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Life re-engineered: Comedian Vafa Naraghi, who hails from Mahikeng in North West, is about to embark on his first solo national tour, titled Becoming South African. Photo: Man Magazine South Africa

‘This Is the most alive I’ve felt: Vafa Naraghi on language, laughter and the journey of belonging

From an engineering degree to over 570 000 followers, Vafa Naraghi reflects on taking a leap of faith into comedy

Africa’s writer NgugiwaThiong’o.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, literary icon and cultural revolutionary, dies at 87

His pen exposed injustice, honoured heritage and helped free the African imagination from colonial constraint

On the power of language (Photo Archive)

On the power of language

Educating our children in their mother tongues will help to address underdevelopment in Africa

Every two weeks a language disappears, taking with it an entire cultural and intellectual heritage. (Madelene Cronje/M&G)

​Roll out the red carpet for SA’s indigenous languages

Although English may not be the de facto talk of the town in South Africa, in written form it continues to dwarf others

(John McCann/M&G)

AfriKaaps is an act of reclamation

Linguistic activism is central to destigmatising and celebrating AfriKaaps.

Distress: Aaron White couldn’t dress the decomposing body of his brother Taruai in new clothes.

Language can be a powerful cohesive tool

A system using English as a common language in multilingual schools, combined with multibilingualism, can be a powerful catalyst for social cohesion.

SA is rich in undervalued languages, but greedy for more

"We are such a multilingual country, but in government, when you hear people talk, you think we are a bilingual country"

Amid the deafening silence are bits and pieces of God

Maybe God also dwells in the small mercies of strangers, in the aha moments when humans connect deeply.

Let’s speak the languages we dream in

African writers must embrace their own tongues lest we drown in an English-dominated world.

Universities must be wary of giving up their strengths for the sake of ‘radical transformation’

Universities need to get to grips with cultural diversity

Different cultures enrich our rainbow nation, but ethnocentrism throws a spanner in the works.

A file image of Wits University’s Professor Lee Berger.

Jansen: Wrest power from English tyranny

If our children are to stand tall, they must master the language used to exclude them.

The SANDF has withdrawn all charges against Lieutenant Colonel Christine Anderson and the co-accused who were indicted for colluding in the landing of a private jet at a Gupta family wedding in 2013.

‘Attacks on black pupils must end’

Parents take to the streets to protest against a school’s decision to only admit Afrikaans pupils.

Why do some black people insist on bringing each other down

National culture: We need to talk about it

Using art as a nation-building tool? South Africans first need to address the way they speak to one another, argues Mpho Moshe Matheolane.

Anglicisms ‘leaken’ into German language

Germans are already "chillen" in their downtime, "surfen" the internet and, when they leave a nightclub, they may go on to "ein afterparty".

Do we want a nation of coconuts?

During a late-evening conversation with my six-year-old son, I was gobsmacked by his reasoning in asserting that he is not Zulu.