I was at the salon the other day when a lady walked in with her sons. She greeted and started to converse with the hair stylist in Sesotho. O ne a bua sesotho sa haesale (proper and undiluted). I couldn’t help but follow the conversation because o ne a bua ha monate. I continued on my phone the minute she switched to English to address her sons. Of course one cannot assume they don’t speak Sesotho, I can only hope they do.
I regret not sticking to my plans of speaking Setswana to Nathan from day one, but I rectified that more than a year ago when he and I agreed NO MORE ENGLISH. I regret not conversing with Noah in Isizulu from birth, hence my decision to switch at the beginning of the year. Nathan can hold his own in Setswana and o ka se mo sebe. It doesn’t even bother me that Setswana sa gage is mixed le tsotsi taal, courtesy of his football teammates. 😅
I had to work on Noah’s confidence in speaking iSizulu, he was concerned about people laughing at him. My efforts were rewarded when he told me he would switch Afrikaans for iSizulu in high school. Moreover, I made him realize the benefits: “Don’t worry about anyone listening to us, just focus on the main goal…the mission to make you fluent before high school”.
Nathan and I listen to his playlist on our way to school, apparently this is another way to ‘get to know your child’. Parents and guardians know that teens hardly talk. He is an old soul, I reminisce when I hear some of the songs. Especially old school Kwaito, he even dresses like Trompies. This is a perfect opportunity to listen to the lyrics, he is not yet fluent in Setswana and many songs in his playlist are in vernac. There has been a few occasions where I say to him: “please delete that track, it is inappropriate”. Now imagine one day he decided to meet his friends at the park and he was playing a song about ‘dibono le matswele’ on a Boombox. Passers-by labelling him a rebellious and disrespectful child with no filter.
So now I ask, what is the reason you speak English to your kids? Are we lazy? Knowing very well that teaching requires patience, repetition and consistency…I am just as guilty. For me, it was ‘convenient’ because of their father. To ‘accommodate’ him so he didn’t feel left out. In hindsight, had I stuck to Setswana and iSizulu from the time our sons were born there’s a higher chance Matthew would be fluent in both languages by now. It is not too late, although I’ve lost hope, he is a slow learner 😂
My Humble Opinion: I don’t need to mention the benefits and advantages of teaching our kids and thus preserving our mother tongues. Think about the number of languages that are at a greater risk of becoming extinct, a befitting example for South Africa would be the Khoisan languages: Nama, Kxoe and Kung-Ekoka . Khelobedu also come to mind. There are so many beautiful languages that will unfortunately be replaced by diluted versions of the English language. I say this because new words are added onto the Oxford dictionary ever so frequently. English is a universal language, however, I have a responsibility as a parent to teach our sons my so-called home languages. I am on a quest to learn more languages, I am fluent in 6 South African languages and I am currently learning Shangaan.
“The world is a mosaic of visions. With each language that disappears, a piece of that mosaic is lost” – Francois Grosjean
Opinion Booth 