By by Chelak Isaac
A new language is emergent in the streets of Nairobi, Mombasa and even in the quainter towns such as Eldoret. It is neither Swahili, English nor even Sheng the old-fashioned way. It is the fast and changing lingo of Kenya Gen Z, a generation with all new rules of communication based around terms such as sangoma, mkwanja and kuchemka. It is like pure gibberish, some words that are used in a random way to jumble anyone who is above 30 to the ears of the untrained. However, it is not nonsense: this is a slang. It is an act that encompasses rebellion, a purposeful act of forging identity with an attitude that the world tends to ignore the youth.
A Defiant Language
Gen Z does not simply care about fun phrases; it is a go-fuck-yourself to the strict systems. Having been raised in Kenya, which has virtually stagnated (with unemployment at around 7 percent, but really, much more), whose politicians come and go, and whose social media has created both a sense of opportunity and disparity, the youth are through. They are not only talking; they are putting down a claim. When a young person in Dandora characterizes an expensive car as a mkwanja, he is not only telling of wealth but also
using the infatuation about it. Reflecting slang term money, the word reverses the situation with materialism, making a mocking remark out of it instead of a spiritual purpose.
This insurgency is not new. The urban lingo of Sheng, which is a mixture of Swahili, English language and ethnic languages was a revolt against the formality of colonial and post colonial Kenya. Gen Z is playing it safer by designing a code that can barely be hacked by a foreigner. As opposed to their millennial counterparts who relied on Sheng to unite communities, Gen Z gatekeeps using lingo. When you do not know the meaning of kuchemka (to vibe or get excited) then you do not belong to the club. This exclusivity is powerness a tendency to regulate their story in a society that tends to disregard them.
A Reflection of Society
The pulse of modern Kenya is also in a slang. The name of the South African spiritual healers, sangoma, was appropriated as a name which can be used to define someone who has got it together, or who is amazingly competent. It is a tribute to the hustle culture that
Gen Z has become known by where it is not just about earning cash but honing your skill, as in coding or creating TikTok’s, or selling sneakers through a side hustle. The word refers to a generation of people which appreciates resourcefulness in a country where one out of every three youth is currently jobless as recent estimations by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics show.
This revolution in language is driven by the social media. Application platforms such as TikTok and Instagram can be creches of slangs; a one viral video can spawn a phrase, and the next morning, it will have spanned between Nairobi to Nyeri. More than just a description of a situation, noma sana (very cool) is a declaration of belonging to a digital tribe that has no geographical boundaries, and which Gen Z Kenyan belongs to. It is a generation which is more globalized and more localized at the same time, mixing the American slang such as to talk of vibes and waving the Kenyan and Swahili vibe to come up with something Kenyan.
What the Matter is
The older generation can probably take this slang as a decreasing of the language, that kids are lost. That is a lazy interpretation though. It turns out that slang is a form of artistic adaptation to a world that has supplied Gen Z with a shaky economic future, political disenchantment, and a digital space that is as emancipating as it is suffocating. They are taking up some agency, forming a community, and trolling a system that does not always serve them by creating a language of their own. It is not confusion; it is about control.
When you overhear a bunch of adolescents throwing about words such as mkwanja or kuchemka next time, do not shake your head. Listen. They do not merely talk, they explain themselves to you, who they are and what they trust, and how they are struggling along and trying to be heard. In Kenya where young people are usually underrepresented, the slang is their megaphone. And it is not nonsense at all.
