/ 14 June 2013

Setswana’s always close to my heart

Setswana's Always Close To My Heart

 It's a loving, permanent relationship I don't think I'd find anywhere else.

I worked on radio in my language for four years until 2002 and despite now being in a career that requires speaking and writing in English, I've never cut ties with my language. I grab every opportunity to translate radio material and other documents from English to Setswana.

My passion for Setswana makes it easy to spread the language by teaching others. A high-school roommate who started learning Setswana only in 1993 obtained a C symbol in higher grade at the end of matric three years later, thanks to my teachings. I must admit I sometimes laughed through our sessions, the most memorable being when she proudly demonstrated that she had been studying hard and blurted out "e re o gopola tshukudu o ikanyege sefate".  

In honour of Youth Day the M&G has published a series of takes on all our official languages. Read the rest here.

The accurate version of the idiom is "e re o gopola tshukudu o ikanye setlhare" which translates to "speak of the devil".  She had replaced the last word with a Sesotho version and had added an unnecessary suffix to the word ikanye.

She took an interest in the language, however, to the extent that she made a special request to share a room with me so she could have unlimited access to Setswana lessons.

I keep Setswana literature in my house for my own reading and sharing with the younger generation, a group I find a bit lost when it comes to their own languages. My brother (22) and stepdaughter (18) are a good example. You often have to explain words in conversations and in the worst-case scenario, you are forced to translate into English to get the conversation going.

When he was young, my brother insisted for years that the Setswana version of ugly duckling must be pidipidi ya skobo, a direct translation. My effort to explain why the Setswana version was pidipidi e e matlhajana (a wise duckling) fell on deaf ears.

The language is a part of me. I grew up speaking Pitori taal, a mixture of Setswana, Sepedi and everything else that became part of the language, but I chose to know Setswana. It is what makes me unique. Besides, I will never be as natural and spontaneous in other languages as I am in my mother tongue.

The intimate relationship I have with my language has contributed to shaping the way I view the world. I am proudly South African, but I am Motswana first. I contribute better to the 11-language rainbow nation by knowing my origins and my language.