A New Language Policy But Old Language Practices: The Case Of Kenya After 2010 Constitution

Abstract

Linguistic diversity like the one obtaining in Kenya poses lots of socio-political, economic and educational challenges to concerned nations and so this forces them to have language plans with relevant language policies. Due to these challenges, the concerned nations try to look for ways and means to solve the problems to do with languages for national cohesion, languages for international cooperation, and languages to be used to access education, science and technology so as to remain relevant nationally and internationally. Present day Kenya has tried to achieve this relevance throughout her history with the climax being her most cherished 2010 constitutions. Even with this kind of constitution and given the write-ups in the same about its implementations, some questions come to mind; How long will it take to implement this constitution?, How much of the political will does this 2010 Kenyan constitution have?, and, Given the current obtaining situation, what differences in practice should Kenyans expect of the new constitution? The thesis of this paper is that of the metaphorical new wine in an old skin bottle.