Dumela Kgabane! Dumela Mohlomphehi! This is how the late Junior Motsie, a proud Sesotho-speaking journalist, and I would exchange pleasantries every time we met in the corridors of the Sowetan newspaper in Industria 20 years ago.
As a Setswana-speaking boy, I grew up in Soweto speaking fluent Sesotho because the nearby school I attended, Motsaneng Lower Primary, was a street away from my grandparents' house in Mapetla, as opposed to Megatong Primary, which was about 10km away in Mapetla Extension.
And when my mother was allocated a house in Phiri in 1979 I adjusted easily, because the area was predominantly Sesotho-speaking, with our neighbours speaking isiZulu and Setswana.
In honour of Youth Day the M&G has published a series of takes on all our official languages. Read the rest here.
The advantages of growing up in Soweto are plenty, one being that it is a multicultural society and a melting pot of many languages, thus one learns more than one language as opposed to those in rural areas, where one language is dominant.
And when I trekked to Cape Town in the early 1990s it was easy for me to converse with isiXhosa-speaking classmates from Gugulethu, Langa and Nyanga, who mostly could not speak a word in Sesotho, partly because of growing up in an isi-Xhosa-speaking area. Also, because they were not prepared to learn any other language except English, their loss was my gain – because today I also speak isiXhosa.
One thing I am proud of is that unlike many of my peers, whose children speak a nasal English after finding comfort in the suburbs outside of Soweto, I insist that my children speak Sesotho, Setswana and isiZulu.
There is a perception that the "kids of twang" are intelligent, but I have seen the truth in their writing and sentence construction.
Sesotho is one of the funniest and most interesting languages. I still have a copy of Mekgoa le Maele a Basotho by Azariele Sekese, a book I have owned since 1983, which is a version of The Students' Companion.
An insightful book about the Sesotho language and Basotho culture, I decided to keep it as part of preserving the language of King Moshoeshoe.
While I was a student at high school a classmate used to use the following quote: "Rake le shwetswe ke molebo", loosely translated as "When days are dark, friends are few."
It is important to be proud of one's culture, heritage, history language and music.
Today, I still play Mpharanyana and the Cannibals, Steve Kekana and Babsy Mlangeni, to mention but a few. I also take time to listen to Lesedi FM.
I know one journalist who is still a proud Mosotho, Marumo Kekana, who, like the late Junior Motsei, speaks Sesotho se lefi (pure Sesotho) and holds the culture in high regard.
How I love it when a Mosotho woman ululates!
Pula! Let it rain!