1.2.2.
Prestige
The attitude of speakers in diglossic communities is typically
that H is the superior, more elegant and more logical language. L is believed
to be inferior, even to the point that its existence is denied. A lot of
Swahili speakers in Bukavu are aware of the existence of the S variety but do
not use it in everyday conversations; they know that it is the superior, the
more elegant and more logical variety. Instead, they resort to the B.S.
variety, the inferior variety that they speak every day. Even people who do not
understand S well would find it unpleasant or even illogical news broadcast or
a local newspaper printed in B.S. This is the prestige that S holds over B.S.
1.2.3.
Literary heritage
In three of Ferguson's four example languages, there is
considerable literature in H which is much admired by the speech community.
Contemporary literature work in H is felt to be the continuation of this great
tradition. The body of the literature has its roots either in the distant past
or in another speech community. Down in Bukavu, S is felt to be the
continuation of Kingwana, the Swahili variety from Maniema, descended from the
East African coast Swahili. Long before colonization, the Eastern part of the
Congo (in which Bukavu is found) had gradually been adopting Swahili through
trade contacts with the East African coast and also as a result of Arab
settlement (Goyvaerts et al. 1983:49). «Sarufi» is someway close to
Kingwana whereas «Bukavu Swahili» is more and more deviant.
1.2.4.
Acquisition
A very significant aspect of diglossia is the different
patterns of language acquisition associated with the High and Low dialects. L
will be used to speak to children and by children among themselves, so that L
is learned in the normal, unselfconscious way. H is always an
«add-on» language, learned after L has been substantially acquired,
usually by formal teaching in school. In Bukavu (and in the East of the Congo),
however, after B.S. has been acquired, primary school pupils will hardly have
access to S for it is devoted least importance in school; it is scarcely
learned as an «add-on» language in public primary schools and simply
not in private ones. S should be learned as a second language; that which plays
a greater social function where it is taught. But it is rather learned as a
foreign language, that is, learned only as a school subject and playing no
official role in the place where it is learned (see Kambale Baha: 2007).
Therefore, generations and generations of Bukavu literate people grow up to
older age with B.S. as the linguistic variety they know, except the few
Congolese citizens in Bukavu who are S self-trained and/or who might have been
exposed to the East African Swahili through residence. These may or use S
easily. Acquisition pattern has two typical effects. First, those who leave
school in early grades, not an unusual phenomenon in many parts of the world,
are not really linguistically trained in S. That is, as far as learning S is
concerned, those who got the S rudiments through schooling, those who left
school very early and those who did not go to school may likely be on the par.
Secondly, in Bukavu, the few people who can speak S are either (foreign)
missionaries who sacrificed time to learn it or some S self-trained indigenous
Congolese citizens whose professions are such as church missionaries,
journalists, teachers and the like, or those Congolese citizens who have been
exposed to East African Swahili. Both (foreign) missionaries and S self-trained
Congolese citizens are less fluent in S than in other. But those who have been
exposed to East African Swahili are considerably fluent in S. The reason for
this is that B.S. is used regularly for everyday communication, whereas S is
learned by memorizing rules of grammar, similar to the way foreign languages,
like English, are learned in school. On the other hand, both (foreign)
missionaries and S self-trained Congolese citizens apply the grammatical rules
of the low variety in their normal speech with perfection, whereas the
corresponding ability in the high variety is limited. In Bukavu, if some people
are asked, they will say that B.S. has no grammar and that B.S. speech is a
mere deviation from S.
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