Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Editor and Book Reviews Editor: John Edwards (St Francis Xavier University, Canada)
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Volume: 22 Number: 4 Page: 325–338
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Conveying and Evaluating Speakers Commitment to Telling the Truth: The Impact of European Christian Missionaries on Language Use
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Ndinzi Masagara
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In pre-Christian Rundi-Rwanda society, traditional oaths associated with traditional social values were the only oath variants used in everyday interactions by speakers of Kirundi-Kinyarwanda to convey
or to evaluate speakers' commitment to telling the truth (Masagara, 1991, 1997). Kirundi is spoken in the contemporary state of Burundi, and a mutually intelligible variety – Kinyarwanda – is
spoken in Rwanda, though the two varieties are no respecters of arbitrary political borders. Both varieties are spoken in both polities, and in Congo (Zaire), Uganda and Tanzania as well. Recent changes
in oath-taking in Kirundi-Kinyarwanda are presented and interpreted; it is further shown that new oath variants create quantitative and qualitative variability in form, significance, and use in the conceptualisation
and meaning of oaths. These changes were initiated and sustained by new actors in the social system; and these new actors were largely European Christian missionaries who began arriving on the scene at
the very end of the nineteenth century.
© Multilingual Matters 2001
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