by Adoria Randolph, Northwestern undergraduate
At the beginning of my first year at Northwestern, I met with my adviser to decide which language to take to fulfill my language requirement. I am not going to lie; I was dreading this conversation. I had taken two years of Spanish in high school and had been miserable. I could not learn the language, and it did not interest me, but I had limited myself to learning either Spanish or French, since those were popularly deemed the most useful languages. I was prepared to accept taking another two years of Spanish and just dealing with it.
When my adviser asked which language I would like to take, I elaborated on my past difficulty with Spanish but told her that I did not want to take French either. She asked why I would take either of them when I had other options. I realized that she had a good point. Why would I confine myself to two languages I was not interested in at all? She started naming other languages and eventually made it to Swahili. I had never even heard of Swahili before, but it piqued my interest. My adviser only knew that it was an East African language. At that moment, I decided that I wanted to learn Swahili. I do not know what drew me to it exactly, but I am glad I chose it.
Over the past two years, I have learned not just about Swahili as a language but about the culture of various East African countries as well. At our every-other-week language tables, beginning and intermediate students meet to speak Swahili and learn songs or dances over chai, mandazi, and sambusa. I have had the opportunity of attending AfriSem to hear graduate students present their African studies research. Professor Mwangi hosts dinners where students come together and learn how to cook traditional East African dishes. I have had so many new experiences through the Swahili program that I would not have encountered otherwise.
I suspect that many students find themselves in the same place I was at the start of my first year, deciding between two popular languages that really don’t interest them. Every time I meet someone new and say I am learning Swahili, they ask similar questions: “Why? Does it have something to do with your career? When are you going to use it?” None of my friends learning French have experienced this, and in my time at Northwestern, I have met more Swahili speakers than French speakers. Students should be encouraged to learn languages that genuinely interest them, regardless of how “popular” they are. I am so grateful for my first-year adviser’s encouragement to take Swahili because it turned out to be one of the best decisions I have made at Northwestern.
This article originally ran in the PAS Newsletter, Spring 2020, Volume 30, Number 3