David Parkin

National Independence and Local Tradition in a Kenya Trading Centre

It is, of course, for his immense contribution to linguistics and the general study of African languages that Wilfred Whiteley is known. It is sometimes forgotten that he was originally trained as an anthropologist and, moreover, retained this disciplinary thrust in his treatment of linguistic problems. In a truly extraordinary manner he was able to keep up to date with much anthropo-logical literature, a fact of considerable significance in his recent move into the field of sociolinguistics. For anthropologists as much as for linguists he is here irreplaceable. The important consolation is the existence of the initial fruits of his labours in this new field of sociolinguistics (Whiteley, 1966, 1969, 1971, in press, and many articles) and the fact that many of us are trying to respond to his great example.