‘Hongera, Mariam’ and the babbly nature of language
In December, we keep a lot of “hongeras” flying towards our colleagues, friends, relatives and students who have earned various awards, like PhDs, Masters and Bachelors degrees.
This is not only to the Maiden of Nazareth and Bethlehem. It is to all mummies anywhere and anytime blessed with the miracle of bringing a new life into the world.
For, every moment, everywhere, our Mariams, Ndukus and Akinyis are giving birth to babies, some of whom will drastically change the world. Despite the endless quibbles about whether so-and-so was born on such-and-such a calendar day, the fact remains that children are born, by women, and that is a cause for celebration. So, once again, to all my sisters who honour and enrich their womanhood with motherhood, I say, “Hongera!” Or is it “Hongereni”?
Actually, it was this “hongera” exclamation that led me towards the choice of our women as my candidates for this year’s Christmas congratulations. You know, December is the month of graduation at many of our universities. So, we keep a lot of “hongeras” flying towards our colleagues, friends, relatives and students who have earned various awards, like PhDs, Masters and Bachelors degrees. Incidentally, I noticed a striking lack of honorary awards (honoris causa Doctors) at most campuses this year. I had no agemates to congratulate on that award.
Back to “hongera”, as we were exchanging kudos, a member of one of my Kiswahili WhatsApp groups raised a query about that very term, “hongera”. Dr Caesar Jingo, the enquirer, is a Kiswahili materials development expert at Makerere. He was among my first Kiswahili students at Makerere in the late 1990s and later earned his doctorate from my Dar es Salaam alma mater. Do I deserve congratulations?
Anyway, Dr Jingo asked us to discuss “hongera”. What part of speech is it and how should we use it? Is it a noun, a verb or an interjection? Then there are the derivatives from it, like the puzzling “hongera”, which seems to challenge Swahili morphology. I think Dr Jingo has his own views about all this but, like the scholar he is, he preferred to hear from his peers first.
Basic definition
I was just about volunteering my reply to him on our wall when it occurred to me that actually the matter was of a general interest to all of us Waswahili (users of Kiswahili) and it would be good to hear from you all.
I, like Dr Jingo, will wait for you to tell me what you think, before I try and come up with a coherent linguistic hypothesis. But there are two points that I thought I can share with you about “hongera” from my personal experience. The first is the curious mechanism of how language “means”. The second point is how impressions influence our understanding of messages.
Regarding “meaning” in language, we start from the basic definition of a language as a system of conventional vocal symbols used in human communication. We pick out here this “conventional” aspect. Language communicates only because we have agreed on what its elements signify.
A convention is a contract, an agreement between speaker and hearer. “Hongera” will, ultimately, mean what you and I agree on as its significance or meaning. There is no inherent “congratulation-ness” in the sounds of “hongera”. It will only mean that if and when users have agreed on it. I think Daktari raised his query because he felt we have not, up to now, agreed on what “hongera” signifies, and how to use it.
These are not idle hypotheses. Professional users of language are always struggling with them as practical problems. Currently in Kiswahili, for example, we are battling with what to call AI (artificial intelligence). Do we call it “akili bandia” or “akili unde”? But that is a chat for another day. It underlines, however, the need for bodies of experts, like the National Kiswahili Council, for which we are clamouring, to guide and regulate our conventions.
My point about impressions, or impressionistic meaning, illustrates how, perhaps, utterances carry different meanings for each individual. When I was a young man in Dar es Salaam in the 1960s, I used to hear women sing, “Hongera, mwanangu ee,” among themselves. I am not sure today if I was told or I imagined that the hongerachorus was exclusively directed to women, especially those who had had babies. That impression has remained with me to this day.
Congratulations
In Dar es Salaam, I never heard anyone say “Hongera” to a man by way of congratulations. I have since followed suit and reserved that form of congratulation for my sisters. To the men, I may say “Heko”, “kongole” or “pongezi tele”. Following Dr Jingo’s query, I looked around to see if I might be right. But none of the many dictionaries in my library was specific about the matter. Now I will have to go to my consultants, especially my sisters, to get a second opinion.
Prof Clara Momanyi, Prof Sheila Ryanga and Dr Anna Kishe are my usual persons of recourse in these matters. Prof Shani Omari and Dr Mwanahija Juma, the current Executive Secretary of BAKIZA (the Zanzibari Kiswahili Council), would also probably have useful information. Dr Mwanahija recently teased me by remarking, jocularly, that my Kiswahili sounded like that of her grandmother. I am probably of Bibi’s rika.
Meanwhile, I came across a video online of a singer called Rayvanny, singing a Hongera song, apparently celebrating the birth of child. One line in the song that stirred my curiosity goes something like: “Kitanda hakiongopi” (the bed never turns into a liar). I will not indulge you with an interpretation of that.
The moral of the tale is that we should not be overly doctrinaire, single-tracked and absolute in our understanding of language. What may be incomprehensible to one person, like a divinity being born in human form, may be totally clear to another.
But you can sense there the sweet complexity of what keeps us going in the relentless pursuit of “knowledge”.
Have a happy and blessed season.
Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and literature. [email protected]
