• Person
Third person singular is often omitted:
- he walk to school daily
- she go to the market
The third person singular is also used in the first person singular position:
- drink this, I drinks the other
- when I takes tea I feel good
• The Copula
At times, speakers may not use the copula in their constructions:
- if you interested I can give you an offer
- I going to the hospital
• Have
The perfective ‘have’ may also be omitted:
- we done the exercise
- the boy he eaten his food
21
• Regularizing Irregular Or Strong Verbs
Irregular verbs may also be made regular by adding the past form marker –ed at the end:
- the animal was catched
- they had eated
- she was beated
• Topicalisation
This is a feature one may find even in British English as a form of politeness:
- If you don’t mind me asking, how can I get across the border?
In Kenya, topicalization is a form of emphasis where the subject pronoun is at times
reinforced by the object pronoun, or just repeated:
- them they are happy
- we ourselves are going
- my grandmother she is unwell
- the dog it is barking
- me I hate that person
• Double Negative
In some constructions, one may come across double negatives especially in
conversational English:
- there wasn’t nobody when the house burned down
- nothing wasn’t stolen from me
- I don’t have nothing
• Lack of Concord between Noun Or Pronoun And Verb:
Relative pronouns must be of the same person and number; its antecedent and number
must agree:
- the guests is here
- checkers are an interesting sport
• The Genitive
In writing, the genitive is not marked:
- the girls hostel is around here
- the mechanics toolbox was stolen
When it comes to speech, the genitive marker ‘s’ is avoided:
- the car of the teacher
- this house is for my father
- the land of my mother
• Invariable Nouns Are Mostly Regularized For Number:
- equipments
- Luggages
- Beddings
- sheeps
- furnitures
- firewoods
- charcoals
- grasses
- childrens
- two dozen
• In A Sentence, Nouns Which Usually Remain Singular Are Pluralized:
- he was given five thousands shillings for shopping
- he has no hairs on his head
- he bought a five-years-old house
On the other hand, nouns which are normally plural are singularized:
- he gave me a trouser
- use the scissor to cut the paper
• Direct Translations And Transfer Of Concepts From First Language:
- I am hearing cold
- He is drinking cigarettes
- My cow has a child
- I stopped a car
- The bike stood near me
- Greet me your aunt
- I slept like that
- The car slept on the road
- Borrow me some money
• Gender
There is lack of feminine and masculine contrast in Kenyan English. There is lack of
gender differentiation of nouns:
- the girl himself looks pretty
- mercy took his children to school
- her wife is a secretary
24
• Prepositions
At times, prepositions are deleted in constructions. In its place, an inappropriate
preposition may be used. This happens because African languages tend to have very few
prepositions:
- they are interested with the story
- she prefers tea than porridge
- the teacher for duty is late
• Articles
Articles and other determiners tend to be omitted before nouns. Sometimes the wrong
article is applied:
- he is going to market
- she went for wedding
- it was encouragement for me
- he has African heritage
- she gave me egg
• Adjectives
Adjective forms tend to be used in the place of adverbs:
- I can do it proper
- I got the job easy
- The animal killed him merciless
25
• Yes/No Questions
The responses to these questions are usually to the form but not to the logic of the
question:
- You don’t know this, do you? Yes I don’t.
- You did not get what you wanted? Yes I did not.
• Question Tags
Kenyan English has one generalized question tag for all situations for auxiliaries.
Speakers normally use ‘isn’t it?’ for all sentences:
- You are going to town, isn’t it?
- The dog has died, isn’t it?
- There are so many people here today, isn’t it?
- God is good, isn’t it?
- I am a good person, isn’t it?
Sometimes the tag is replaced with a Swahili particle:
- He is a very useful person, ama?
- We must go to town, si ndio?
- You will score an A in this unit, au?
• Pronouns
Pronouns are inappropriately used in both written and spoken discourse. These pronouns
are easily misapplied:
- he thinks he is someone
- you are a nobody
- I am no one in this home
26
• Reduplication
Verbs tend to be reduplicated in order to indicate continuity:
• The striking students were just shouting shouting
• I spoke to him but he was just dozing dozing
• We went and went and went
• Since he was unemployed, he was doing doing some odd jobs
• Continuous Tense
Kenyan English usually has common senses used in present participle forms in situations
where the British English does not:
- I am understanding what he is saying
- This food is tasting nice
- I am seeing him but he is not seeing me
- I am hearing what you are saying
• Use of ‘There’ and ‘They’
The pronoun and the locative are usually exchanged:
- they are three books here
- there are mine
• Punctuation
Punctuation markers are avoided orthographically:
- I will not attend the meeting next week I am going to the conference
- kamau and onyango standing outside will not get into my office
• Vocabulary
Kenyan English has Africanisms (lexical items take n from local and indigenous
languages):
- Food – sweet potato, sweet bananas, ugali, posho, supu, githeri, matoke, mandazi, uji,
omena, pombe, chai etc.
- Political and administrative terms – uhuru, ndugu, askari, watchman, magendo, bunge,
chama, harambee, umoja etc.
- Titles and occupations of persons – manamba, mzee, fundi, mzungu, baba, mkubwa,
daktari, mwalimu, mwananchi etc.
- Clothing – buibui, kanzu, kitenge, khanga, kaunda suit etc.
- Miscellaneous – dawa, debe, duka, kiondo, kikapu, mabati, sufuria, jembe, panga,
kijiko, polepole, zero-grazing, boma, isikuti, something small, kitu kidogo, matatu etc.
• Accents
Accent is one single marker of ethnicity in Kenyan English. This refers to the features of
pronunciation which convey a speaker’s ethnic background as well as geographical place
of origin. The regional Englishes discussed below are as a result of missing consonants in
the speaker’s first languages. Ethnicity is not mostly marked by vowel sounds as most
Kenyan ethnic languages seem to share common vowels.
Titany answered the question on May 11, 2022 at 11:23