The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi Education Correspondent
HOW many of you are irritated by little boys and girls, sometimes even adults, who speak in English almost all the time? You are a racist. You have a serious hostility in you which infected you with this epidemic of dislike for the people whose mother-tongue is English. Whether someone or something taught you to hate English speaking people . . . maybe it is your nature of politics or you are suffering from a psychic revenge syndrome against whites that colonised you and you are now nursing historical injustices, you have a serious problem. You are a racist.
How many times have you heard or have been with people . . . maybe colleagues, friends or relatives who love English popular music and you have quietly said in yourself, ‘‘So you think you are VaRungu nhai?’’ Maybe a Ndebele speaking person incenses you with his or her Ndebele. Or a Ndau speaking person offends you to pieces when he or she speaks subterranean Ndau . . . deep-deep Ndau! It may be someone from Masvingo with their strong Masvingo dialect . . . varipagwendo havo vachibwereketa kana kuhwereketa nesvana svavatete vavo. You want to die or shut them up! Now this is not racism. It is tribalism. A chronic and dangerous disease that affects small minds and brains . . . small in the sense of both size and function! It is not racism, but a very close cousin of it.
Back to today’s salala children who are literally Zimbabwean black Europeans. Let them speak as much English as they want. It is their right, is it not, to learn and to speak any language they want? It is good for them. So long as they remember that they are not white and will never be white even under torturous applications of skin lightening creams and skin-toners. So long as they remember that their Zezuru, Ndebele or Ndau is not a cursed language.
The problem arises when the racism is against self and parents teach their children English to spite their mother-tongue. It then influences cultural values, defiles traditional customs and rubbishes Hunhu/Ubunthu. That is the danger; cultivating an English speaking culture that spites our mother tongues. Another danger is that of nurturing a fake self-importance of pretence. People who live a fake dramatised life style are dangerous caricatures. They are sick people who need deliverance.
Never teach your children to speak English and forget their Ndau, Ndebele, Karanga, Kalanga, Venda or Zezuru . . . the list is long. English is beautiful and expressive, but it is not a religion to be worshipped. There is nothing special about it. Even dogs can learn it and respond accurately and intelligently when their masters speak. So when you teach your child to speak English do not ever think you are making your child special or better than other little human beings who may not be as fluent or conversant with it. They are simply learning a new language . . . nothing more.
Children can speak English through their noses and sound like black Americans . . . that is possible, but never let them hate or forget their mother tongue. It is through the mother tongue that cultural moral rearmament and values are inculcated. Cultural values and all aspects of Ubunthu/Hunhu are rooted in our mother tongues.
I have seen parents who teach their children to speak English everywhere and to hate their mother tongue. It appears or feels classically important when the child is young and speaks English like a little British or American boy or girl and I tell you there is absolutely nothing wrong, but you will regret it later on in life when you realise your child has not only adopted the language but the values and lifestyle as well, some of it, if not all of it, rubbish and sickening.
It is fine and enjoyable when your child speaks English fluently and beautifully, but when he or she is of age and begins to manifest a distorted English culture, for she is only English inside and not inside, you will not like it. When your grown up child begins to perform and exhibit behavioural hallucinations of one who is neither English nor whatever other language, it will not be fun. Do not say we did not tell you.
I love English and speak it with romantic radiance and energetic passion. It is a wonderful language. But listen, it never deleted the honour and pride of my mother-tongue, Ndau, and never eroded its delicious richness and majesty.
Dr Ransom Muziwaramba Mlambo is a lecturer who teaches English and Linguistics at the University of Zimbabwe. He studied in Sierra Leone, South Africa and USA. He lived in the United States of America on two separate periods of his studies.
He speaks bottomless Ndau. To this day he has not allowed Zezuru to take over his mother tongue despite being an expert in English and staying in Harare for a very long time. Little wonder he is the ChiNdau Chemene Project Promoter . . . a project aimed at rejuvenating and regenerating real Ndau after government recognised the autonomous language status of ChiNdau among several others. He is not the only one.
There are quite a few fundis who understand what I am writing about here and do the honourable thing to their various languages. That is the way to go. We are not who we are by mistake. God made us who we are and learning other languages is perfectly good.
But changing ourselves into the life styles and copying the cultural values of the people whose languages we have learnt or are learning is self deceit. It is cultural prostitution . . .stupid and dirty.
