Dartmouth takes pride in diversity. It is a school that makes serious attempts at creating a heterogeneous atmosphere in a relatively homogeneous region. There are culture nights, clubs created along racial/ethnic lines, affinity housing, the Language Study Abroad/Foreign Study Program, and many other steps taken to try and ensure a diverse Dartmouth. There is, however, one thing the school has missed.
After going on the Kenya FSP last year, I learned something: Dartmouth offers no courses in African languages. While at Dartmouth, a student can learn any of seven different European languages, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, or Hebrew. Classes are even offered in one dead language, Latin. There is not one offering of a language spoken in sub-Saharan Africa, however. It is true that it is difficult to choose one language to teach from such a vast and culturally diverse continent as Africa. There are over 1,000 languages spoken in Africa, and at least that many cultures speaking them.
The language that has the strongest case for being adopted by Dartmouth is Swahili. A lyrical tongue that has its origins in the ancient coastal trade of East Africa, it is the official language of three countries, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, and is spoken to varying extents in 13 other African nations. It was also adopted by the Organization of African Unity as their official language. With well over 60 million speakers, it is the closest thing to a universal African language, and is already the unifying lingua franca of East Africa.
There is a strong academic case that can be made for the introduction of Swahili here at Dartmouth. It stems from the way in which we learn about other cultures. If you take a history class, you get an overview of when major events happened in a place and who were the key figures involved, but not a sense of the underlying culture the events were steeped in. If you delve deeper and take an anthropology course, you get a detached, almost mathematical lesson in the workings of a culture. If you take a language, however, you begin to get a sense of how others think and live from a very personal point of view. If you then take that language and apply it by speaking it with others in a foreign nation, you are drawn deep into the bosom of that culture, living, learning, and understanding it as no class can ever allow you. Swahili courses at Dartmouth would be the stepping stone to this understanding, and would broaden the school in an area where it is currently weak.
The most common argument that I have heard against Swahili is the question of its utility. When I have asked fellow students if they would have ever taken a Swahili course, the usual response is, "It might be cool, but when could I ever use it?" It boils down to this: If I am going to put my time and energy into learning this language, what benefit will I see from it? This is a valid argument, and can actually be applied to several of the languages currently taught here. (I personally believe the mo' languages, the mo' better). However, there is an equally valid counter argument aside from the purely academic/cultural. This is largely an economic one.
Most of the countries where Swahili is spoken are classified as developing nations. They have relatively young, weak economies. To a Westerner, that makes them economic frontiers of a sort. Markets of the future that are wide open to entrepreneurs. Many American multinational companies such as Coca-Cola are already heavily invested in Swahili-speaking Africa, and others such as Ford, Chrysler, and RJR Reynolds have recently moved in. As African markets grow, the possibility that the company you are working for will be involved in trade with Africa grows as well. Because Swahili is based in Bantu, the family of languages that is most widely spoken in Africa, it can be used as a bridge to quickly learn other African languages. This ability can only help one with a business working in or with Africa. This same language skill can also be applied by researchers who want to do work overseas, by diplomats, by members of the military, or by anyone working or traveling in Africa. Yes, there actually is a use for Swahili. It began as a trading language, and can still be widely used as such.
I am not saying that Dartmouth should create an entire Swahili department tomorrow. Like all things, it would have to start small, building support within the faculty and student body, perhaps beginning as a seminar class or miniversity course. The eventual creation of Swahili 1-3 taught in the African and African-American Studies Department and a LSA would be ample enough to add greatly to Dartmouth. These simple changes could increase the breadth of knowledge we acquire in our short time in Hanover, and create an even better education for the next generation of Dartmouth students. Na Kiswahili kitumike na wanafunzi wa Dartmouth. Let there be Swahili for the students of Dartmouth.
Author's Note: thanks to Lee Ogutha '99
