Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the interface and cross fertilisation between rural youth language varieties spoken in different parts of Uganda with that which is spoken in the urban space commonly known as Luyaaye. The analysis in this paper is limited to both lexical and morphological levels.

Paper long abstract:

Cross fertilisation between urban and rural youth varieties spoken in Uganda: A study case study of Luyaaye

Luyaaye is a youth language predominantly spoken in Kampala the capital city of Uganda. It is based on Luganda and thus draws its syntactic framework from that of Luganda. Although Luyaaye is considered an urban youth language variety, Namyalo (2015) observes that it is gradually becoming more of a youth language spoken both in the urban space as well as in the different rural areas especially in small towns across the country. The emergence of rural varieties based on different indigenous languages spoken in Uganda and the cross fertilisation between these varieties has given rise to a more complex variety spoken in the urban space. Against this backdrop, the paper seeks to answer the following questions:

i) What has lead to the emergence of rural Luyaaye varieties spoken in the rural areas?

ii) In what ways do the rural varieties differ or similar to the variety which is spoken in the urban space?

iii) How do rural youth languages spoken in various parts of Uganda influence the Luyaaye variety spoken in the urban space and vice versa?

The data for this paper is drawn from the on-going study which aims at describing the different youth languages spoken in different parts of Uganda.

References

Namyalo, Saudah. 2015, Linguistic Strategies in Luyaaye: Word-play and Conscious Language Manipulation. In: Nassenstein, Nico & Andrea Wolvers. Youth Languages in Africa and Beyond. New York- Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter