Modern standard logic in Luganda

Abstract

This study investigated the problem of expressing modern standard logic in Luganda, a Bantu language widely spoken in Uganda both as a first language and second language with the major aim of showing how a language can be raised to a university level of expressional modernization by adopting a systematic approach. The study was conducted in the following ways: At first there was an experiment using a questionnaire testing for the logical intuition of a group of university-educated Luganda speakers in the areas of terminology, logical rules and fallacies, plus the empirical truth vis-à-vis logical truth, which experiment enabled the researcher to establish the problem of study. The adopting of a given criterion, together with 10 word formation rules and the affixes were adopted by the researcher to extrapolate terms that were used to articulate modern standard logic to Luganda. As a matter of procedure, the researcher determined the English logical terms, and gave their Luganda equivalents with the word formation rules used in their formulation in light of the adopted criterion With the help of the terms, the researcher expressed modern standard logic in the calculus, truth-tables and arborization method, and thereafter presented their application. The study also tackled day-to-day and scientific reasoning with exemplification of English logical texts translated into Luganda. Lastly, the researcher came up with an English-Luganda and Luganda-English glossary of logical terms.