Language Difficulties

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I realised the extent of my reliance on others in my earliest project was door-to-door research in the community, one that as a researcher I thought I would be able to be of some assistance. It proved very difficult, however, and different to previous research I have done as I have never done anything going door-to-door, in Lugandan or asking questions such as “how many orphans do you have living in the househould?” (the largest number was 10), “have you been tested for HIV/AIDS?” etc. Language and, I think culture, caused some friction as I tried to ensure that we were collecting accurate data. I would frequently nudge volunteers during interviews to stay that there were more orphans at school than in the household, or no school dropouts even though not everyone was in school.

My solution to help this problem was to translate the interview guide from English to Lugandan. I could not understand why the conversations were in Lugandan yet everything was written in English and felt that it was causing confusion amongst volunteers whose understanding of English was not as good as it first appeared. It is the first time I have fallen into the trap of trying to impose something on Ugandans without first understanding the culture, though in fairness no one told me until afterwards.

As we attempted to translate it struck me that there was more discussion than I would have expected about the correct spelling and grammar amongst literate people. When we were in the field volunteers struggled to read it as much as the English and were equally as confused by some of the wording. I had been told beforehand that Lugandan was not widely spoken in schools (when I was having my Lugandan lesson in the office one of the volunteers let out the Ugandan high-pitched squeak to express surprise and said, “why do you want to learn that language? That is funny, when we used to speak it in school they used to beat us for hours!”) but I hadn’t realised the extent to which the local language is obliterated. The consequence is that all documents are written in English, which most educated people speak but fewer really understand.

I find it frustrating as it means that documents and spoken English are frequently littered with bombastic language from the colonial period and international NGOs. Apparently there is some political pressure to recognise local languages in the education system (which I think would improve literacy rates) but it is something that you must work with as there seems little chance of it changing in the near future.

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