The Sociolinguistic Profile and Functions of Luyaaye Within Its Community of Practice

Abstract

Luyaaye is an urban language primarily spoken in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. It is characterized by the use of specialized lexicon which is consciously manipulated through morphological hybridization, semantic change, relexicalization and over-lexicalization in order to make the language unintelligible to the dominant language community. Luyaaye is based on Luganda; therefore, structurally, it has much in common with Luganda, an indigenous language spoken by the majority of the population in and around Kampala city. The origins of Luyaaye are traced back to the early 1970s when it was used as a street-code among the street business community and the street youths in the wake of the much-publicized atrocious regime of Idi Amin Dada and the civil wars that continued into the mid 1980s. Over the past 40 years Luyaaye has evolved into an urban- language variety predominantly spoken by children from the age of five onwards, the youths and young adults. This paper aims at providing an overview of the sociolinguistic profile and functions of Luyaaye within its community of practice. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part provides a brief account of the factors that led to its emergence in the 1970 and its rapid growth and expansion across the different social classes of the youths in urban localities of Uganda especially Kampala which is the capital city of Uganda. The second part discusses the functions of Luyaaye within the community of practice while the last part draws attention to the sociolinguistic profile of Luyaaye speakers.