I am watching football in a fully packed betting house in the vicinity of my residence. The match is really a physical one. A player tackles another so hard that the referee without hesitation reaches to his pocket, pulls out a yellow card and shows it to the culprit. The man next to me turns to me and shouts "Mutuelle de Santé.”

In curious soliloquy, I ask myself what Mutuelle has to do with football. I try to figure it out by relating it to the context of what has just happened and I get a stunning answer-Mutuelle does not mean health insurance these guys. It is actually slang to mean a yellow card booking for a player who has committed a foul.

Slang are commonplace in the Rwandan society. People naturally use words that have a specific meaning for their particular group, and then over time, these words alter and become widely spoken slang.

They range from phrases formulated in Kinyarwanda to those imported from foreign languages like French, Kiswahili or even English. Funny enough, some people use them without even noticing. Some of the commonly used slang in Rwandan circles include; "Howlie,”meaning "How come”, "Nyamijos” for "Nyamirambo,” "Umwana uhiye” for a beautiful girl, "Ni danger” for something quite nice, "Abajama” for peers, "Amabebi” for girls, "Gukanda amazi” for drinking booze, "Icyucyi” for an extremely handsome guy or girl, "Gucina raggea” for walking away.

Why use slang?

Different groups of people in Rwanda society admit to using slang and give different reasons for it. For young people, one of the signs of imminent adolescence is the desire to put space between themselves and parents and the easiest way to do it is through the art of language. Teenagers develop their own idioms and expressions that make adults scratch their heads, trying to figure out what slang means.

For adults, it may be a way that allows them to speak in a more comfortable way, sound less formal and relaxed while for others it is an addiction having been exposed to them since early childhood.

Joram Muhoozi, who is the Head of Marketing at Spectrum Prints employs slangs to make communication process easy by cutting long words short. He says slang is common in chats between him and his friends since they save them the energy of writing many words to explain.

He adds that it is hard to do without slang especially in this 21st century generation which is characterized by social network platforms where new slangs are born day by day,

"I don’t usually use slang while speaking to people but I find myself using it while chatting. Now that we have the revolution of social media platforms people create new slang day by day. Social media has come up with a whole new slang dictionary that aids easy communication.”

Slang discouraged

For some people it is okay to use slangs provided it is an informal moment, while for others, it is absolutely not acceptable to them. And a few believe there are specific groups of people that should not use slangs like children and spiritual leaders.

David Muyango, a fashion entrepreneur says children should not use slangs since some of them are odd and confusing,

"Children should not use slangs in my opinion because some are confusing and a little odd. For example ‘hitting the road instead’ of going’ ”

Joram Muhoozi also says that people should be careful not to risk awkwardness by employing slang in inappropriate environments and moments. For instance he says it would be quite out of place for a pastor to preach a sermon with some slang in it.

"I would not agree with a pastor preaching in church using street slang. If my pastor turned up and said, ‘Howlie…’ (Means ‘How come,’) I would be surprised.”

Willy Ndahiro blames slangs for distorting original languages and cultures since some of them are as a result of imitating foreigners. He says that parents and the government should make efforts to fight such language among young people,

"I strongly think children or even youth should not use slang. Youth usually create slang to imitate American rappers. This distorts their original languages and culture. I actually call upon the government and respective parents to make efforts to fight slang language; it’s slowly eating away our original language.

Otherwise, we are headed to a future generation of slang, not original Kinyarwanda. A generation where people will use slang even in the most traditional events like weddings.”