Give us your rich and crafty, we’ll make them Indian and Nigerian

Two weeks after Spain won the 23rd Fifa World Cup, Ugandans have taken longer than expected to admit a new adjective “spain” (not “spanish”) into their language. Yet for the past two centuries they have been promptly assigning nationality adjectives, items, attributes and tendencies to nations they originate from.

Ugandans are fair and just, so negative adjectives today can turn positive tomorrow if the country-of-origin styles up. This happened in the seventies “japani” which had meant low quality industrial goods in a market dominated by European and even Ugandan products from the then industrial town of Jinja. But in the early seventies, the better-pronounced “Japan” started connoting competitively admirable products, especially cars that were performing well in the East African Safari Rally, like Datsun and Subaru. Today in the Uganda spare parts market, “Japan” means the best while counterfeits are “tayiwani”, regardless of origin.