New name for Port Elizabeth fails to click with the many
Tourists meandering along South Africa’s scenic Garden Route should ready their tongues after one of its landmarks was renamed in the local language to start with a click.
Port Elizabeth is to be known as Gqeberha, a Xhosa word for the Baakens River that flows through the coastal city, the government announced in the latest round of name changes to transform the country’s ‘‘heritage landscape’’.
One of the main sounds that define Xhosa as the ‘‘click language’’, the ‘‘q’’ in Gqeberha signifies a palatal snap of the tongue against the roof of the mouth and drawn down sharply – rather like that of a bottle being uncorked.
The city of one million people was named in 1820 after the late wife of the acting governor of the Cape Colony, a British possession.
The name change is one of seven in the Eastern Cape province to be gazetted to reflect the region’s language and culture. Visitors flying into Gqeberha, which is 720km east of Cape Town, will now arrive at Chief Dawid Stuurman International, in honour of the Khoi chief who fought Dutch and British colonial rule for two decades from 1799. The town of Uitenhage will be known as Kariega and the new name for King William’s Town will also require a cork-popping click to pronounce – Qonce.
Xhosa is one of South Africa’s 11 official languages and spoken by approximately 15 per cent of the population. Some of the most prominent anti-apartheid champions have been Xhosa, including Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Walter Sisulu.
The ruling African National Congress set about renaming streets, cities and regions that bear the stamp of colonialism and apartheid after the first democratic elections in 1994. Intermittent announcements sweeping away familiar labels divide opinion. Many outside the country may be surprised to learn that the capital is no longer Pretoria, but Tshwane.
The opposition Democratic Alliance accused the government of failing to ‘‘get their priorities right’’ at a time of worsening economic hardship as the country battles the coronavirus pandemic. The Eastern Cape had South Africa’s highest unemployment rate, at more than 50 per cent, Michael Cardo, the shadow employment minister, pointed out.
‘‘But, hey, its towns and airports have a new bunch of names, #progress,’’ he wrote on Twitter.
Jonathan Jansen, an expert on education who was the first black rector and vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State, said: ‘‘I believe in symbolic restitution but I have a faint suspicion that politicians resort to changing place names (it’s so easy) when they fail to change poor people’s lives.’’
For the radical left party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, South Africa’s decolonisation programme has been far too slow. It has demanded the removal of all statues of apartheid figures and that the national anthem be stripped of its verse in Afrikaans.