Language and culture
novels and television. Ndebele, however, has always been my medium of self-expression and the Ndebele culture, my way of life.
As a child I remember how I used to envy my peers who could speak English “through the nose” and could get away with many things, for their parents were not as strict. I envied their “freedom” and longed for the day when I would be free to choose how I wanted to dress, what I wanted to eat and which language to speak at home. That day has come and I find myself feeling sorry for my friends as I watch them still choose the English language and consequently the English way of life over our own.
I have learnt to love my culture and be proud of my language and now realise how languages emphasise the differences in different cultures. I feel responsible for the retention of our culture and I fear the obliteration of African cultures in favour of Western ways.
As I watch foreign languages being promoted at the expense of our mother tongues, I ask myself why we are not proud of our roots. I imagine a generation of Africans, 20 years from now, who speak only French, Portuguese and English. It is difficult to separate language from culture so as we adopt foreign languages we embrace their cultures and denounce our own. By sending our children to English medium schools and speaking to them only in English at home, we are paying through the nose, for our own estrangement from our children.
We will reach a point where there is a total disconnect between our cultures and those of the children we raise. Without realising it we are raising little Americans and little Britons who will eventually view us with embarrassment, pity or disgust the same way imperialists view us. To them we shall seem primitive, unsophisticated and in some instances barbaric.
How do you tell a child you raised with the British values and language that they must kneel before their great grandfather when greeting him when the culture he has been educated through, teaches “equal rights”. How do you explain to her that she cannot wear a miniskirt to the rural areas when “her culture” emphasises freedom of expression?
We cannot deny that due to globalisation, cultures are evolving. We have evolved from a society that at one point frowned upon women wearing trousers to one that has accepted the change. What differentiates a society that speaks its own language and values its culture, from one that has completely adopted a foreign language and culture, is that their cultural evolution is slow and natural?
This allows for change that does not upset the fundamentals of the evolving culture as it accommodates new trends without discarding the founding values and principles of that community. A Ndebele child brought up in the Ndebele ways but in a modern society, knows that she can wear bum shorts to a friend’s braai but has to “cover up” when she visits her grandparents in the rural areas.
In the same manner a well-balanced people knows that we must master the English language, as it is currently our medium of education and the international language for business, but it must never take precedence over our mother tongues.
The promotion of local languages equalises us to the point where English can no longer be used as a measure of superiority and intelligence. If all signposts in Limpopo, South Africa, for example, were written in English and Venda, and all announcements in the area were made in local languages as well, all people, regardless of education, would understand what was being said at any given time. All thriving economies, for example, France, Germany, South Korea and Russia use vernacular as their official languages.
The African, who is said to be primitive and inferior, possesses the same imagination as any white man, but is saddled with the burden of translating his thoughts into a foreign language. What hope is there then, that we can fully tackle our environments and ever be creators and inventors of anything?
Imagine how beautiful it would be, to hear a family speaking Shona in a supermarket in Iceland. Think of the emotion you would feel in seeing a young Ndebele girl curtsy as they receive an award at an arts festival in Brussels.
How devastating is it, to know you have been neighbours with a Zulu girl in New York but she exhibits no Zulu trait. The differences in our cultures are like the different colours of the rainbow and crayons in a box. They should paint pretty pictures in the world as they blend and stand out showcasing the beauty of our uniqueness. No language is better than another and nobody can be a custodian of another’s culture. The next time you address your child in English, ask yourself why you have never heard a Chinese man living in Zimbabwe address their children in English. When all is said and done, are you truly proud to be Xhosa, or do you secretly wish you were English?