been defined by the punctuation of the author. Table 2: Overview of letter 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
question about addressees question about addressees [in Swahili] question about addressees question about addressees address + question about addressees question about addressees statement about relationship statement about writer’s situation reported other people’s question about addressees reported answer statement about other people statement about village’s situation question (one Rangi/Swahili term translated into English) statement about writer statement about writer statement about relationship request for greeting other people request for greeting other people request for greeting addressees’ parents conversational response to greeting request for greeting including reported speech request for greeting including reported speech statement about addressees request for greeting everyone identification of writer
Strikingly, the letter shows some heavy influence from conversation. This is evident right at the beginning of the letter where the writer launches into a list of six questions, and only the fifth question actually addresses his addressees by name. This mimics conversational behaviour in face-to-face encounters where two Rangi would greet each other with the very kind of questions found at the beginning of the letter. Another indication of conversational influence is that all reported speech, although not indicated by quotation marks, is direct and not indirect. Sentence 20 even contains the writer’s response to an imagined question about his situation, as would customarily be asked in Rangi conversation following a greeting like the one in sentence 19. The few indications that the text is actually a letter, like the signature at the end, have not been taken from letter writing conventions in Swahili or English either but are actually an identificational phrase from conversational Rangi again: ni nene [NAME] “it is me, [NAME]”. By contrast, the second letter shows a slightly different structure. It has to be borne in mind that it was written about two months after the first one, in response to a letter from the American family to the author. An overview is given in table 3.
Table 3: Overview of letter 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
address + question about addressees statement about writer statement about writer congratulations to addressees statement about writer request for greeting including reported speech statement about village’s situation statement about writer reported other people’s question about addressees reported answer statement about writer statement about writer including question about addressees statement about act of writing request for greeting everyone (one name explicitly mentioned) identification of writer
While this letter is notably shorter, it still contains much of the same information as the first one. Sentences in this second letter which contain significant lexical and propositional overlap with the first one include no.1 (combining no.3 and 5 of the first one), no.9 and 10 (same content as no.9 and 10 of first letter), and no.11 (same content as no.14). Before it can be determined whether these similarities constitute Rangi language specific features of personal letter writing which should be taught as relevant in writers’ classes, more personal letters of various Rangi writers will have to be looked at. Certain differences of this second letter over against the first letter, like starting the letter with an address and shortening all the greetings both at the beginning and at the end, might have been in response to the letter received from the addressee. This is taken to be a clear indication that even writers unfamiliar with letterwriting conventions will quickly conform to those of their writing partners. Given the prominence of Swahili as language of wider communication throughout Rangi society on the one hand, and the only very recent development of Rangi literacy on the other, it is yet to be awaited whether conventions and/or genres particular to the Rangi language will develop, or whether Rangi writing will rather predominantly follow the conventions laid down in Swahili.
5. Conclusion
There is growing evidence that writing is an integral activity in Rangi society, albeit mainly in the Swahili language. Particularly letter-writing, almost everyone engages in, with a significant minority also doing so in their mother tongue Rangi. From their familiarity with Swahili literature, the Rangi recognize and are able to distinguish a good variety of different genres, ranging from religious writings through cultural items like stories, proverbs and riddles to essays and technical instructions. As mentioned in subsection 3.1, however, most Rangi will probably use these different genres rather passively, i.e. in reading, rather than actively in writing. In order to develop literature production in a meaningful way, it will be important to make writing skills available in those domains perceived as relevant by Rangi speakers themselves. This preliminary analysis suggests that personal letters and narratives are the prominent genres to start with. As no subgroup of Rangi society, neither a certain age group nor those of a particular education, featured as more active in writing than others, it is further suggested that any Rangi having experience and interest in writing in general would be suitable to be trained as prospective Rangi authors. Before launching specific writing classes, however, a number of questions will have to be investigated, for example: • What is considered ‘good style’ for each genre to be developed? • Do the Rangi perceive a need for teaching on letter writing? • If they do, do they perceive a need for standardization of the orthography, or even of their language as a whole? • Should the teaching of writing skills be performed predominantly in the Rangi language, in Swahili, or bilingually in both? Such further investigation and research will have to be conducted in closer cooperation with those Rangi who are active in literature production, both in Rangi and in Swahili. Indeed, most of the above questions can only fully be answered by them. Acknowledgements My involvement with the Rangi language development project has been made possible under residence permit numbers C 42314 and C 21903 at the invitation of the Diocese of Central Tanganyika to whom I am most grateful. Financial support from the Corporation Academic Scholarship Fund of SIL International, from the Uganda-Tanzania Branch of SIL, and from Wycliff e.V. Germany is gratefully acknowledged. I am further indebted to all those who provided personal information on and in the Rangi language, especially to Peter Patrick and to Gregg Okesson, as well as to Cathy Davison, Miriam Meyerhoff, Louise Nagler, Hugh Trappes-Lomax, Martin Walsh and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. The usual disclaimers apply. References Barton D. and N. Hall. (eds.) 2000. Letter Writing as a Social Practice. Studies in Written Language and Literacy 9. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Barton D., M. Hamilton and R. Ivanic. (eds.) 2000. Situated Literacies. New York: Routledge. Bazerman C. 2000. ‘Letters and the social grounding of differentiated genres’ in Barton and Hall (eds.) 2000: 15-29. Grimes B. (ed.) 2000. Ethnologue, Languages of the World. Fourteenth edition. Dallas: SIL.
Guthrie M. 1967-71. Comparative Bantu. Volumes I-IV, Farnborough: Gregg. KDC (Kondoa District Council). 1998. ‘District Education Profile 1991-96’. Special report. Kondoa District Council. Kress G. 1994. Learning to Write. Second edition. London / New York: Routledge. Ray P. 1963. Language Standardization: Studies in Prescriptive Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton. SIL 2003. ‘Herufi za Kirangi’. Leaflet distributed to teach how to write the Rangi language. Dodoma: SIL. Stegen O. 2003. ‘If You’ve Got a Mother Tongue, Please Use It!’. Paper presented at TAAL Postgraduate Conference, May 26-28, 2003. University of Edinburgh. Downloaded from
Appendix In the original questionnaire as distributed, the right-hand column is empty for respondents to fill in their answers. In this appendix, the right-hand column contains the English translation of the Swahili questions. Jinsia yako Umezaliwa mwaka gani? Umezaliwa katika kijiji au mji gani? Mahali pa kuzaliwa kwa mamako Mahali pa kuzaliwa kwa babako Ukoo wako wa Kirangi Lugha zako za kwanza ni zipi? Umeanza kujifunza Kirangi, Chasi, Kiburunge n.k. lini? Umeanza kujifunza Kiswahili lini? Umeanza kujifunza Kiingereza lini? Shule ya msingi uliyoihudhuria Shule ya sekondari uliyoihudhuria Chuo chochote ulichokihudhuria Umewahi kuandika chochote kwa Kirangi? Kwa kawaida unaandika lugha gani? Wewe huandika barua kwa lugha zipi? Umewahi kuandika mashairi? Ya lugha gani? Umewahi kuandika nyimbo? Kwa lugha zipi? Umewahi kuandika hadithi? Kwa lugha zipi? Umewahi kuandika shajara? Kwa lugha zipi? Umewahi kuandika mapishi? Maelekezo mengine? Kwa lugha zipi? Umewahi kuandika orodha ya uwekaji hesabu? Umewahi kuandika kitu kingine ambacho hakijatajwa? Katika maoni yako, aina zipi za maandiko zingefaa kuandikwa kwa lugha ya Kirangi? Umewahi kuwa na hamu ya kuandika kitu fulani kwa lugha ya Kirangi na kushindwa? Katika maoni yako, Kirangi kina umuhimu kwa mambo gani? Eleza sababu yake. Katika maoni yako, Kiswahili kina umuhimu kwa mambo gani? Eleza sababu yake. Katika maoni yako, Kiingereza kina umuhimu kwa mambo gani? Eleza sababu. Je, ungenunua vitabu vya Kirangi? Vitabu vya aina gani? Kama una maoni mengine kuhusu lugha ya Kirangi, uyaandike: (Tumia nyuma ya karatasi pasipotosha hapa.)
Your gender Which year were you born? Which village or town were you born in? Place of birth of your mother Place of birth of your father Your Rangi clan affiliation Which were your first languages? When did you start to learn Rangi, Chasi, Burunge etc? When did you start to learn Swahili? When did you start to learn English? Primary school you attended Secondary school you attended Any colleges you attended Have you ever written anything in Rangi? Which language do you usually write in? Which languages do you write letters in? Have you ever written poems? In which language? Have you ever written songs? In which language? Have you ever written stories? In which language? Have you ever written a diary? In which language? Have you ever written recipes? Or other instructions? In which language? Have you ever written book keeping lists? Have you ever written anything else which has not yet been mentioned? In your opinion, which kind of writings would be useful to be written in Rangi? Have you ever had the urge to write anything in Rangi but could not? In your opinion, what is Rangi important for? Give reasons for it. In your opinion, what is Swahili important for? Give reasons for it. In your opinion, what is English important for? Give reasons for it. Would you buy books written in Rangi? What kind of books? If you have other comments on the Rangi language, write them here: (Use back of paper if necessary.)
