The murder of my mother tongue

GALE NGAKANE
Correspondent | Wednesday February 24, 2010 00:00

As for Sembadi, it so rare, even an expert in languages, Professor Herman Batibo from the University of Botswana's Department of African Languages expressed ignorance about it. 'I do not know there is such a language.

I will have to find out about it,' he promised. However, the language is alive and thriving in Maun, Mmegi has established. A Chief's representative in the village, Labane Meno said there are a lot of Bambadi (plural for Mombadi) in Maun. 'We have such a tribe in Maun and most of them reside in the Meno Ward (which is predominated by the Setswana-speaking Batawana). It is just that most of them do not speak the language nowadays preferring Setswana. A lot of them have inter-married with Batawana and other tribes and hence ended up stopping to speak their language.

It is mostly people who are over 50 years who speak the language. You can say they have been swallowed by Setswana speakers,' Meno, who now works at the main kgotla, said.  To support his assertion that there are people called Bambadi Meno gave an example of the headman of arbitration at Meno Ward, Mauritius Bendu whom he (Meno) said was a Mombadi.

He said Bendu was elected to the post because Batawana, who is the dominant tribe, did not discriminate against other tribes. 'We have ensured that everyone, whether they are Wayeyi, Bambadi or Basarwa can be elected to be headmen of wards in the village in accordance with their competence.  'We do not discriminate against anyone,' says Meno. Efforts to speak to Bendu, whose kgotla did not have a telephone did not bear fruit.  Mmegi left a message and contact numbers with the secretary at the main kgotla Tuesday, but by afternoon there was still no reply. Mmegi wanted to find out from Bendu whether it is true that Sembadi is linguistically similar to Shona. Another language that is dying, Deti/Seteti. Mopipi village where the speakers of the language are mostly found, though according to the village headman, Oreagetse Machilidza, Badeti, from whose name the Boteti River is derived, they are scattered throughout Boteti- be it Xhomo, Letlhakane, Mosu, Matshumo and as far as Gweta.

Like Sembadi, mainly people, said Machilidza, speak the language, over the age of 50. 'It looks like Badeti were a people who wanted to preserve themselves such that they married among themselves. It appears they segregated themselves,' Machiliza, whose parents-in-law are Badeti, hazarded a guess.

A resident of Mopipi, Gosegomang Jekhwa said when he was growing up in the 1960s, there were many Badeti either in Mopipi or in settlements like Daukudi, Phorokwe and others neighbouring the village. 'Nowadays, there are few of them. And the few remaining can be seen at the outskirts of the village. What I am not sure of is whether they still speak the language because I have not heard any of them speaking it,' he said. Seteti is a language with clicks like Sarwa though its speakers are as dark-skinned as any African. Basarwa are light in complexion.

Professor Batibo says it does not look likely that the two languages can be revived and the only hope is for them to be recorded and archived.  'At the moment what we are doing is exposing the problem as there is no hope that they can be revived. We are merely trying to salvage the little that we can,' says the expert added that his department was concerned with African languages in general and Botswana one's in particular.

According to Professor Batibo, there are languages that are under threat, among them Yei which is spoken in the Tawana area and Boteti. Some Khoisan languages are also dying and these include Ju('hoan, (Kx'au('ein and (Hua (formely thought to belong to Southern Khoesan); Central Khoesan, with eight languages, namely Nama, Naro, (Gwi, (Gana, Kua, Shua, Tshwa,  and Khwedam (the last comprising Bugakhwe, (Anikhwe, (Anda and Kxoe varieties). The last group, known as Southern Khoesan has only one member in Botswana, namely !Xo(o(.  Khoisan languages that are dying include, Shua with 6,000 speakers or 0.035 percent of the population, !Xo(o( has 5,000 which translate to 0.29 percent, Tshwa also 5,000 or a similar percentage. Other Khoisan languages and their populations are: Khwedam (4,500 or 0.27percent); Ju('hoan also 4,500 or 0.27percent, Kua (2,500 or 0.015percent), Kx'au('ein 2,5000.015 percent, Rugciriku (Rumanyo) 2,300 or 0.14percent, (Gana 1,300 or 0.008percent, Nama (Khoekhoegowab) 1,000 or 0.006percent (Gwi 1,000 or 0.006percent and lastly the (Hua spoken by a measly 200 people or 0.001percent.There are many other languages in Botswana that faces extinction, including Nambjwa, a dialect of Kalanga found in the Boteti area. About 15, 000 people according to information gleaned from Professor Batibo, speak Nambjwa. There is also a language purported to be Sekhurutshe, which is spoken in Mopipi, Letlhakane and Gweta  and Nata villages. It appears youngsters are shy to speak these languages and hence resort to Setswana, which they are taught in schools and it is deemed 'clever' alongside English.

In my home village of Rakops, we have a Ikalanga dialect, which is looked down upon by the main Ikalanga speakers.  They have got this things of saying: 'What language are you speaking. That is not Ikalanga.' This is because the kind of Ikalanga spoken in Boteti area has borrowed a lot of Setswana words such that it is possible to have a sentence that sounds like Setswana whereas the speaker is actually conversing in Ikalanga.

In turn, the speakers of this language have shied away from it such that they either speak the 'proper' Ikalanga dialect or resort to Setswana.  Also, I have observed in my home village that Ikalanga speaking parents speak to their children in Setswana because they say it is what they are told they should do by teachers. The result is that a good number of primary school-going children in Rakops does not speak their mother tongue.   Last Sunday in Molepolole, Mmegi Managing Editor, Titus Mbuya critisised the Botswana government for marginalising other languages in favour of Setswana.

'Mother tongue is a people's culture; they compose songs in mother tongue, we hand over oral history from one generation to another in mother tongue, as well as proverbs and moral teachings,' he was quoted in Monitor telling a gathering that included the Minister of Youth Sports and Culture, Shaw Kgathi. As if to save his face, or that of government, Kgathi was quoted as saying, in his keynote address, that civil servants should learn at least two or three local languages so that they are able to serve communities well.  With the demise of languages like Deti/Seteti and Sembadi, it is clear now that the fear of extinction, or being overwhelmed by Setswana, is real. Some tribes have formed organisations like the Society for the Promotion of Ikalanga Language (SPIL), to advocate for the preservation of their cultures and languages.

SPIL has been around since the 1980s while Kamanakao, which advocates for the promotion, preservation and development of Wayeyi culture, was founded in 1995.

Then there is RETENG, a Coalition of 13 organisations and informal groupings devoted to the promotion and preservation of the linguistic and cultural diversity of Botswana's heritage. RETENG was founded in 2002 as a response to the government's failure to amend section 77 to 79 of the constitution in such a way that would address the discrimination the nation had been complaining about since independence.  Said a 2007 report by the organization: 'Individual member organisations of RETENG had been in existence before 2002, and the coalition was meant to bring these lone voices together for a common course'.

 In the report submitted to various organisations, including the United Nations Human Rights Committee Reteng raised the alarm with the following preamble: 'If you want to get rid of a tribe, deny them of their identity, take away their land and kill their leaders, Reteng. 

In the report, they used evidence to accuse the Botswana government of being hell-bent on marginalising minority tribes. 'On March 15th, 2007, the Vice President Khama, also informed his audience at Sepopa that the Wayeyi should not be agitating to have a chief, because as long as they live in the Batawana territory, they are Batawana and the Batawana chief is their chief.

'He gave an example of the Assistant Minister, Ambrose Masalila and  Minister Sheila Tlou who were in his company on the tour, that they too cannot have chiefs since they reside in Bangwato territory and he is their chief.

'The implication of such statements is that non-Tswana-speaking tribes will continue to be classified under Tswana-speaking tribes, hence their languages and cultures will continue to be sub-cultures of the Tswana cultures, if not eradicated. The non-Tswana tribes are therefore denied their right to identity,' said the report. One wonders whether on the 'International Day of the Mother Tongue' the government, which enact and implement policies, would stop and ponder the situation that it has brought upon its citizens.

Or it will continue paying lip service with talk shows, good food, music and dance. A UNESCO general conference on mother tongue has observed 'the current threat to linguistic diversity posed by the globalisation of communication and the tendency to use a single language, at the risk of marginalising the other languages of the world or even of causing the lesser-used languages, including regional languages, to disappear. It recommended countries like Botswana to:

l create the conditions for a social, intellectual and media environment of an international character, which is conducive to linguistic pluralism;l promote, through multilingual education, democratic access to knowledge for all citizens, whatever their mother tongue, and build linguistic pluralism; strategies to achieve these goals could include:

l the early acquisition (in kindergartens and nursery schools) of a second language in addition to the mother tongue, offering alternatives;l further education in this second language at primary-school level based on its use as a medium of instruction, thus using two languages for the acquisition of knowledge throughout the school course up to university level.