Let's talk..

2011-04-06 11:41

Essie Moses

Hello, goeie dag, sawubona, dumela, kunjani, Ndi Matsheloni, hell, I’d love to do all 11, but being a typical Saffer...er...my knowledge stops pretty much at the standard English and Afrikaans.

I can, however, identify these: bonjour, hallo, dzien dobry, szia, hola, ciao - that’s only hello and these I didn’t have to look up on Google translator. How many of them do you recognise? I’ll bet more than in the first paragraph. And why, because like me, you probably made the effort to learn the basics for travel purposes, I would assume.

Would you do the same for black languages in the country of your origin? Not so much, I bet.

And that’s kind of a disgrace, stemming from a certain arrogance that English is the lingua franca (but that’s the global standard, I hear you all say) - and added on in South Africa, Afrikaans. If you grew up on a farm, or in the countryside, probably also the predominant black language spoken in that area. Voluntarily? Or because you had to, to get by really.

As for the rest us, we couldn’t really be bothered too much. And why should we be bothered to learn a language spoken only in South Africa?

It’s not rocket science - we live here. In South Africa. Should we not be able to converse? Or at the very least make some kind of effort? Do you expect black speakers to always address you in the language you understand? Really?

Yet I bet, were you leaving to live or work in Germany for instance, you’d be off to language classes in a heartbeat. Or at least you’d get as far as: Ich spreche kein Deutsch, at least. And you would be required to learn the language within a year of being in the country.

And yes, I’m aware it’s not that simple...like comparing chalk and cheese...and hell I can use French, German, Spanish throughout the world, is the argument one hears often. IsiZulu, not so much, so why should I bother?

Well, I think we should bother. At the very least, learn the basics. Surely we owe each other that at least?

This whole debate was sparked in our office on Wednesday morning by Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande proposing that in future, every university student in South Africa may be required to learn one African language as a condition for graduating.

I’m not entirely sure it’s such a bad idea - albeit at tertiary level maybe a tad late. We should be insisting that it be introduced at pre-primary school level. At ALL schools. Not just Model C and private schools - which is largely the case at the moment. And yes, make it compulsory.

We can think of dozens of reasons why we shouldn’t, but not enough reasons why we should. It’s time we all did.

Who knows what might happen if we actually understood each other - literally.

- Estrelita Moses is Day Editor of News24.com.

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