In the 1950s, the so-called tsotsitaal of the townships, the slang used by the most marginalised — the criminal and the artists — developed in response to the innate hunger that all people have to express themselves, and to do so in the language that most reflects themselves and their environment.â€
This is how Botsotso Jester Alan Kolski Horwitz, in a review of colleague and tsotsitaal proponent Ike Muila’s poetry collection, entitled Gova, describes the basic circumstances leading to the formation of tsotsitaal.
For Lebo Motshegoa, creative director of ‘black consumer insight agency†Foshizi and author of Township Talk, there is a distinct difference between tsotsitaal and s’camtho, usually interchangeable terms. Simply put, ‘tsotsitaal belongs to our timers [fathers] and s’camtho can be traced to the birth of bubblegum music, the music that is also known as kwaitoâ€.
It seems easy for Motshegoa, who also writes a weekly s’camtho column for The Daily Sun, to define cultural evolutions into such neatly configured boxes. He is, after all, in the advertising industry, where generalisations and ill-advised assumptions are still the order of the day in most cases. Having heard him speak at a poetry event recently, about the reasons for publishing Township Talk, now in its third mutation, I had to take issue with him on several points.
I put it to Motshegoa that his book was little more than a ‘shameless money-spinner†that ultimately served no purpose in the development of the lingua franca or its speakers. He countered: ‘It is capturing the daily happenings and printing them on paper. Is a newspaper a shameless money-spinner? No! There have only been two mediums used to promote Mzansi popular culture — namely music and tourism — and now, the dictionary. Like any language, it tells our way of life and beliefs. One is only paying for the extensive research that went into compiling this.â€
The pocket-sized book contains about 3 000 terms, with their English translations alongside. There is no written explanation for the orthographic choices made and there is also no etymological explanation accompanying the terms. ‘It has been very difficult to trace where the words come from, but one has tried to come as close to the source as possible — and where definitions vary, I have added synonyms,†he explained. ‘But as far as spelling is concerned, I have written it how it is pronounced. For example, there is a debate about how you spell loxion. Is it loxion or lokshin?â€
I also felt that some of the words, such as delela (to disrepect), dunusa (to bend over) and fakaza (to give evidence verbally), did not warrant inclusion in the dictionary because they were generally regarded as bona-fide Nguni terms. But, as it turned out, I stood corrected. ‘S’camtho also has derivatives,†Motshegoa told me. ‘Do remember that it is a mixture of most South African mainstream languages. There are also words like pluck, which is English for bravery and vader, which in Afrikaans means father, but in s’camtho means cop. Therefore, these words that are standard vernacular actually form part of everyday township vocabulary. This allows even a Sotho person to use Zulu and English in a sentence. For example, ‘Everytime batho ha ba gembula ba dunusa to gooi the dice [Everytime people gamble, they bend over to throw the dice].â€
According to the author, the book exists because ‘black cats have battled to sell their ideas and creative work using this language. Many were not believed by their white employers that there was such a language in the community besides mainstream vernaculars. Many great ideas were lost because there was no document to prove this.â€
Ultimately, Township Talk does not portray itself as a scholarly or definitive glossary of the latest kasi terms. It is merely a fun, somewhat gimmicky, update of a constantly evolving ‘tsotsitaal under the influence of mass mediaâ€, as Louis Molamu, himself a tsotsitaal dictionary author, put it.
Township Talk: The Language, the Culture, the People (Double Storey) is available from Exclusive Books for R50