Kisisi (Our Language)

Perry Gilmore, a sociolinguist and educational anthropologist, is Professor of Language, Reading and Culture at the University of Arizona, USA. She is also Professor Emerita, and Affiliate Faculty at the Alaska Native Language Center, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Gilmore is the author of numerous ethnographic studies and co-editor of major ethnography collections including, Children In and Out of School: Ethnography and Education (1982) and The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives (1986). Gilmore is the past President of the Council on Anthropology and Education, a major section of the American Anthropology Association.

• Acknowledgments ixMap xiiiPrologue xv1 Uweryumachini!: A Language Discovered 12 Herodotus Revisited: Language Origins, Forbidden Experiments, New Languages, and Pidgins 173 Lorca's Miracle: Play, Performance, Verbal Art, and Creativity 354 Kekopey Life: Transcending Linguistic Hegemonic Borders and Racialized Postcolonial Spaces 585 Kisisi: Language Form, Development, and Change 93Epilogue 132In Memoriam 137Notes 138References 146Index 157

"Gilmore writes 'Kisisi provides a 'truly remarkable real-life pidgin birth' that can inform debates on pidgin and creole formation'. I agree. It sheds light on the genesis of language in a unique way. Read it. Enjoy. Be moved. Learn."—Peter Bakker, Aarhus University, Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages"Perry Gilmore's, Kisisi (Our Language): The Story of Colin and Sadiki, is a detailed investigation of the experience of two boys who, while playing in post-colonial Kenya, made their own language. It is also so much more.... It is unique in its consideration of anthropological concepts such as colonialism, which may make the book interesting to students of anthropology.... Novice students of linguistics as well as anthropologists will certainly enjoy the mixed narrative style of Kisisi (Our Language)."—Eric Baptiste, Anthropology Book Forum