Conveying and Evaluating Speakers Commitment to Telling the Truth

The Impact of European Christian Missionaries on Language Use

Bibliographic Data

ID11182188
AuthorsNdinzi Masagara (corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume22
Issue4
Pages325-338
Publication date2001-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0143-4632 • E-ISSN: 1747-7557
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01434630108666439
OpenAlexW2024808845
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited3

In pre-Christian Rundi-Rwanda society, traditional oaths associated with traditional social values were the only oath variants used in everyday interactions by speakers of Kirundi-Kinyarwanda to convey or to evaluate speakers' commitment to telling the truth (Masagara, 1991, 1997). Kirundi is spoken in the contemporary state of Burundi, and a mutually intelligible variety – Kinyarwanda – is spoken in Rwanda, though the two varieties are no respecters of arbitrary political borders. Both varieties are spoken in both polities, and in Congo (Zaire), Uganda and Tanzania as well. Recent changes in oath-taking in Kirundi-Kinyarwanda are presented and interpreted; it is further shown that new oath variants create quantitative and qualitative variability in form, significance, and use in the conceptualisation and meaning of oaths. These changes were initiated and sustained by new actors in the social system; and these new actors were largely European Christian missionaries who began arriving on the scene at the very end of the nineteenth century

Epistemology · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Oath · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Variety (cybernetics · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · History · Law · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy

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