Engsh

Eng'sh /ɜⁿkʃ/ or Kenyanese /kɜɲaniːz/ is a cant in Kenya whose base language is English that includes borrowings from spoken urban Kenyan Swahili.

While Sheng, a mostly Swahili-based AUYL, is rooted in the poor eastern neighborhoods of Nairobi (where it has become a mother tongue), Engsh is English-based and is spoken in the more affluent Westlands area. It is "a youth register that keeps tabs on American slang and rap music", and sufficiently different from Sheng to be treated separately, according to linguist Erik Kioko.

In the past, there was no distinction made between Sheng' and Engsh, but the youth speakers of both languages noticed their inability to understand each other properly, as the languages had evolved differently primarily due to the different economic backgrounds. Nevertheless, there are still many similarities between Sheng' and Engsh, but Engsh is unique enough to stand as a cant of its own.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar / Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m		n	ɲ ⟨ny⟩	ŋ ⟨ng'⟩
Stop	prenasalized	ᵐb̥ ⟨mb⟩		ⁿd̥ ⟨nd⟩	ⁿd̥ʒ̊ ⟨nj⟩	ᵑɡ̊ ⟨ng⟩
	voiced	b ⟨b⟩		d ⟨d⟩	dʒ ⟨j⟩	ɡ ⟨g⟩
	voiceless	p		t	tʃ ⟨ch⟩	k
Fricative	prenasalized	ᶬv̥ ⟨mv⟩		ⁿz̥ ⟨nz⟩
	voiced	v	(ð ⟨dh⟩)	z		(ɣ ⟨gh⟩)
	voiceless	f	(θ ⟨th⟩)	s	ʃ ⟨sh⟩		h
Approximant	Median				j ⟨y⟩ ɹ〈r〉	w
	Lateral			l
Tap / Flap				ɾ 〈r〉

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Near-close	ɪ	ʊ
Close-mid	e	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɔ
Open	a	ɑ

See also

• Kenyan English
• Sheng slang

References

Bibliography

• Dorleijn, Margreet; Mous, Maarten; Nortier, Jacomine (March 2015). "Urban youth speech styles in Kenya and the Netherlands". In Nortier, Jacomine; Svendsen, Bente A. (eds.). Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107016989.

Further reading

• Abdulaziz, Mohamed H.; Osined, Ken (January 1997). "Sheng and Engsh: development of mixed codes among the urban youth in Kenya". International Journal of the Sociology of Language (125). doi:10.1515/ijsl.1997.125.43.
• Barasa, Sandra Nekesa, and Maarten Mous. "Engsh, a Kenyan middle class youth language parallel to Sheng." Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 32, no. 1 (2017): 48-74.
• Kaviti, Lillian. "From Stigma to Status-Sheng and Engsh in Kenya's Linguistic and Literary Space." Matatu 46 (2015): 223ff.
• Mous, Maarten, and Sandra Barasa. "Kenya: Sheng and Engsh." In Urban Contact Dialects and Language Change, pp. 105–124. Routledge, 2022.