Abstract
This article analyzes language ideology among whites in Kenya, documenting an historical shift from colonial settlers ' condescending attitude toward Kiswahili to an enthusiastic stance among settler descendants, some of whom pride themselves on their Kiswahili abilities and say it is their language of "connection" to Afro-Kenyans. I situate this change in a context of contemporary white anxiety about national belonging, especially given that colonial misdeeds have been put in the spotlight by events of the last decade. I argue that whites' stance of "linguistic atonement" attempts, with mixed results, to elide racial and class-based distinctions in Kenya, but it is thwarted in part by the fact that whites perpetually link Kiswahili to a register of "slang, " banter, and informality, reserving English as a language of authority. I further suggest that settler descendants experience a certain relief in being able to move from the affectively stunted persona they associate with English to a relaxed, warm, and open one in Kiswahili, but that this very mobility between registers could be construed as a new manifestation of white privilege. [Keywords: Language ideology, Kiswahili, colonialism, whiteness, white Africans, white privilege, East Africa]