Ethnic Proverbs as Kiswahili Verbal Art Performance

Abstract

The ever-growing expansion of Kiswahili as a lingua franca has depreciated the status of other languages in Tanzania and the ethnic verbal arts embedded in them. This includes proverbs. The disappearance of ethnic proverbs is unfortunate because proverbs serve several functions in society, including imparting wisdom and representing a culturally inherited worldview. Efforts to mainstream them into Kiswahili proverbial performances, the practical approach to rescue them from disappearing, have been relatively unsuccessful because translated ethnic proverbs lack proverbiality. Consequently, they cannot be mainstreamed into the Kiswahili proverb repertoire. In this paper, I argue that in order to deal with this problem, existing ethnic proverbs should be collected and translated into Kiswahili and finally fleshed out with aesthetic Kiswahili devices. Kiswahili proverbial features would enable them to gain immediate acceptance among Kiswahili speakers. In so doing, the endangered verbal art will be preserved.