Kisisi (Our Language)

Perry Gilmore, a sociolinguist and educational anthropologist, is Professor of Language, Reading and Culture at the University of Arizona, USA. She is also Professor Emerita, and Affiliate Faculty at the Alaska Native Language Center, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Gilmore is the author of numerous ethnographic studies and co-editor of major ethnography collections including, Children In and Out of School: Ethnography and Education (1982) and The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives (1986). Gilmore is the past President of the Council on Anthropology and Education, a major section of the American Anthropology Association.

"The book is a fascinating account of the genesis of the language in a region where relatively rich American and European settlers and researchers interact with the economically challenged locals. They cooperate with each other, despite experiences of separation, habitats with invisible physical boundaries, sentiments of contempt and respect, situations of embarrassment, and the feeling that it is impossible to change this society with so little social justice and legal equality. The author does not condemn anyone, but she shows her indignation about the hidden and overt racism and the unjust distribution of privileges. These boys were able to transgress the symbolic borders, breaking all the unwritten rules, among others by creating a new language with its own structure. The book is worth reading both for the social aspects of life in Kenya and for the linguistic aspects."—Peter Bakker, Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 32.2"The book stands in contrast to many of the prevailing theories at the time about the formation of new languages. Throughout the book, the author looks critically at linguistic theories of language formation that were prevalent at the time and contrasts them the development of a language between her son Colin and his Kenyan friend, Sadiki. This comparison is used to show how the field of linguistics developed to the point where language creation among children, with no outside help from adults, would be seen as possible. Thus, her research adds to the scholarship on language development in children, a research area that is lacking in linguistics literature."—Eric Baptiste, Anthropology Book Forum

• Acknowledgments ixMap xiiiPrologue xv1 Uweryumachini!: A Language Discovered 12 Herodotus Revisited: Language Origins, Forbidden Experiments, New Languages, and Pidgins 173 Lorca’s Miracle: Play, Performance, Verbal Art, and Creativity 354 Kekopey Life: Transcending Linguistic Hegemonic Borders and Racialized Postcolonial Spaces 585 Kisisi: Language Form, Development, and Change 93Epilogue 132In Memoriam 137Notes 138References 146Index 157