The Other Side of the Coin: Borrowing and Vitality in Lubukusu

Abstract

When languages come into contact, there is some degree of cultural contact, however limited. As a result, there is bound to be some negative as well as positive language change. Borrowing, bilingualism, code switching, code mixing, pidgins, creoles, language shift and language death are some of the products of language contact. The focus of this paper is linguistic borrowing as a result of contact between two languages: Lubukusu, an African language spoken by the Babukusu, a sub-tribe of the Luhya ethnic group of Bungoma County, Kenya and English, a foreign language in Kenya, first introduced through European explorers, Christian missionaries, traders and the British colonialist and its resultant effect on the borrowing language.