Linguistic strategies in Luyaaye: Word-play and conscious language manipulation

Saudah Namyalo Makerere university

Why research on Luyaaye?

What is Luyaaye?

Why not other Uganda’s indigenous languages which are less documented or highly endangered and face extinction?

Frequently asked questions

Effective dissemination of information to the youths (Uganda has the world’s youngest population, with over 78% below 30 years of age)

There is need to understand the role of Luyaaye in educational contexts; (its impact on official languages)

Luyaaye is like any other language, thus should be documented and described

Why research on Luyaaye?

It is fan, or just for ‘laughs’. Look at the example below:Blood wange, Proffesor waffe bamusindise ku univerisity asome degree ya myaka ena.Lit. My blood , our professor has been sent to the university for a four years degree

Meaning: My friend, the chief criminal has been sentenced to prison for four years.

Why research on Luyaaye cont’ed

Luyaaye is broadly characterised as an urban- youth (UYL)

Urban Youth Language is a term used to refer to a phenomena of ‘informal varieties’ spoken in rapidly urbanising contexts of African cities.

It is however evolving into an urban language

What is Luyaaye?

Luyaaye as a linguistic phenomenon is not exclusive to Uganda (Kampala) alone.

Camfranglais in Cameroon, Nouchi (Ivory Coast), Indoubil (DRC), Rinkeby Sweden, straattaal – ‘street language’ in the Netherlands

forms of multicultural British English, Sheng in Kenya,

What is Luyaaye cont’ed

Where is Luyaaye spoken?

Kampala divisions as Luyaaye territories

The basic grammatical construction of Luyaaye is derived from Luganda thus Luganda provides the syntactic frame.

The creation of words is done in a constant process of quick reinvention with an aim of excluding the uninitiated.

It is done in a manner that portrays ‘word play and conscious language manipulation.

The grammar of Luyaaye

For its lexical expansion Luyaaye uses mainly two broad linguistic strategies:

Borrowing (Lexical and affix borrowing)

semantic manipulations (Metaphor, metonym, hyperbole, antonyms )

Linguistic strategies in Luyaaye

1. Lexical borrowing: Luyaaye heavily borrows from the following languages:

Luyaaye

English50%

Kiswahili10%

Sheng39%

Sudanese Lgs. 1%

The linguistic form of the loans can either be maintained or nativised. Nativised loans are reduced to the phonology and morphology of Luganda e.g. (syllable, tone, noun class) Dog – ddóóga (child)The loans especially from English undergo semantic change as exemplified below: Front page -forehead Blood - brother/sister (friend)

What happens to the loans?

Quite often these do not undergo semantic change. Perhaps because many Ugandan do not speak these languages.

Kiswahili : Baridi (cold), hadithi (story)Sudanese’s Languages: Meya - God Sheng :Pakalast pakalast (Here to stay)Bbonga Bonga (hi)

Loans from Kiswahili, Sheng & Sudanese Languages

Borrowed affixes The use of the English suffix ‘–ing’ realised as ‘–inga’ in Luyaaye.

The suffix ‘-inga’ is normally indexed on borrowed English stems

Design Okudizayininga [Infin- design- Pres./Aspect-FV] to be given a name.Example: Helen twamudizayinize litayito erya kabi

Lit. Helen was designed with a dangerous title

Meaning: Helen was given a nice name.

Borrowed affixes cont’The derived verbs are inflected for tense, person, aspect and mood e.g. yeesimaatinze [3sg-past-smart-Perfect]

Sometimes the syllables of the new linguistic form are reversed in a style locally know as ‘oludikya’ e.g.yeesimatinze - nzetimaasiyee.  

Suffix -ika Luyaaye also draws from Luganda for morphemic hybridization. The suffix ‘– ika’ which denotes potentiality (-able, -ible) in Standard Luganda is often manipulated to create new words.

It is suffixed on English nominal stems to derive verbs. For example,

Okulayinika [Infin -line- Pont.] ‘to become rich’.

Juma yalayinise (Juma is now rich)  

Affix ma-

Luyaaye uses the prefix ma- which it attaches to English nominal and adjectival stems to derive nouns.

In Luganda ma- serves as a generic plural marker . In Luyaaye however, it looks to be a dummy suffix. English derived Luyaaye form new meaning Wire mawaya Mad personSteady masitede NewsSmart masimaati Cloth/es

Side Masayidi Home Target matageti Mission

Prefix aka-obu’ Luyaaye employs the prefix ‘aka-obu’ to derive nouns especially those that refer to body parts.

In Luganda ka-bu signifies diminutives but in Luyaaye they are just employed in a playful manner

Luyaaye Akasuula [ aka- drop] - bum Obulya [ obu-eat] - teeth

Sexy yatisse obulya nga mawayaLit: Sexy carried those that eat like a wireMeaning: A university girl laughed like a mad person.

2. Semantic manipulation Luyaaye expands its lexicon through semantic manipulations. These generally occur as: Metaphors

Metonyms

Hyperbole

Antonym

Metaphorical expansion Metaphorical expansion refers to the process ofendowing an already existing word in question over

and above its existing semantic value with a specific

meaning in another field Okusuna gitta - to pray a guitar to scratch/rub your body

Okujjako ettaala- to switch off lights to sleep

b)Metonymy Metonymy is a type of semantic transfer in which one entity is taken to stand for another on the basis of contextual relationship.For example: Professor

Professor in Luyaaye means someone who is sharp/smart and can live the street life successfully. This is related to an academic professor who is always perceived by the community as an intelligent person.

c. Hyperbole Use of exaggeration is another strategy

Yalidde amatogero kaasaLit: He eat one thousands drumsMeaning: He ate a lot.

Oyo deemu atawanyika nga bbaati Lit. That woman runs like an iron sheet. Meaning: That woman runs as fast as an aeroplane (runs very fast)

These are tendencies of saying the opposite of

a given word. For example: Okwesala obuwero Lit: to be dressed in torn old cloths Meaning: To be dressed smartly and in expensive cloths.Jenny yeesaze obuwero.

Antonyms

The rate of lexical change is high (synonyms)

The etymology of some words is not easy to determine, thus remain an accounted for

It is a language game. This makes its syntactic frame rather unstable and thus a challenge to describe it meaningfully

Challenges

Conclusion

The linguistic strategies as seen above are not peculiar to Luyaaye. These are the same strategies used almost in all languages. However in Luyaaye it is a ‘language game’, playing with words and consciously manipulating them to serve their intended purpose of excluding the uninitiated and to flee themselves from their cultural ties which label them as ‘traditional, backward and un-urban

AMA- END