Ubumuntu is one of those words that are typically and authentically Rwandan in resonance, tone and cadence; a phonetic gem, so to speak. Other African dialects choose to call it Ubuntu, but in Rwanda it’s done a little different – Ubumuntu. The word simply has a sharp and distinct Rwandan resonance and timbre. In this regard, it’s in the same league as words like Imbuto, Duterimbere, Agatako, Agaseke, Akarabo, Nyampinga, and Karisimbi. One of the first Rwandan women I knew from back in Kampala was a radio personality and socialite called Karitas Karisimbi, who worked at the Kampala-based Capital FM in the mid 2000s. The joke in Kampala at the time was that when Karisimbi smiled in a room, all the bulbs and fluorescent tubes in the room would be rendered useless for the entire duration of the smile. Karitas’s smile and personality shone bright like split ripe yellow maracuja. Want to know what maracuja means? That question is not for me, because my part of the business in Loose Talk is that I deal with adult content and so no spoon-feeding here. Four years since I stepped foot in Rwanda, I have seen many other women who fit that Karitas Karisimbi description of a smile and personality that shine bright like ripe yellow maracuja fruit ripped skillfully apart. But none fits this description better than Kigali-based poet and journalist and social critic Natacha Muzira. Natacha herself obviously knows this fact, or at least someone close and perhaps dear to her knows this fact. How else would you explain the curious choice of name for her arts and culture initiative –Marakuja? In fact, she should explain ‘maracuja’ to those of you still in the dark about its meaning. Back to the topic of authentic and distinctively Rwandan words like Ubumuntu and Nyampinga and Imbuto and the others as mentioned above. Some of these words come in the form of names –like Dusabejambo. Mbonyinshuti. Mutabaruka. Uwamahoro. Keza. Bwiza. Umuhire. Muhire. Others come in the name of titles of honor; Indwanyikazi. Nyarwanda kazi. Musaaza. Umusizi kazi. Intore. But the problem with these words is that much as they shine bright in their Rwandan resonance, they are difficult to chew for non-Rwandans attempting to learn the language although this does not include me because I’m a special case. Not only is my upstairs processor speed high but I’m also naturally endowed with linguistic dexterity. Otherwise for other foreigners or non-Rwandese speakers, words like Ubumuntu and Intore and Nyampinga are not easy to nail, phonetically speaking. So most foreigners when dealing with the word ubumuntu they be like ‘ubumun-tu’, the ‘tu’ here as in ‘two’ or ‘to’, while Rwandans who are the custodians of the language do it a little differently. Not to blame anybody though, because if anything, what’s the correct phonetic sound for ‘ubumuntu’? Who can write out the sound of that word the way that you would write the sound of a word like ‘Nyamata’ or ‘Butare’ or ‘Gashora’ or ‘Nyabarongo’? How does ‘ubumuntu’ spell? Professor James Vuningoma, the Executive Secretary of the Rwanda Academy of Language and Culture should guide us on this. Better still, Hope Azeda of Mashirika should tell us. We don’t want foreigners coming to Season III of her just-concluded Ubumuntu festival next year repeating the same ‘murderation’ and brutalization of the word as they have done this year. In 2017, the world should know how to pronounce ‘Ubumuntu’ in tandem with Rwandans. Personally, the first word to torment me in this way was Intore, because there is a brand of cigarette named so. So every time that I went to buy some cigarettes, it was torture and sometimes even drama. I always pronounced Intore with all due Anglophone emphasis on the ‘t’, much to the amusement or bewilderment of the shop attendants. Yet the‘t’ in intore is as silent as the‘t’ in ubumuntu. Same with Impala which, like Intore, is also a brand of cigarette on the local market whose pronunciation I used to misfire whenever I went to buy some; The ‘p’ in Impala is silent.
