Is it bad that I can’t speak my mother tongue?

I am what older folks like to call a born tao, which means I was born and raised in town.

So basically, all my life, I have lived in a town or a city set-up, and most people can tell by just looking at me.

Until very recently, I was unfazed by that.

In fact, I felt quite proud to be described that way because I thought it was cool.

Until I realised there was one thing I was missing out on because I was clinging to that description so much.

I was not in touch with my culture, from back where my father comes from, as much as I wished I was.

First of all, I cannot speak my mother tongue to save my life.

I used to think it was not a big deal until I realised that everyone in my family can speak it, except me! (I can understand it, though, so I’m not completely useless).

It’s like they were having secret family lessons when I was away or something.

I just don’t understand how I became left out of that equation.

So a brief history of my family is that both my parents come from the same ethnic subtribe, so it made it easy for them to speak one language in the household and even easier on us to learn just one mother tongue.

My community has so many subtribes within it and mine is Kisa. Those who know it know what community I’m talking about.

My older brother went to high school in upcountry, so he was very exposed to our mother-tongue and he speaks it so well now.

Then my younger sister spent a lot of her childhood being near my grandmother and my mother, so she naturally picked up the language.

Then there’s me.

Primary school and high school in Nairobi, and then uni outside Nairobi for the first time in my life, and I didn’t even manage to pick up the language of the natives where I was studying.

Now here I am, an adult who cannot even speak her mother tongue, and I feel embarrassed to my core.

I thought I was okay with just speaking Kiswahili and English and the basic French I learned in high school, but what about my roots? My culture? My identity?

And why am I having an identity crisis now?

Part of me feels like it’s because I’m entering into the years where people settle down and get married and such, and I’m starting to wonder what I will be teaching my kids about their lineage through me and their roots.

What ethnic language will they speak?

And if I am not the only mwacha mila out there, how many more languages could die because they are not being passed on to children and children’s children?

Am I overreacting?

Is it not a big deal to not speak your mother tongue? If Ngugi Wa Thiong’o was reading this, he would be so ashamed, I just know it.

I just envy my friends and peers who can speak their languages.

As I get older, hearing someone speak my mother-tongue just fills my heart with a familiarity I can’t explain.

Like a kinship that reminds you where you come from even though you live in this big city full of broken dreams and hardship, but we refuse to leave.