African Languages in Business Communication in Eldoret Town: A Case of Languages Determined to Live

Abstract

This study aims at unraveling roles played by Kenyan languages in business communication in Kenya’s town of Eldoret despite the fact that the languages face discrimination by existing language policy. It also sets out to investigate factors that affect language choice between business interlocutors in the town. Kenya has two official languages, English and Kiswahili, which are the only languages of wider communication. The language policy only defines the role of the two languages in communication and education. This means that the remaining languages which are not languages of wider communication do not have clearly defined roles by the existing language policies. This paper sets out to investigate any roles played by these languages in the urban environment of Eldoret town in Kenya. Ten businesses were purposefully sampled within the central business district of Eldoret town. Conversations between traders and their customers recorded and analyzed. The results indicated that many languages that had no roles as languages of wider communication played an essential role in business communication.