The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi Post Correspondent
GOVERNMENT recognised Ndau as a fully fledged language after a long history of suppression by Shona. Other vernacular or indigenous languages that enjoyed the same autonomy after centuries of colonial block out are Venda, Nambya, Tonga and Tswana, among the 16 recognised by government. What this licence for Ndau to exist as a language in its own right meant was serious enfranchisement of a language once wrongfully considered to be a dialect of Shona. We knew this mistake to be true for all the time Ndau was treated as such.
Until Government hardly five years ago recognised the independent fullness of Ndau, among others, as a democratically independent language. It must be applauded.
We knew all along that the people who settled in Chipinge in the late and early 19th century were mostly a South African tribe, mainly Zulu and Nguni from around Durban and Natal. They were stopped there from advancing northwards by the Shona speaking warriors. As the war for settlement escalated and took the shape of an unwinnable campaign for the South African tribe, the Zulu and Nguni tribes from Egoli scattered to the west into Matabeleland and into the Mozambique borderline in the East. They were too weak to push the Shona back but were strong enough to maintain ground around Chipinge. In fact research has it that the name Chipinge refers to the process of resistance of the Shona people as they refused them chance and space to penetrate deeper into the mainland (kupinga). The area called Chipinge got its name from ‘‘Kupinga’’.
The Shona refused to retreat northward and the Zulu-Nguni tribe refused to retreat southward towards South Africa where they were coming from. These were the tribes that finally settled around Chipinge and surrounding areas and came to be known as Ndau people.
To the south eastern areas they were more of Tshangaan descent and in the central part of Chipinge more of the Zulu-Nguni tribe later called Ndau. These naturally related more closely to the Zulu- Nguni and Ndebele tribes. Most certainly not Shona tribes! Most of what gradually became Ndau language found etymological root in Zulu-Nguni and Ndebele tribes.
Whoever then said Ndau was a dialect of Shona was committing an etymological crime or practicing lexicographic mischief.
This reporter is not a historian by imagination, interest or study. Historians would know better the short and long of the history. But he does not need to be a historian to know he is Ndau born and bred in Chipinge. The first word he learnt to speak was Ndau.
The first word he heard spoken was Ndau. He writes beautiful Shona (not so much spoken Shona), he speaks and writes pure Ndau. English which he speaks and writes fluently and enjoys using with meticulous precision and acidic accuracy is as a matter of fact a third language. Now he can say with a deep sense of patriotic pride, “My first language is Ndau, Shona is second and English my third language.”
That said and done, typical Ndau speaking Zimbabweans expected and continue to expect serious business from Ndau people to sit and write books, formulate standard Ndau orthography . . . carry out researches on beliefs customs and traditions of the Ndau people; their food, their culture-based games and sporting and most importantly their cultural values, thoughts and philosophies about life. Mind you, a people does not become who they are because of the language they speak only, but also their beliefs, philosophies of life . . . their cultural values.
Obviously the radio and television would have been the best platforms to authenticate the depth and worth of the Ndau language. But what do we hear and see today . . . especially on news bulletins? Embarrassing adulteration of the Ndau language by presenters who have heard about the Ndau language but do not know it!
They have the job, fine, but do not have the language. I am sure even those who must evaluate the authenticity of the language themselves do not know the language enough to put up news bulletins, plays (drama) or whatever programmes premised on typical Ndau language.
They are imitators of the language and lack the depth of typical Ndau diction, intonation and pronunciation.
You can tell from the verbal ‘‘clowning’’ that they are not serious participants serious about regenerating a pure language that for centuries groaned under the weight of Shona.
They still bring in the Shona linguistic inflexions and diction and spice it with a funny rehearsed intonation that is neither Shona nor Ndau.
A suggestion to radio and television stations to employ typical Ndau presenters who are genuine on radio and television to anchor news bulletins and present Ndau programmes would not be asking too much. If there are no such Ndau individuals who are capable of broadcasting in typical Ndau language why not wait until they are born or trained? Than to fib that presenters are speaking Ndau and listeners listening to Ndau when in fact they are bringing back Shona through the back door, deliberately or by default!
The word ‘‘nthau’’ is a funny concoction of the Shona ‘‘nhau’’. It is not a Ndau word. ‘‘Dzechiyerengwa . . .’’ is not Ndau either. A Ndau visitor does not say “gogogo” when arriving in someone’s homestead. He would say ‘‘Ndauwe Ndauwe!’’ Or ‘‘dododo’’. A hen or cock has no leg at least in Ndau, when it is in the pot prepared for supper or lunch. “Unonzi muparapadzo”. There is no ‘‘kuvhima’’ in Ndau, but ‘‘kuzingeya’’ . . . likewise no ‘‘muvhimi’’ referring to a hunter, but ‘‘muzingeyi’’.
Blood from an animal that has been slaughtered for meat carefully collected to be boiled, added salt to and eaten (a delicacy for Non-Seventh Day Adventists) is not ‘‘ngazi’’ or ‘‘musiya’’ but ‘‘rubende.’’Chigamba (a patch on a dress or garment) is called ‘‘chitembwe.’’ There is nothing like chikosoro in Ndau . . . even if you call it ‘‘chikotsoro’’ in an attempt to make it sound Ndau. Flu is called ‘‘mukuhlana.’’
Like any other language, Ndau has various levels of expression; from formal to informal to emotive language, like any other language depending on its purpose and the relationship between its user and the recipient.
It has its colloquialisms, its denotative and connotative structures, its biases and prejudices, its jargon, its idiophones, its idioms, proverbs and verbal contexts. It is a beautiful language pregnant with deep appropriateness needed in all situations that, like any other language, demand respect and ethnic sophistication. Those who do not know or understand the language find it funny providing a deep sense of humour.
Imported Ndau news readers or television presenters and other programme presenters who do not know the Ndau language thoroughly can never do justice to the intended cause of legitimising and resurrecting a ‘‘dead’’ language. People whose parents were born in Chipinge but never lived in Chipinge and never spoke one Ndau word, are not eligible for radio and television broadcasting. They do more harm than good to the language.
Radio and television stations may take this process as broadcasting fun . . . something to laugh about and create entertainment around.
But in the context of education and the updated curriculum, not least the Ndau Zimbabweans, this is a serious scholastic task intended to bring back proper Ndau into schools, and not adulterated or corrupted versions of it.
If genuine Ndau people do not applaud government for acknowledging Ndau as a full language and do not assist in making it what a full people’s language must do, no one will do it for them.
