Xhosa facing extinction
SOMETIMES I get quite depressed about the future of our beloved Xhosa language.
The SABC’s Umhlobo Wenene FM, formerly Radio Xhosa, has taken a pro-Zulu path at the expense of IsiXhosa language.
I am not usually this way inclined, but when it comes to Umhlobo Wenene FM (UWFM) I can’t stop being sad about the direction in which it is heading.
My comment is prompted by the quality of the Xhosa language at the hands of presenters at Umhlobo Wenene. It is often awful and appalling. They are chopping down many existing and acceptable IsiXhosa words to make space for popular Zulu words and phrases.
This is happening so quickly that by the time Xhosa people “awaken” to it, it may be a difficulty which cannot be reversed.
We are now so used to it that the vast majority of Xhosa people never THINK of questioning it. This is despite some Xhosa people writing books in the Xhosa language, some of them occupying chairs of universities and some standing in pulpits.
These are the same people who “pride” themselves as amaXhosa.
Now we find babies of Xhosa parents with Zulu “Christian” names like Simanga, Busisiwe, Musa, Thoko, Siziwe even amid calls of what we fondly call ibuyambo. (back to your roots).
Mawethu vukani (my people wake up) before it is too late! Our language nears extinction (ludliwa ngumdlungu onesandlosi) on your watch.
On December 15 last year I couldn’t believe my ears when the Reverend or uMam’uKrweqane as she is popularly known to her listeners, said “uThixo nguThixo wezimanga” (in Xhosa it would be uThixo nguThixo wemimangaliso).
Is our Xhosa language going to hell in a basket? I’m Xhosa by birth and the word isimanga means a strange bad thing or behaviour and the correct word is “ungumangaliso”.
And not long ago she referred to izalamane or izizalwane (relatives of the victims of the Sandton bridge collapse) as a mere bunch of izihlobo. Yet manifestly, this is not the sense in which the term is generally used by amaXhosa when they speak of one’s bereaved family.
This was unsympathetic, cruel and unkind to say the least. What right have these individuals called abasasazi (presenters) to call the mourning relatives of the deceased izihlobo?
Some few years back a Sunday religious programme presenter who has since passed on – may his soul rest in peace – also said “uThixo (God) usisimanga”.
If you take a look at all of this in combination, as I’m doing now, it’s hard not to feel that the end times are nigh. That evil communications are corrupting good manners and that in 2017 further deterioration may be seen. Come 2040, our noble Xhosa language will join those in the graves of long-buried civilisations. Theoretically it will entirely disappear.
When amaXhosa seyakhuluma manje (speak in Zulu now), IsiXhosa is dead and there will be no resurrection. — S Siyongwana, Nqamakwe