Editor, 

RE: "Why schools should embrace Kinyarwanda as the language of instruction” (The New Times, April 19). Using the mother tongue as a medium of instruction is very important indeed. According to an article by Angelica R. Magno, reasons for learning your mother tongue include the following:

1. Communication: By using their mother tongue, young children freely express their thoughts, feelings and emotions to anyone, including their teachers, friends and classmates without any hesitation. It can also help establish and maintain good relationship with friends and family members.

2. Cultural identity: One of the most important features of cultural identity is the ability to speak one’s mother tongue. In addition, literacy in the mother tongue strengthens cultural identity and heritage. Learners will develop an appreciation and understanding of the culture of the mother language and they can use it as basis for comparison with other cultures. The children who have a cultural identity learn to stand the pressure from peer groups of different cultures in schools, work places and society as a whole.

3. Cultural heritage: Mother tongue helps develop respect for and pride in cultural heritage among the group and youth. It also supports the strengthening of transmission of a community’s linguistic heritage and prevents this cultural and linguistic loss or total disappearance of a certain dialect/ language in society.

4. Benefits to the person: The learning of the mother tongue will help children love themselves and their heritage first before they are introduced to the languages and cultures of other people. This will also preserve family bonds and lessen cultural conflicts between generations.

Using mother tongue, a child develops good reading skills, understands the meaning of unfamiliar words, is able to write an essay without any difficulty and accelerate the development of reading ability in the second language.

Man’s native speech is almost like his shadow and inseparable from his personality.

Based on the current trends in languages, it is quite clear that Kinyrwanda, the language of our ancestors, is slowly going extinct. Nowadays, no one can speak two sentences without mixing with English or French. You go to public institutions and the first person of contact will address you in English or French.

But embracing Kinyarwanda as a medium of instruction alone will not save our language as we will find ourselves using more borrowed languages due to the lack of appropriate Kinyarwanda terminologies on the most current subjects (mostly in ICT).

The Rwanda Academy of Language and Culture should try to achieve its responsibilities as enshrined in the law by mostly:

Enriching the Rwandan language for its use in all areas of knowledge;

Approving the appropriate use of Kinyarwanda at all levels;

Ensuring the value of the Rwandan language compared to the other languages that are used in the country;

Promoting the use of Kinyarwanda both in Rwanda and abroad.

We implore RALC to safeguard our language and culture by delivering on its responsibilities.

Kwizera