User:Jordancuva/sandbox

Article Evaluation: Ulster_English

    Everything in the Ulster English wikipedia article stays on topic and doesn't offer any distractions. The majority of the article is focused on lexical sets and the pronunciation of words when having a Ulster English accent. As far as I can tell from reading the wikipedia article, there are no bias statements and remains neutral to explaining how Ulster English varies from other forms of English. This wiki article does a great job of providing information on each topic, particularly giving equal time between South Ulster English, Ulster Scots English and Mid-Ulster Scots English. There is slight overrepresentation of Mid-Ulster English but that is simply due to the subgroups of Mid-Ulster English that don't occur in the other two groups. This makes this overrepresentation understandable and not an issue. The citations that I checked worked in the article and all support the claims the wikipedia article are making. The majority of the sources come from books that have been written on the subject along with dictionaries about Hiberno-English. At first glance all the references appear to come from reliable sources that are neutral on the subject. However, the article does state at the top that there is some citations missing and it may contain original research. This could pose a bias if the research is original because it isn't from a reliable source and is produced by the author. None of the information appears out of date because it is all very straight forward to the lexical set and pronunciation of words. The only thing I can think of that needs to be added is additional sources due to the statement at the top that was made in March of last year. Most of the disagreements and conversations occurring on the talk page are in relation to the phonetic spellings of certain words. The discussion appears to be 50/50 with half thinking the author of the page is right while the other half is disagreeing. The article doesn't appear to be a part of any other projects and has an average rating. While it remains unbiased for the most part, with the exception of if there is original research, and provides a decent amount of research and reliable sources. For the most part the article discusses the topic very similarly to how we discuss varieties of English in class. It's main difference is probably the fact that it goes extensively into depth on the subgroups of the english form focusing on very small regions.

Contributions to Kenyan English:

The Kenyan English Wikipedia page has a really good start to it and appears to have cited material that is really reliable. There has been basically no posts on the talk page and not much guidance to what needs to be improved. So based off of reading the wikipedia page I'm hoping to add more to the history, grammar and vocabulary sections. While these sections are off to a great start they could use even more evidence and resources to back up there claims and provide a better overview to the Kenyan English.

Bibliography:

Brunner, Thomas. Simplicity and Typological Effects in the Emergence of New Englishes : The Noun Phrase in Singaporean and Kenyan English, De Gruyter,

   Inc., 2017. https://books.google.com/books/about/Simplicity_and_Typological_Effects_in_th.html?id=UHA3vgAACAAJ

Irungu, David M. Effects of Swahili Vowel System on Kenyan English Speakers' Pronunciation, The University of Mississippi, Ann Arbor, 2015, ProQuest,

   http://ezproxy.library.arizona.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/docview/1733631832?accountid=8360.

Ragnarsson, I. H. (2011). East African English: Linguistic Features and Background. Retrieved from

    https://skemman.is/bitstream/1946/8310/1/BAEssay-EastAfricanEnglish-HIR-finalversion.pdf

The Mouton World Atlas of Variation in English, edited by Bernd Kortmann, and Kerstin Lunkenheimer, De Gruyter, Inc., 2013.

   https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Mouton_World_Atlas_of_Variation_in_E.html?id=Yze2pwAACAAJ

Kenyan English: What I will improve? I'm going to start by adding to the history because it is quite bare and needs some additional information and background to explain how Kenyan English arose. From there, I plan on adding to the grammar and vocabulary sections to give more depth and expand on them even farther to give more detailed descriptions.

Peer Review Response

Thanks for the great feedback! I was able to clarify the local languages in the vocabulary section. However, the one issue I had was that the word ugali just said it was a Bantu term. This is a problem because Bantu consists of over 500 languages. I'll continue to search and see if I can find something more specific but I have been unable to find something this week. As for the Consonant section, I'm still looking for what local languages cause interference but the source I'm using doesn't clarify any farther. I'll continue to look though and see if I can find something!

Linking to my article

I attempted to find other articles that I could link to the Kenyan English wiki. However, every article I found that discussed kenyan english in it was already linked so I was unable to. I was able to link my article to an article on Kenya, British English, and Phonology.

Polishing Article

For my final revisions, I made sure to read through the article thoroughly to find any grammar errors and was able to find a few. Other than that, I was unable to find any other changes to make.

Final Article

I did one final run through to make sure I didn't miss any citations or grammar mistakes. All citations link to a credible source and fits in Wikipedia's guidelines and there were no grammar/spelling mistakes that I saw. I had other individuals edit it as well and they couldn't find anything either. As for the rest of the checklist on Page 15, everything appears to fit and follow the criteria and I am unable to find something additional to change.

History

The English language was introduced to Kenya along with Great Britain's colonisation of Kenya in 1895, when the East Africa Protectorate was set up before becoming a colony in 1920. Swahili had been established as a trade language in most parts of the Swahili Coast at the time of colonization, and it was also used in education. The British reduced the influence of Swahili and made English the medium of instruction in Kenyan schools. English remained in official use after Kenya's independence on 12 December 1963. The official languages of Kenya are English and Swahili, with the latter also recognised as the national language. While English isn't used as commonly as other native languages in Kenya, it is the primarily language spoken in areas such as media, government and schools.

Phonology

Monophthongs of Kenyan English on a vowel chart.

Like English in southern England, Kenyan English is non-rhotic. Major phonological features include the loss of length contrast in vowels, the lack of mid central vowels as with British English, the monophthongisation of diphthongs and the dissolving of consonant clusters. The trap-bath split does not exist in Kenyan English.

Also, for those who don't speak English as a first language and/or live in rural areas in Kenya, may participate in "code mixing." "Code mixing" is the process of using words from a local language while speaking English. A common example of this in Kenya comes from using the Swahili word andyu while speaking English, which is used to agree with someone.

Consonants

Mispronunciation of English words due to the interference of local Kenyan languages is popularly known in the country as "shrubbing," a word which in all its forms is itself prone to this occurrence. It has been noted that "shrubbing" is less likely with upper-middle and upper class citizens, or citizens who do not speak indigenous Kenyan languages and learned English as a first language. Therefore, people living in rural areas and/or those who learned English as a second language and are likely to have a heavier accent are more likely to "shrub". "Shrubbing" is done by replacing a word's consonant sound(s) with another or others of a similar place of articulation.

Vowels

Since English is commonly spoken as a second language in Kenya, they tend to follow the Swahili vowel system. This means they tend to follow a five vowel system rather than the twenty vowel system of English. The five vowel system mainly consists of /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/ and these vowels are never diphthongized like some English vowel sounds can be. An example of this can be seen between the words hat, hut, heart and hurt. In Kenyan English, these words all appear very similar do to substituting all of them with the same vowel of /a/.

Vocabulary

As Kenyans generally use British English, vocabulary in Kenyan English is very similar to that of British English. Common examples are "chips" and "fries" ("french fries" and "fries" in American English), "crisps" ("chips" in American English) and "football" ("soccer" in American English, although the use of the American term has become increasingly common).

Kenyan English often borrows vocabulary from local languages which would otherwise be difficult to translate to English, such as the Bantu term "ugali", the Swahili term "sukuma wiki" (collard greens) and Kikuyu term "matatu". The wide use of Sheng in Kenya has also affected the vocabulary of Kenyan English speakers. White people in Kenya are often referred to as "mzungus" or "wazungus" (the word "mzungu" is Swahili for "white person"; its plural form is "wazungu"). Other borrowed terms include "pole pole" (Swahili for "slowly"; as a result some people also say "slowly slowly"), "Harambee", "nyama choma" (barbecued meat) and "nini" (used when one forgets the name of something; equivalent to the word "thingy", which is itself also widely used). Kenyans also tend to use the words "si" and "ati" (equivalent to the words "but" and "that" respectively) due to the influence of sheng. Finally, most people in Kenya speak English as a 3rd or 4th language leading to the majority of individuals speaking in the same way as they would say it in their mother tongue.

Proverbs

An example of the use of proverbs and idioms in Kenyan English, from the front page of The Standard on 5 August 2014.

Some Kenyan English speakers occasionally use proverbs borrowed from Swahili and other languages, as well as English proverbs, when conveying a moral to a story or giving advice, and sometimes translate these proverbs to English. For example, when advising someone to take his/her time when doing something, a person may use the proverb "Haraka haraka haina baraka" (roughly translates to "More haste, less speed") and literally translate it to "Hurry hurry has no blessings".