Week Six: White Privilege in Learning Kinyarwanda

This week, my Kinyarwanda study saw me reviewing much of what I have been doing the past two weeks. Ultimately, I recognize that this puts me off track, but it also reveals to me that I need to locate and utilize a more beneficial review process that isn’t so reliant on repeating vocabulary terms and conjugating verbs, but on actually putting these components into use together in the form of practice conversations.

Luckily, this process will be aided by my language partner, A, who is both willing and eager to assist in getting me to a place where I am conversational. We both expressed excitement at the prospect of holding our conversational meetings entirely in Kinyarwanda, and when possible during our time together thus far, we have both attempted to use the target language as much as possible. Of course, A was much better at doing so than me, but he was nonetheless impressed by my effort and, in particular, my notebook containing notes from my intensive study in Kinyarwanda.

This brings me to a point in my language study that I have felt incapable of discussing until now, and that is the “privilege” I feel I receive as a white woman speaking in an African language. Of course, my initial Kinyarwanda instructor, Dr. B, frequently praised my language performance, and perhaps it was his role to do so. In Rwanda, however, those who I spoke to would take great care to acknowledge my language use. My Rwandan companion, D, called me a Rwandan every time I used Kinyarwanda, no matter if it was a small comment, such as yego (yes) the identification of an animal such as imvubu (hippo), or the use of small talk such as nejejwe no kukubona (it’s nice to meet you). And, more recently, my language partner, A, is so pleased when I say anything in Kinyarwanda that he has a full-body response. He smiles, he nods his head in approval, and, in a rare instance, he elbows me in excitement. 

Whether it is surprise and/or gratitude that a white woman would even be speaking Kinyarwanda at all, a polite courtesy to acknowledge my effort, or any combination of factors, I cannot help but feel that my language performance is receiving an undue privilege. On the one hand, it is encouraging to receive such positive feedback, but it is also accompanied by a strange sense of guilt. Indeed, if I were to visit Rwanda presently, and despite my best efforts otherwise, Rwandans would have to accommodate me linguistically. They are welcoming me into their nation, their culture, their language, and I cannot even meet them in those terms.

Given my experience in Rwanda, this is an incredibly frustrating recognition to me, in particular, as an American companion who travelled to Rwanda with me, A, engaged each person she encountered, or at least those she thought she could identify as “African,” by asking, “How’s your English?” It’s a strange, if not rude question, and it embarrassed me to be associated with her. Of course, those she asked were equally embarrassed, as if it reflected on some error they, themselves, had made in speaking.

Relatedly, however, my intensive study of Kinyarwanda briefly placed me with one fellow student, L, and when learning how to count in the language, she stopped Dr. B and said, “I don’t want to learn that.” You see, numbers in Kinyarwanda change their prefix based on the class of noun that is being counted, though the stem typically remains the same. L only wanted to learn the general form of the numbers. She had no interest in learning how to make sure the number agreed with the noun, insisting that once she was in Rwanda, they would know what she meant.

Connecting these accounts very briefly, white privilege in language, to me, resembles entitlement, that is- comfort in stating when we can speak your language and under what conditions, and the assumed ability to state when we can speak my language and under what standard. I do not wish to be protected under this principle, nor can I be with any sense of ethicality in place.

This is the reason for my language study, and it has subsequently become my motivation for it.