There are 12 official languages in South Africa. Some of the languages make it into the way we tell South African stories, others not so much.
It could be because of the platforms the stories land on — they have to be palatable to that audience.
Miranda Ntshangase and Zinzi Zungu are the founders of Star Quality Management who have expanded their work into training through Star Quality Creative Arts College. It's a platform they, as creatives, have created to develop young people who have a keen interest in the arts and do not want to take shortcuts to get there.
You may know Ntshangase and Zungu from shows such as Tshisa, Nomzamo and The Queen.
In their work at Star Quality, Ntshangase and Zungu are going far beyond the training of young minds and are probing the industry by asking age-old questions about who gets to tell South African stories, which languages the stories are told in and what young creatives need to build sustainable careers.
The conversation is relevant as we enter Heritage Month. Is the industry doing enough to tell South African stories without fear of not being palatable enough to a certain platform or audience?
How you look and how articulate you are in English surely cannot be the only traits that distinguish a seasoned actor?
When asked about the importance of language and cultural identity at Star Quality, both say something that stands out.
"Through the agency, we see casting briefs where language can determine whether someone is right for a role. So we teach our students and actors to understand their language proficiency honestly. There is a difference between understanding a language, speaking it conversationally and being able to perform a five-page emotional scene naturally in that language," Ntshangase says.
"But we also tell them never to underestimate the value of the languages they speak. Your accent, your mother tongue and your cultural knowledge aren't things you necessarily need to remove to become a professional actor. They can be part of what makes you valuable."
Zungu on the other hand says that "at the college, we go further than simply talking about language. We create in those languages. We encourage students to perform in vernacular. We encourage our writers to write dialogue in the languages their characters would genuinely speak. Because language carries culture.
"There are jokes that lose something when you translate them. There are expressions that carry an entire cultural understanding. There are relationships between elders and young people that sound and feel different in our languages.
"If we want authentic African storytelling, language has to be part of the creative process, not something added at the end," Zungu adds.
Having been in the industry as long as they have, they believe there is some movement in this regard to South Africa's linguistic diversity. Change is happening, just not fast enough.
"There has been progress but there is still enormous opportunity. For us, linguistic diversity isn't about inserting a few vernacular words into an otherwise English story. It's about allowing African stories to exist confidently in their own languages and cultural worlds.
South African audiences are sophisticated. We live multilingual lives every day. Our content should be confident enough to reflect that," Zungu says.
Ntshangase says this should be seen as an opportunity to tell more diverse stories with more interesting perspectives, with more diverse performers.
"The more authentic our stories become, the more opportunities we create for different kinds of performers. If we keep telling the same stories from the same perspectives, we're naturally going to keep looking for the same kinds of actors. Expanding the stories expands the talent pool," she says.
Talent alone is not enough as both the founders have mentioned. Like in any industry one needs to be versatile to have longevity in that space.
Ntshangase says she has seen good actors lose work because of not being able to perform in a given language.
"We see it directly through Star Quality Management. You can have a brilliant actor who fits a character perfectly but if the role requires fluency in a particular language and they cannot perform authentically in that language, it can cost them the opportunity.
"We tell actors: 'Treat language as part of your professional toolkit. If you grew up around a language but have lost confidence speaking it, reconnect with it. Learn it. Practise it. And importantly, don't lie on your CV about fluency. Casting will know very quickly!'" she says,
"This is also why we want students to start thinking about language while they're still training. Instead of arriving in the professional industry and discovering that language matters, they should already have experienced performing, writing and creating in different South African languages," says Zungu.
And sometimes immersing yourself in a culture and its people adds another layer in the way you deliver your stage performance. It allows you to carry for nuances that can take the story into a completely different direction.
"If you're telling a story about a particular community, involve people who understand that community. Our cultures shouldn't just be visual decoration. They should influence character, language, relationships, humour, music and the way the story is told.
"That is something we're trying to instil in our students from the beginning: don't simply make African content; understand the Africa you are representing," says Zungu.
The work of the arts is about archiving parts of our cultural heritage, cementing ourselves in a timeline so that those who come after us can have a better understanding of who they are. So it must be done right.
Zungu says that to continue the work of archiving, language in all its forms should be a daily ritual of uncovering. "Speak to your grandparents. Listen to family stories. Understand where you come from. Learn the languages around you. Pay attention to the characters in your community. Those things become part of your creative library. The next great South African series could come from a story somebody heard sitting in their grandmother's kitchen."
Ntshangase says actors should not sanitise themselves when going into spaces of storytelling.
A lesson for everyone. Don't worry about the accent or perfect English. Start panicking once you have lost the language your ancestors have carved in your DNA.