Why it helps to speak in tongues
Speaking multiple languages gives power you can only imagine
When I was growing up, it was embarrassing to admit that you were in financial trouble. If you sensed that the furniture bought on hire purchase terms was about to be repossessed, you simply changed addresses.
In itself a costly exercise, but it threw the furniture company into confusion, kept it running around in circles looking for you, thus saving you the embarrassment of being the person visited by the trucks from Ellerines, Town Talk or Beares – not to deliver, but to repossess. Ouch!
If you couldn ’ t move house, you went to mashonisa to ask for just enough money to keep the hyenas away from the door. But that way you only sank deeper into debt.
These days people openly admit they are in debt. In fact, they now share tricks with everyone who needs help on how to evade debt collectors.
One of the tricks is to simply ignore calls that start with certain digits: 087, 010 and so on. A short-term strategy, but it gives you some respite.
There is a video doing the rounds on social media featuring this guy sharing his own advice.
When the debtors call, asking for K Swanepoel, he immediately switches to Sotho, and speaks like a confused black person who can ’ t speak English: “Ake na yona swimming pool!” (I don ’ t have a swimming pool, no).
He goes on in Sotho until the debt collector gives up, dropping the call.
The appeal to me about this video is not the advice being offered. It is the presentation. This guy is white. And he speaks beautiful Sotho, using that ability to confuse and demoralise his pursuers.
His is one of a growing number of videos of white people speaking African languages in a manner that is entertaining.
Also doing the rounds is another video featuring a Xhosa-speaking woman speaking of a dream she had in which her ex gives her money.
On waking up, she phones him, saying: “You have money to give me! I dreamed about it, so it must be true.”
It would have been funny even if it featured a black woman; it gets funnier when you see this white woman speaking Xhosa with the proper accent and the attitude to boot.
Not so long ago, there was another one featuring DJ Tira interviewing a young white man singing praises to his isiphandla (the sacred piece of cowhide that some Zulu people wear around their wrist after a specific traditional ceremony).
Then the young man declares himself “the king of white people ” because he speaks Zulu. That comment opened the sluice gates.
Suddenly there were all these white people, women and men, speaking deep, rural Zulu, attacking the young man, accusing him of speaking broken Zulu. Hilarious stuff.
I ’ ve enjoyed the comments from black people. They ranged from “now we can ’ t gossip about them!” to “why are we praising these white people for speaking broken versions of our languages, yet we laugh at black people when they make the slightest mistake in English?” Touche!
The last time I went to ask for a loan from my white, English-speaking bank manager I don ’ t remember being praised for my excellent English.
Johnny Clegg used to take offence at black people praising him for speaking Zulu like a Zulu. He used to say: “White people have been here for 300 years, 400 years and with all the power they have and the educational opportunities at their disposal, they should have mastered African languages a long time ago.” I agreed entirely with Clegg.
Then there was Eugene Terreblanche, the racist demagogue who led the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging. He hated black people yet spoke Tswana fluently. I suppose it was a case of keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Whichever way you look at it, being multilingual is to experience and wield power.
Whites should have mastered our African languages a long time ago