Et Tu, Ruto? Language, Identity, and the Persistence of Colonial Prestige

“A language,” once observed by Robert Bringhurst, “is an organism: a weightless, discontinuous organism that lives in the minds and bodies of those who speak it.” Languages are not merely tools of communication; they are repositories of cultural traditions, identity, and knowledge systems. When a language is diminished or lost, so too are the oral histories, ecological wisdom, and cultural memory embedded within it.

It is therefore troubling that, decades after political independence, the psychological architecture of colonialism continues to shape how many in formerly colonized societies perceive themselves. Nowhere is this more evident than in the pride often attached to fluency in colonial languages.

Recent remarks by William Ruto, boasting that Kenyans speak English better than Nigerians, bring this issue into sharp focus. Such statements, made from the highest political platform, reflect not confidence but a lingering colonial hangover: the elevation of the colonizer’s language as a marker of superiority.

This is not a trivial matter. The English language was a central instrument of British colonial rule, deployed not only to administer territories but to reshape identities and hierarchies. Across colonies, indigenous languages were suppressed, sometimes violently. In Ghana, as in many parts of Africa, schoolchildren were punished for speaking their mother tongues, often dismissed as “vernacular.” The message was clear: advancement required linguistic, and by extension, cultural, assimilation.

The legacy of this system persists. As Marcus Garvey famously warned, “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.” The uncritical celebration of colonial languages risks reinforcing precisely that condition.

To be clear, English today functions as a global lingua franca. Its utility in diplomacy, commerce, and science is undeniable. But utility should not be mistaken for cultural prestige, nor should proficiency be framed as a civilizational achievement worthy of national pride.

Indeed, a growing movement across the Global South is challenging these inherited hierarchies. Indigenous communities are reclaiming their names, revitalizing endangered languages, and reasserting linguistic sovereignty. This is not a rejection of global engagement but a rebalancing, an insistence that participation in the world need not come at the cost of cultural erasure.

African leaders, in particular, carry a responsibility to model this confidence. Celebrating linguistic diversity and investing in indigenous languages would send a far more powerful message than competing over mastery of a colonial tongue.

If the heroes of anti-colonial struggle, figures such as Dedan Kimathi, were to reflect on such moments, one suspects they would ask not how well we speak the language of empire, but how firmly we have reclaimed our own voices.

Shaibu A. Gariba
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaibu-gariba/

Email: [email protected]

April 26, 2026.