Have you ever figured out how and when the word ‘Ukimwi’ started being used in Kenya and other neighboring Swahili-speaking nations?
Well, the word, which is an equivalent to HIV/AIDS, was first used in Kenya in the 1980s, just after the first infection was reported.
Some of you might be wondering who or where the word Ukimwi was coined so as to enable Swahili speakers to have a better understanding of the deadly disease.
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In this segment, Times Digital Kenya explores the person who coined the word in Kenya, which was then adopted by all the Swahili-speaking nations in the neighborhood.
When the word Ukimwi was introduced to Kenyans
It was at the time (early 1980s) that HIV/AIDS had started spreading among several nations in the world that it had to be broken down to Swahili for better understanding among Kenyans.
This huge task fell under the purview of journalists, who were at the forefront of reporting all the happenings and day-to-day activities concerning the virus.
Luckily, veteran journalist Edward Kadilo and KBC (the then-leading media station in Kenya) were the first people to coin the word Ukimwi.
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Ukimwi, a direct translation of the English word HIV/AIDS, was just an abbreviation of Ukosefu wa Kinga Mwilini (Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome).
However, the name had to be approved by scientists at the University of Nairobi (Uon), and they gave the go ahead of the word Ukimwi. After the approval, the first person to use the word was Edward Kadilo.
As reported by a local publication, Kadilo and KBC played a huge role in breaking down the name to swahili for better communication with radio listeners at the time.
Since then, all countries using Swahili as their primary language have been using the word Ukimwi in reference to HIV/AIDS, thanks to Kadilo and his KBC crew.
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“Other Swahili-speaking countries that were trying to coin their own names adopted ours after they saw how we broke it down,”
Kadilo said during a past interview.
