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Of the forty-one participants that answered the sociolinguistic questionnaire, thirty-one were also willing to participate in this second survey. As ten participants opted to not do this part, the sample differs in some respects. One notable difference was in its ethnic composition as nine of the ten participants that did not answer it were ethnic Acholi.

45 _{The term “tribe” was used because it was frequently used by many people who participated and was more likely}

to be understood than the term “ethnicity”. It is understood that this term is otherwise problematic due to its connection to racist traditions in science. However, the understandability for the respondents was the main objective of the questionnaire design. Thus, these concerns had to be ignored here.

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Table 21. Ethnic composition of sociolinguistic and CDN questionnaires

Ethnic Identification Sociolinguistic Q. % CDN Q. %

Acholi/Luo _{32 78 23 72.5} Karamojong _{3 7.3 3 10.0} Itesot _{2 4.9 2 6.9} Muganda _{2 4.9 2 6.9} Lugbara _{1 2.4 1 3.7} Nubian _{1 2.4 0 0}

Further, the disparity between male and female participants grew, as only ten of the thirty-one participants were female. The level of education was on average higher, and so was the average income. The average age of 25.2 was relatively similar compared to 25.9 for the main sociolinguistic questionnaire, with the youngest participant being eighteen years and the oldest forty-five years.

Combined, the participants listed 329 people as part of their personal networks, for an average of 10.6. This number is extraordinarily high compared to the results from the US GSS. One reason for this discrepancy might be that some participants felt compelled to name the maximum number of people possible, as was done by more than half of them. However, even when we deduct all those who listed the maximum fifteen contacts, the average of confidants is still significantly higher. It can also not be ruled out that some participants would have listed even more people than the maximum given here. Even though this discrepancy constitutes an interesting research question, it is not the task of this study to address this phenomenon in further detail. On the positive side, this remarkably high number of listed confidents also meant that the data set included a very high number of data points on language use within these networks. Of the thirty-one participants, only one opted to list not a single confident, despite taking the questionnaire, whereas this appeared to a significantly higher rate in the GSS data set.

Table 22. Confidants per participants Gulu and GSS.

CDN-Gulu GSS 1985 GSS 2004

# Confidants (C) _{329 - -}

C per Participant (P) _{10.6 2.94 2.08}

% of C per P Max. _{51.6 - -}

% of C per P Min. _{3.2 10 24.6}

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The most common ethnic identifications among the confidants reflected the ethnic composition of the sample, with Acholi, Karamojong and Muganda as the most frequent. Following those was Langi, even though there was no ethnic Langi being among the participants. Since the Lango region directly neighbours Gulu district and family ties between Acholi and Langi are not unusual, this was not unexpected. All ethnicities that were named less than Langi, as well as those cases where the participants did not name a specific ethnicity were listed under the category “other”. Of all 329 confidants, five were identified as Americans, one as English and one as Mexican, making those seven the only people from outside East Africa listed. There were three other confidants identified as not being Ugandan, with one each coming from DR Congo, Kenya and Rwanda. Overall twenty-one different ethnicities were listed.

Table 23. Ethnicity of confidants in CDN

Ethnicity Acholi Karamojong Muganda Langi Other Overall

Confidants _{229 24 20 11 55 329}

% _{69.6 7.3 6.1 3.3 16.7 100}

Of the thirty-one respondents, twenty-three had listed confidants with an ethnic identification different from their own. Overall, 236 of the 331 listed confidants were reported as having the same ethnic background as the respondent and ninety-five as having a different one. On average, every respondents’ CDN was to more than a quarter comprised of people with a different ethnicity than their own.

Figure 7. Correspondence of ethnicity.

Ethnic diversity in CDNs was a rather common occurrence, oftentimes to a significant degree, making interethnic relationships an integral element for most of the participants networks. When tested for a possible correlation between the presence of multi-ethnic networks and the participants age, the analysis showed no significant differences. However, since the sample was highly skewed towards people between the ages eighteen and thirty, this result should be taken

72.2% 27.8%

118 with caution.

Most of the ties between respondents and their confidants were reported as being of singular connection. Only twenty-five of the 329 ties were reported as belonging to multiple types at the same time, henceforth referred to as multiplex. For seventy-nine of the 329 overall ties the respondents did not specify the nature of the connection.

Figure 8. Modality of ties.

Regarding the nature of the tie, the most commonly named type was friendship, with family coming in second and neighbours in third. Only nineteen of the reported ties were connected to the work place.

Figure 9. Types of ties.

The average age of the confidants listed by the participants was 28.4 years, with the oldest being sixty-six and the youngest four years old. Most reported confidants were between the ages of twenty and forty.

25.8% 49.8% 9.6% 3.9% 10.9% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Family Friends Neighbour Work Multiplex

24.0% 68.4% 7.0% 0.6% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

119 Figure 10. Ages of all confidants.

In general, the confidants were reported to be older on average than the respondents, as only four respondents had a set of confidants that was on average younger than them. The largest difference between the age of a respondent and the average age of its confidants was reported at over twenty years. Especially for the respondents between the ages twenty and twenty-five, having older sets of confidants was the norm. On the other hand, the three oldest respondents were among the four people reporting confidants that were on average younger than them. Figure 11. Age of respondents and average age of their confidants.

Languages spoken overall 

The languages listed by the respondents did not entirely match the diversity of the listed ethnic backgrounds. Besides the languages that were expected from the ethnic composition of the respondents and the predictable strong presence of English, the list also included Alur, Kiswahili

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 Age Confidants 0 10 20 30 40 50 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Age Respondent Average Age Confidants

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Adhola, French and Latin, of which the last three languages were each named once. Overall ten different languages were named. In total, the participants listed 420 languages for the 229 contacts that were listed with a language.

Table 24. Languages used between respondents and confidants overall (n=420).

Language % Acholi 47.9 English 37.9 Karimojong 5.2 Luganda 4 Lango 1.9 Alur 1.7 Kiswahili 0.7 Other 0.7

Most ties were reported with only a single language attached to them and for only a quarter of the connections the respondents listed multiple languages.

Figure 12. Number of languages per tie (n=329).

In seventy-two percent of cases with more than one language listed, it was either English or Acholi that were listed as second or third language. English was the language listed the most frequently in second position.

70.5% 25.2% 2.4% 1.8% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

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Figure 13. Languages named and positions they were listed in.

Among the other languages listed was Alur, which was named seven times overall, of which it came in second position six times. All those listings came from a single respondent whose father was Acholi and mother Alur. As a result, Alur was the second language behind Acholi used within that family. In the questionnaire this respondent identified as an Acholi without adding the Alur heritage though. Her answers were also remarkable for another reason. Not only was this respondent the only one listing French, but also named Latin as one of the languages used with one of the confidants. While the mentioning of French was easily explained by the corresponding confidant being Rwandan, the listing of Latin seemed rather odd. In rather uncommon fashion, this respondent had also learned Latin in school. According to the answers to a different segment of the questionnaire, they not only had learned Latin as a subject but used it also when talking with each other outside the classroom. In the CDN she listed it as the secondary language used when speaking to a friend.

It was not possible to detect significant differences regarding the gender of the confidants. Participants from both genders listed Acholi as the most frequently used language with their confidants, followed by English. English also consistently appeared as the most frequently named second language. However, the data set showed a stronger role of English in ties with male confidants, whereas female confidants were more likely to be assigned the respective first language of the participant.

53.4% 36.3% 3.1% 7.1% 30.0% 44.4% 4.4% 21.1% 25.0% 25.0% 37.5% 12.5% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Acholi English Luganda Other

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Figure 14. Languages assigned by gender of the confidant.

The languages the respondents assigned to CDN-ties showed that besides Acholi as the locally dominant language, English was given an almost equally prominent role as medium for interactions, regardless of the age or gender of the respective confidants. Kiswahili, the second official language of Uganda was barely listed, hinting at its limited importance in close personal relationships. Other listed languages were generally connected to the ethnic background of the respondents and confidants. Only Luganda, which was listed seventeen times overall, was also listed seven times in ties that did not involve an ethnic Muganda. For instance, in four ties between very young Acholi respondents (between the ages nineteen and twenty-one) and their confidants it was listed as the third language behind Acholi and English. The three other cases came with Olivia, a nineteen-year-old ethnic Itesot who had grown up in Gulu. In her notably multilingual network she listed Acholi, English, Lango, Alur and Luganda. While she listed Lango and Alur only in ties with people of the according ethnicity, she listed Luganda as the third language in three with her female friends of the same age.

Languages assigned to different types of connection

The CDN survey differentiated between four types of ties; family, friendship, neighbour and work-related. Most of the reported ties were qualified as friends, with family in second, neighbours in third and work-related ties in fourth position. I had chosen these four categories for two reasons. First, because of their practicality and self-explanatory nature, making them less prone to misunderstanding or misinterpretation.46 _{Secondly, apart from family networks I}

46 _{Other surveys on CDN would also differentiate among family members, grouping them into father, mother, uncle}

and so forth. In this environment, such a differentiation was deemed unpractical, as the taxonomy of family 46.3% 41.0% 3.5% 9.2% 49.7% 33.9% 4.8% 11.6% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Acholi English Luganda Other

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had significant access to three of these four types of social relationships. Not only did I engage in my own networks of friends, I was also a part of the neighbourhood I was living in and had explored various workplace during the research.

Friendships

My own experience of language and friendship was largely dominated by me being someone who was male, a foreigner, and not very proficient in Acholi. That meant for instance, that my circle of friends was largely male. This was neither by design, nor was this typical for me. Many of my friends at home were female. However, it appeared rather difficult to develop a closer personal relationship or even friendship with women in Gulu. I had tried doing so with people from my direct neighbourhood, but relations remained distant as I was unable to overcome the general tendency of friendship being more restricted to the same gender. This tendency was also observable within the friendship networks recorded in the CDN. My personal experience was thus in no way unique, but the expected outcome considering the local conditions and social dynamics.

Figure 15. Gender in friendship ties (n=150).

Within my personal circle of friends, conversations were in general held in English as my Acholi did not meet the required proficiency for deeper conversations. Acholi was nonetheless an important element of conversations even with me being around. Apart from continuous attempts by my friends to improve my Acholi language skills, others would also switch to Acholi when I was not involved in the conversation. Switching between those two languages appeared to be in general a seamless transition and could even happen in conversations that only involved ethnic Acholi. The respondents of the CDN survey named Acholi and English as the two most

members among Acholi can differ from the other conceptualisations. 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Male Respondents Female Respondents Male Friends Female Friends

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important languages in conversations between friends, with other languages like Karimojong, Luganda or Alur generally appearing in accordance to the ethnicities represented in the sample. Figure 16. Languages amongst friends overall (n=163).

Further differentiating the answers by the position in which the languages were listed in did not show any significant patterns. The percentage of ties that had English listed in first or second position was about the same and Acholi was as expected more likely to be listed in first position (forty-five percent) than in second or third (thirty-two percent).

More revealing than looking at the positions each language was listed in, was the connection between language and ethnic affiliation. Unsurprisingly, the CDN survey showed that ties between two people of Acholi ethnicity were far more likely to be reported with Acholi than English. That changed though when the ties involved people of different ethnicities. The two main possibilities for such a tie are that either the respondent is of a different ethnicity than Acholi, or the listed confidant is. These two options also show different results regarding the use of Acholi and English. In those cases, where the confidant was an ethnic Acholi and respondent was not, the distribution of Acholi and English was about equal. When the respondent was an Acholi, but the confident not, the ties were far more likely reported to use English. My own relationships with people in Gulu was precisely such a case, making my experience seem rather typical.

42.3% 44.2% 5.5% 8.0% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

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Figure 17. Ethnic difference and assignment of Acholi and English.47

Family ties

While the data showed the English language as an essential element for networks of friends, the results for family-related networks seemed rather different. The list of languages reported for theseä ties was dominated by the respondents’ corresponding ethnic or first languages. In line with most respondents being Acholi, this was also the most frequently language listed. The importance of English was greatly diminished here.

Figure 18. Language in the family overall (n=64).

Beyond this indirect approach, observing the use of language within a family was generally a difficult task. More than anywhere else was my appearance within such a network a disruptive

47 _{In cases where both languages were listed by the respondent, both were also included in the data.}

64.6% 50.0% 14.8% 35.4% 50.0% 85.2% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Respondent and Confidant Acholi (n=96) Confidant Acholi but Respondent Not (n=22) Respondent Acholi but Confidant Not (n=27) Acholi English 71.6% 14.9% 4.1% _2.7% 6.8% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

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event. When friends brought me home to their parents, be it within Gulu or in their villages, people were prepared for it. They would prepare some food, take care that they had no other obligations to fulfil, making my presence an event, useless for observation of everyday communication. What became visible nonetheless was that among the elder generations of my friends’ parents and grandparents, living in the villages around Gulu or farther away, knowledge of English was a lot less common.

There was also a gap between generations that became visible when I made the visit to the village of a friend. This village consisted of only a few dozen huts and houses to each side of the road. In one part of the village his closest family was living, having built their houses around a large mango tree in the centre. Every member of the family had their own house, the size of which depended on each’s financial capabilities and needs. Many houses were empty though. Besides some of his cousins and nieces that were still attending the schools nearby, only the older generations still lived here, including his parents and his grandmother. At that time his sister lived there with her baby son, but shortly after my visit she also moved to Gulu. For the villages right around urban centres, these developments were not unusual, leaving the generations of parents and grandparents in these traditional environments while most of the younger people move to the urban areas once they had the opportunity. The group of people left was thus very homogenous, including only people of certain ages. Thus, there was little need and opportunity to learn another language besides their first language. The only form of media available was the radio and they would generally listen to a program using their first language. People from outside would rarely, if ever, come here. The family had a small business selling gas to the motorcyclists using the road passing by their village, but that was run entirely by the children outside of their school hours. During my visit, communication was a difficult task as they spoke little English and I spoke little Acholi. Many from the older generations grew up in times when the opportunities to attend school were limited, especially for women. Thus, in our conversations we always needed a translator.

This difference in linguistic repertoires between generations not only extended to those living in the villages but was also detectable among people living in Gulu. The mother of another friend was such a case. She lived together with her two sons and her brother near Gulu university where she worked as a cleaner. Despite working in an environment where many people did not speak Acholi, her capabilities in speaking English had remained limited, even though she was able to improve her proficiency over the with the help of her children.

These observations largely concur with the data from the CDN study, as Acholi was the predominant language within family networks. Here, English appeared only occasionally.

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However, it should be noted that among the younger parents it was not unusual to speak English with their children. Especially if those already attended nursery or primary school, signifying changing attitudes and linguistic practices.

Neighbourhood

The urban neighbourhood as a form of social network is somewhat unique compared to the other three types of networks included here. Unlike in a village, where those living next to each other are usually part of the same family, the composition of an urban neighbourhood is more arbitrary. There are certain factors that homogenise a neighbourhood to a degree, like local rent or price of land, but these differences were not very pronounced in Gulu. Large houses or modern apartment buildings, where the rent can easily exceed 200,000 or 300,000 UGX (60-90 €) per month could be found in direct neighbourhood to small single room houses costing only 30.000