Ase baria mobwate chimbuche buna nche, you remember Usenet. For the young generation, eyio nigo yarenge buna esimi yo omorande ase eintaneti. Gose kogenda ase e call box goaka esimi. Aye forget about cellphones echi chia rero.
Usenet nigo yarenge e newsgroup, eyio in today's lingo, emineti social website. Korwa abwo, bagatoa Geocities. You were not hip onye tikwabwate e Geocities account. It did not take long. Abanto bakarosa na Geocities and moved on to Myspace.
Erombe ya Myspace did not last long. Nigo kera omonto aagete Myspace etege gochia aaria ekero Facebook na Twitter chiaika ase erwenyi y' eintaneti. Hello? It is 2011. Bono abaminto karibuni to the future. Welcome to Google Plus.
Abanyene Google barentire Google +, bagoteba buna this is the future. Nonya nabo igo, Google Plus nigo yaigora egesieri asiniini, naende ekamanya kogeakerani buna pa! Bono nigo bagoteba buna Google Plus nigo ere in Beta testing. Yaani nga nkona koyetieri bare. Nche I dont know. Egento kerokio manyete nkeri nga I have invitations to Google Plus. Onye gotage koyeunenkia, koranche toma agauko gochia ase akaimeili akwo kare below. Ase the subject line, ka moranche riika: Google Plus. Mwamogusii achabumbe. Enjoy.
Jared Nyaberi, Omosomba bwe Ekegusii nao agotoka ase Abagusii AT Gmail.com, Twitter.com/abagusii na Facebook.com/abagusii. Gusii.com, Atlanta Georgia, United States. Riete (August) 3, 2011.
"Inwe ira ebikori biaino gochia aaria". Nabo Dr. Ndemo ateba. "Intwe titori gochia gwanchera .XXX ase ense yaito ya Kenya" Nabo Dr. Bitange Ndemo amenta naende, ka agokwana ase omosangererekano o 20th anniversary celebrations of World Press Freedom Day, aaria Nairobi.
Dr. Ndemo nigo arenge koiraneria riborio aborigwa kobwatekana no okoigorwa kwe enamba ye eintaneti enyia eyio ekorokwa .XXX. Enamba eyio ya .XXX nigo egecha koba buna .com, .net, .info, .US gose .org ase eintaneti.
Nonya nabo igo, enamba eyio nigo egocha gotwara ebikori bioka. Ebikori biria abanyamorero bakoroka pornography. Nigo Dr. Ndemo ateba inga abaibori abange ba Kenya tibamanyeti kende igoro ye eintaneti rakini abana mbamanyete.
Ase engencho abaibori abange batamanyeti igoro ye eintaneti, Dr. Ndemo nigo ateba inga, "such material would not be controlled."
Goikera bono, Kenya amo na India nachio chinse chioka chiakanire enamba eyio ye ebikori ya .XXX.
Nigo egotebekana inga ange emiaka 20 egocha, abana na abachokoro baito nigo barache koboria inga "amasakara ninki? Ebitabu ninki?" Twatebigwe inga ebitabu ebi tokorora imbisire. Nigo togotebigwa inga nigo bigocha gosira bwango sana. Yaani maiso marore.
Noinyorete e rekodi player? Amo ne esani ekobugerigwa ase ekenanda? ? Gose e cassette tape? That is where the written word is heading. Kera egento nigo kegocha koba ase eintaneti. Onye tikeri gocha gosomwa ase ekompiuta, gose esimi ya koboko, nigo kegocha kororekana ase Amazon Kindle ne ebiombo binde buna ebio.
Rakini aye tokumia. Amariko still naboo. Abariki bari bao bwanchete still imbarike. Enchera yo gosoma yoka egocha gochenchia. Ase ogokwana igoro ya abariki, abaminto karibuni koumera omwana omino, Kerubo Njogu.
Ase okoinyora, omosubati Kerubo nigo are omoriki omogeni ase Gusii.com. Kerubo ominto nere origete Bono Inaki Togokora? na Obororo Bonchunia ase ebulogi eye.
Omosubati Kerubo nigo are an accomplished writer in her own right. Nigo akorika ebulogi yaye ekorokwa LittleGirlwisdom. Inche nigo namotarera, inkamorotota na kogokigwa na amariko no obosemi ase abulogi yaye. Ka moranyore ribaga, abaminto motarere erinde morore inga ninki omwana omino agoteba goetera igaa. Kerubo, karibuni ase obobulogi. Tiga Kenya egenderere.
Obe! Skype rigereria sana. Google oyio korwa maega na cheap or free calls. Google oyio gocha na free phone calls gati ya USA na Canada. Tari igo rioka. Gochwata esimi gochia chinse chinde neche ebe rahisi korwa Amerika na Kanada.
The San Francisco Chronicle nigo egoteba inga Google neche ebwateranie Google Voice na Gmail erinde abateja baanse goaka chisimi goetera ase internet. Komenta nayio, nigo kiaba inga Google teri gocha koboria connection fees. Goaka esimi gochia Kenya, nigo narora Google rates chichakerete:
Kenya - Mobile $0.24 Kenya - Nairobi $0.12
Ase ogoaka esimi enchera eye, goika otware eakounti ase Google Gmail. Igwa bono ase obonge.
Jared Nyaberi is a Slave of The Ekegusii Language. He does not sleep. He only takes catnaps. He can be found at Abagusii AT Gmail.com, Facebook.com/abagusii and Twitter .com/abagusii 24/7. Above: Listening to African Music he does not understand but loves. The epitome of craziness.
We just completed a fund raising event this evening. A fund raising for a fellow Kenyan. Over $18,000 was raised. There were people from all over the world at the event. Everyone at this event attended voluntarily. Out of love. Not coercion. People mingled freely. Out of friendship and love of country. No lawyers were present to want to sue if someone spoke in Ekegusii, Luo or Kalenjin. Above all, no one was afraid of the language police. We spoke mostly in English. Why? Because we were a smorgasbord of the world. Some spoke in Kiswahili. A few spoke in other languages. But we spoke mostly in English. Again, this was done freely.
So what? I am saying this because there is a movement to kill all indigenous languages in favor of English. This movement is now working overtime on the internet. The Internet is revolutionary tool. While the Internet can be liberating, it is also a source of fear. We are naturally afraid of things we do not understand. Stuff we do not know scares most people. Most people get scared if they hear someone speak another language they do not understand. This is normal. "Are they plotting to kill me?" Or is it my shirt that became untucked?" This fear can be endless. Time to take a high blood pressure pill.
Used correctly, the Internet is a great learning tool. There is no end to the amount of knowledge you can get online. As far as the internet is concerned, the limits to what you can learn are up to you. Do you want to learn Russian and you are 80 years old? Go for it grandpa. You just now want to enter law school after graduating from Makerere University back in 1961 with a bachelors degree? It is OK grandma.
The freedom of the Internet frustrates those who want to put a lock on it. The Internet Tamers. People who like to control what others read, see, learn, do..... you name it. Busybodies who have no life. They wake up in the morning thinking of what ways and methods they can employ to control others. They do not like information that is readily available. They would rather toil unnecessarily to learn. They do not think that most of us are intelligent enough to make decisions for ourselves. While creating all the fuss about killing indigenous languages to stop triablism, African Internet Tamers love and enjoy music written and expressed in other languages. They love to listen to Jaluo or Lingala music even if they do not understand a word therein. After listening to a good song, they will play Aristotle and ask us to forget our languages. Great African Musicians refused to budge. Franco Luambo Luanzo Makiadi, Tabu Ley, Sam Manguana. All the great ones. I am not talking about the kids who emulate western song and dance and then disappear into oblivion after just one song. These are cultural icons. They made it speaking their language. They stayed with the culture and along the way made money loving what they do.
Why I am making all this noise? I am a proponent of preserving and saving indigenous languages including mine. I was born speaking Ekegusii. This is the language of my people, the Abagusii or Gusii tribe of Western Kenya. I did not choose to be born in Gusii. I did not choose to speak Ekegusii either. I was raised speaking this language. This background is important because of two things:
First, I am a member of my family. Before I became a Kenyan, I was a son of my father and mother. They were also sons and daughters of someone. A son of the village, Kisii District, Nyanza Province, Kangema High School.....on and on. No one drops down from the sky and automatically becomes a Kenyan. You started somewhere my friend. Some of us started in the lowly village. A few got their feet wet in the towns and cities. Saying that you are a Kenyan first is something I do not understand. Kenya does not become pregnant. People in Kenya or Kenyans do. Sometimes by marrying but some do not. Second, I am a Kenyan. By birth. No one has a choice on where they wish to be born. If that choice was readily made available, the earthly landscape would be different.
My zeal and love to protect my mother tongue culminated in establishing a website, Gusii.com At this website, we enjoy writing most of the articles in Ekegusii. After looking around, we found out that there is not much written in Ekegusii except the Bible. This is a great thing. There is only one problem though. We are living breathing human beings. At other times we want to read other stuff besides the Bible. That does not mean that we are evil. No, we are just like the other 7 billion people enjoying life on the planet. We like distractions too. But we prefer that some distractions not be in English. The language police, please excuse us.
As we kept writing at Gusii.com, we stumbled upon articles that indicated that some languages were in the brink of extinction. This did not make us lose hope. It only solidified our position that Ekegusii must be written and preserved for future generations. How do we do that? We write daily. We publish daily. It hurts us if nothing is published on a daily basis. Talk about taking it personal. There have been times that Gusii.com was not updated due to emergency situations but those have been a few.
Is Gusii.com the only blog not written in English? The Internet Tamers would rather have you believe that. As you research along, you will discover many blogs and websites in other languages. There are websites written in Japanese, Russian, Hindi,Kikuyu....great languages that I would love to learn. We are all human. I am not able to learn all of them. What I would like is if other people world come along and preserve their languages. Protect them. If I had the capability of writing and recording all the world's disappearing languages, I could do it. However that is not possible. At the moment, I am dedicated to Ekegusii. That is the language that I know. Thank God I do not need a PhD to do that. I barely made it through college. So you all know, I am not particularly smart. I just brainstorm and wake up in the middle of the night to write things down. Not smart enough to remember even my own thoughts. Kind of crazy.
A favorite of the Internet Tamers is the excuse that writing in indigenous languages promotes and advances tribalism. Give me a break! What is tribalism? Wikipedia says that "Tribalism is known as the possession of a strong ethnic identity or cultural belief that separates oneself as part of a group from the members of another group. It can be any type of group for example Catholics verse Lutherans. These are two different types of religions that would be considered with the meaning of tribalism."
What? You want to tell me that if I belong to a country club I am therefore a member of a tribe? A graduate of St. Johns Nyamagwa High School is a member of the Nyamagwa Old Boys Tribe? How about the church I go to? Can I not go to any church and not establish membership anywhere and be OK? Why should I keep one church? How about going to a different church every week for the next 52 weeks? Would that make me tribe-less? Mwanyagetinge Group. Is that a tribe? Why do we share our thoughts with just Mwanyagetinge, and not with someone from Vietnam regarding Mwanyagetinge matters?
Equating tribalism with a certain language is immoral and wrong. Calling members of a certain tribe as being bad and yet you do not know all of them personally or they have done nothing wrong to you is called prejudice. There are countries like Somalia, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and others that have a predominant language and yet they are among the most corrupt in the world. Why? Why do developed countries like USA end up prosecuting people for corruption? Tribes? Or why do we have racists? Should we all ask to be changed to one color so racism would go away? Will that frighten the racists and teach them a thing or two? Why don't geneticists do something about it then? How about imposing one language for everyone in the world? Speakers who violate this edict must be put to death. Will that end tribalism quickly?
Others say that indigenous languages cannot be used in commerce, education and have no future. They are right about the education and commerce part but the future? We are here guys. We are not going anywhere. Now the Ekegusii language is not an international language. If I wanted to sell goods on the internet, I would prefer English to Ekegusii. I would rather use a world language in certain matters like education and commerce. But Ekegusii? It is a beautiful language. A boutique language. It is not a language for the masses. Mass production? Study English and Spanish. Ekegusii holds its own.
Holding its own sometimes does not satisfy others. The so-called educated crowd. They are so educated that they need translators to translate for them when some of us speak Ekegusii. "But Ekegusii is so hard....." Hard like what? They'd rather not be heard speaking Ekegusii until they get home. Doing that world make them look uneducated. Us? We do not care. I am an electronics engineer by day. They wrote that electronics stuff in English you know. Bad. Now I have to come home in the evening to write in Ekegusii. Why? To teach Bill Gates and others a lesson. Do you think I will win? It is not about winning,ladies and gentlemen. It is about about having fun baby. That is why we do not work at Gusii.com. We just have fun daily. Let the work continue. May God bless Kenya and The United States
Recent Comments