textbook.
Luganda,
the native language of the people of Buganda,
developed over the centuries as a spoken language. Its written
form is only as recent as the arrival of the Arab and European
influence among the Buganda. It is not easy, and of course it is
not within the scope of this discussion, to trace its origins,
but it is proper to assume that in a dynamic society with such
well structured cultural, social, and political institutions
like those of the Buganda, the language must have experienced a
reciprocal influence during most of the changes the society went
through over the course of its history. It was not however,
until after the second half of the nineteenth century, that
Luganda was first written down and appeared in print in its own
right. The following discussion is neither meant to be a grammar
nor a dictionary of the language. The focus is solely on how the
language is written (i.e. transcribing sound into alphabetic
characters). The first writing clearly was a pilot venture, an
improvisation by the early missionaries, who tried to put the
language in a written form so that their work among the Buganda
would be made easier. The creation of written Luganda words
mainly depended on the interpretation and impression that the
ears of these foreign listeners, had of the Luganda word sounds.
It was not surprising that Speke spelt Kyabaggu (Chabagu).
Looking at the earlier prints by various writers such as Speke,
Stanley and others would confirm the suspicion that each wrote
according to the interpretation his ears perceived. It was
therefore necessary to undertake a serious study of the sounds
in the Luganda language in order to be able to formulate a
proper phonetic system that would help in transferring the sound
of words into proper alphabetical symbols that would be
meaningful in written form.
The
first writers however, were faced with a problem since many of
them were not linguists and the Luganda language was starkly
different, without any linguistic similarity with their mother
tongues. It became an academic adventure for them, trying to
correlate the linguistic features of their native languages with
the sounds they were simply detecting in the Luganda words.
These efforts were necessary because the task of imparting the
Christian norms and social standards of their home base to the
Buganda demanded a system of communication in a medium that was
natural and easily understandable in Buganda. A system of
writing in vernacular was therefore developed and for the first
time the Luganda word sounds were represented in alphabetical
symbols. It's as simple as that.
