Kenyan President William Ruto has faced a social media backlash after publicly suggesting that Nigerian-accented English was incomprehensible and required a translator.
Addressing Kenyans living in Italy on Monday, Ruto said: “If you listen to a Nigerian speaking, you don’t know what they are saying – you need a translator,” while boasting that Kenyans spoke “some of the best English in the world”.
His remarks drew fierce condemnation from Nigerians and other Africans online who accused the Kenyan leader of demeaning a fellow African nation.
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“English is a colonial language, not a measure of intelligence, capability, or national progress,” wrote Hopewell Chin’ono, a Zimbabwean journalist.
As former British colonies, both Kenya and Nigeria share English as an official language, but each country has developed distinct spoken varieties with different phonetic structures.
These differences reflect the influence of indigenous languages – Nigeria has more than 500 languages, which shape its cadence and intonation, while Kenya’s Bantu, Nilotic, and Cushitic mix give rise to its own accents.
But in his address to the diaspora gathering, Ruto said Kenya’s education system produced strong English proficiency and that it was difficult to understand Nigerians when they spoke English.
“Our education is good. Our English is good. We speak some of the best English in the world. If you listen to a Nigerian speaking, you don’t know what they are saying. You need a translator even when they are speaking English,” he said, sparking laughter in the room.
BBC