TOURISM IN KENYA AND THE MARGINALIZATION OF SWAHILI

Swahili people in Kenya remain relatively invisible to tourists as they were to colonialists. Their language and culture is sidelined politically and economically while the idea of Swahili helps foster nationalism and economic growth. Swahili and the position of its speakers vis-a-vis other languages and groups in the country is described as marginal, despite Swahili's role as the national and an official language. Standardized Swahili appears in formal contexts, but in business, government, and industry is used as an urban mixed-language form quite different from coastal Swahili and its literary and ethnic association. As Kenya undergoes nationbuilding and economic change, Swahili-speaking people are acquiring an ethnicity where perhaps none existed before.