Interview Two People

As part of this project, I had to interview two people who of which spoke two different minority languages in the UK, below is a summary of what they had to say about the languages they spoke.

Person 1: Ridwa Moussa a speaker of the Somali language speaks Somali at home, with family members, and with friends that speak the same language. Did not study it in formal ways and found it very important to speak the language because, it's a way for her to hold on to her identity, "my language represents who I am, my religion and my culture". She also added "in my family, we're very much encouraged to remember it and speak it as much as we can". It gives her a sense of belonging and it's also a way of being proud of whom you are. She then highlighted, she felt the government agencies tend to support certain languages more than others. "I do not feel like they have given us enough support". She had to struggle with helping out her mother by translating most of the time. For example, at the jobcentres, over the phones etc... But having said that, there are other companies that offered interpreters.

Person 2: Veronica Kabeya, a speaker of Lingala, a language spoken throughout the north-western, most parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Like Ridwa, she speaks this language at home sometimes however she finds it difficult to keep up a whole conversation as she moved to England when she was really young. She's spoken to in Lingala by her parents but sometimes she responds in English. She never, learned it in formal ways, but it's her first language. "Being from the Congo, Lingala is my first language but I don't recall studying it in school, most of the time the language used to teach in the Congo, is French. The language is very important to her because just like Ridwa, she feels it's a way of holding on to her culture, it gives her a sense of belonging. "I wouldn't be who I am today if I didn't understand nor speak Lingala". She felt that there has not been any help from the government and in education to support this language. The only way it has been supported is by 'us' speaking it to one another within our Congolese community. The only thing she is concerned about is the thoughts that more and more Congolese children are being born in the UK, and reality is most of these children, by the time they are a little older probably wouldn't know how to speak Lingala.