Criticism of Colonialism
There may be still some prejudices concerning African people’s way of life (singular; sic!). Not only a few Europeans or people from the so-called Western world (or the Occident) believe there are principal differences between „enlighted and naive peoples“ from a qualitative point of view. That’s because the European Sonderweg with its logocentristic point of view is meant to be far more rationalistic, reasonable or sensible than those ones of foreign countries or human beings. But human beings who behave that way have been led up the garden-path, meaning that there are simply remnants from the colonial era.
As you surely remember it was a time when Europeans sailed over the oceans, trying to find new trade routes or for converting savages to Christianity. I think it can be evaluated as a dark chapter of European history. In principle, it was a kind of behaving that foreign cultures aren’t equal to the European way of life. They were decried, which means that other cultures were considered as inferior in comparison to the logocentristic worldview. It was a misjudgement to believe, for example, dancing and the absence of written textes or „odd“ rituals were a sign of simplicity. They measured everything by the same yardstick, they lump together the richness and diversity of African cultures.
The richness of Tanzanian languages and cultures
Approximately, there are just about 130 different languages in Tanzania. A linguist can classify most of them by telling us that they belong to the Niger-Congo languages, one of the world’s major and primary language families. More detailly, there are Bantu languages and many, many subdivisions, for example Northern Bantu, then Northeast Coast Bantu, then Sabaki, and under the last subdivision the Kiswahili language is subsumed. That shows you can use a classification for structuring the diversity of languages – no more, no less.
However, do you know anything about just a single language or even culture now? You are aware of that there a language families – and that’s not bad at all, because it can lead to an impression that there are similiarities between them. It is a crucial information because now you can start comparing, say, impacts of manifold cultural elements and merits and ways of life on such an interesting language like Kiswahili. All in all, it really is a great achievement, because Kiswahili enables people not only in Tanzania, but also in Kenya, Mozambique, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and some further countries to communicate in a generally accepted language, which is mostly free from dicriminations against others, for example tribes. It is a lingua franca in East Africa, which is influenced by Indian and Arabic and African vocabulary and grammar.
Two 
Kiswahili sayings
Let’s have a closer look on some Kiswahili sayings finally. You might be surprised that they convey meanings which are similar to those ones whose ambiguity was one of the central conflicts in the European history of Enlightment.
The first one is: Jua lafanya, kiwi cha macho (You have to pronounce the consonant sound „j“ like „dsch“ (Dschini), the „y“ like „j“ (Jasmin), the „w“ like „uw“ (well) and the consonants „ch“ like „tsch“ (chalk)).
It means that to squind in the bright sun causes blindness. The meaning can be decoded easily if you know that the sun the main symbol of the Age of Enlightment is. As the sunlight brings light to earth, reason brings light to the mind – empirical knowledge, cognition, and so forth. However, this is in direct contravention of Catholicism. Catholicism states or dogmatises that only God is able to perceive and recognize the truth of everything. So that saying shall remember with shame that human beings aren’t able to become enlighted.
However, there is another saying which is quite the opposide of that belief: Atangaye sana na jua, hujua. Its meaning can be interpreted in the following way: If you often walk by sunlight, you will be knowledgeable. So if your eyes are open (sunlight = possibility to see your surroundings) and your mind is flexible (to walk = to open new perspectives or points of view), you are able to perceive and recognize the empirical world without being blind or using empty rhetoric.
So one can conclude: Even if it might be hard to realize, there is a diversity and sophisticated ambivalence in Kiswahili language and the cultures of East African countries or tribes which flashes in those sayings. It isn’t a sign of simplicity if there hasn’t solidified a culture of writing or logocentristic thinking everywhere. One shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, say, by evaluating a foreign culture (or its manifold richness) just by reading about it. On the other hand, though, this text shall give an impression that a culture of writing can enable people to think about its implications. And if you do so, it will be fine.
Here are some further information
Here are some useful hyperlinks:
jansaniablog 