Kisisi (Our Language): The Story of Colin and Sadiki

by Perry Gilmore

Part historic ethnography, part linguistic case study and part a mother’s memoir, Kisisi tells the story of two boys (Colin and Sadiki) who, together invented their own language, and of the friendship they shared in postcolonial Kenya. 
Documents and examines the invention of a ‘new’ language between two boys in postcolonial Kenya Offers a unique insight into child language development and use Presents a mixed genre narrative and multidisciplinary discussion that describes the children’s border-crossing friendship and their unique and innovative private language Beautifully written by one of the foremost scholars in child development, language acquisition and education, the book provides a seamless blending of the personal and the ethnographic The story of Colin and Sadiki raises profound questions and has direct implications for many fields of study including child language acquisition and socialization, education, anthropology, and the anthropology of childhood

Genres: Linguistics, Textbooks, Africa, Nonfiction

159 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 13, 2015

Reviews

[Riah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an ethnography of “Kisisi,” a Swahili pidgin created by two five year old boys, Colin and Sadiki, in Kenya in the seventies. The book is written by the American boy’s mother, and is part memoir, part language description and part social commentary. Gilmore establishes that young children are capable of creating languages using processes of pidginization and creolization. She also describes the colonial history of Kenya and how she sees the boys’ language as a subversion of racist postcolonial norms. I found this all pretty interesting, but where it didn’t quite work for me was the analysis of the language itself, since the examples she chose didn’t always convincingly illuminate the arguments she made about what the language was doing. As someone who speaks both Swahili and English, the two languages that Kisisi draws from, it doesn’t seem that hard to understand the examples, so the claims of the boys’ originality and secrecy seemed inflated to me. In addition, several of the “Kisisi” examples were literally just Swahili, in both vocabulary and grammar. I liked the rest of the book, until the last chapter, and I just wish the data had better supported her claims about the richness of Kisisi.

[Lisandro Meraz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great look into anthropological & sociolinguistic research. The story of the two boys was extremely touching.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool linguistic anthropology book. More readable since it's not proper academia. Wonder if it would've been better or worse had I read it in over 5 hours

[Breyers · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Word and idea are not born of scientific or logical thinking but of creative language”