Multilingual.com, November 18, 2022
When Evans Chebet won the New York City (NYC) Marathon this month, he became the first man in more than a decade to win both the NYC Marathon and the Boston Marathon in a single year.
Chebet, a long-distance runner who hails from Kenya, received a lot of attention not just for his impressive finish time (he completed the race in just 2 hours, 8 minutes, and 41 seconds), but also because he spoke to the media in Kiswahili with the aid of a volunteer interpreter and his coach, rather than using English. Chebet’s comments to the press have garnered kudos from Kiswahili speakers who applauded him for using his country’s national language (one Youtube commenter first commended him for using Kiswahili before even mentioning his win). Read more...