News / Education
Thankless journey to digitalise my mother-language, Ndebele
26 Sep 2011 at 16:57hrs | Views
I HAVE embarked on a thankless journey to digitalise my mother-language, Ndebele (SpeakNdebele.com) with a gracious hope to make it easy for non-Ndebele speakers who have a keen interest in learning my language with a rich southern African history.
The Ndebele language is called isiNdebele, although it is also sometimes known as just Ndebele, or isiKhethu. It is classified among the Nguni languages (Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa, isiNdebele).
First and foremostly, the Ndebele or Matabele peoples are a branch of the Zulus who split from King Shaka in the early 1820s under the leadership of Mzilikazi, a former general in Shaka's army.
During a turbulent period of African history known as the Mfecane, Mzilikazi and his followers, initially numbering about 500 people, moved west towards the area near the present-day city of Pretoria, where they founded a settlement called Mhlahlandlela (a name which lives on in the modern-day Bulawayo suburb, Malindela).
Here they came into contact with the Tswana people, who are credited with giving this band of Zulus the name "Matabele". Tabele comes from tebela which means 'to chase away'.
They then moved northwards in 1838 into present-day Zimbabwe where they eventually carved out a home now called Matabeleland and encompassing the west and south-west region of the country. In the course of the migration, large numbers of conquered local clans and individuals were absorbed into the Ndebele nation, adopting the Northern Ndebele language but enjoying a lower social status than that of members of the original clans from the Zulu Kingdom.
Eventually, they sought a different identity from their Zulu origin and called themselves AmaNdebele and their language was subsequently called Ndebele, a language which usually enjoys more cliques.
I have then taken up a challenge to make my language easier to learn particular from non-Ndebele speakers. I would like to believe that at speakndebele.com we are among those hitting some internet firsts, in the arena of African language preservation.
Granted, it is not the first African language to be digitalised and made available online, but our project can definitely be counted amongst the first of its nature, that have not been instituted or funded by a government institution or University language department.
The foundations of speakndebele.com, rest squarely on the idea that learning a new language must come through fundamentally speaking that language, so we take a less academic approach to teaching the language and have tried to foster as much of a natural and interactive learning environment as possible. In terms of digitalizing isiNdebele itself, our project is definitely an internet FIRST, and we are hoping to continue doing our part to work with others, towards preserving our language, culture and heritage for the present and future generations to come.
A huge motivating factor behind this project is that for too long our story has been written for us by others, and then it's told back to us from their perspective or their point of view. At speakndebele.com we say NOT anymore, we need to take this power back, and tell our own stories, in our own words, in our own way.
Did you know that to date, of the estimated 2000 native indigenous African languages, as recorded by the UN, 10% of them, a whopping 200, have already become extinct and are no longer in use today. There are those who argue that preserving our indigenous African languages is a worthless exercise.
Their argument is fundamentally built on the fact that we now live in an era of globalization where there is the need for the adoption of languages that have international appeal. In my opinion, this assumption is intellectually bankrupt. Our ability to preserve our indigenous languages is one way of empowering future generations to respect who they are and what they stand for. We firmly believe in this at speakndebele.com and we are working towards this end with every project and endeavour we undertake.
At speakndebele.com we believe that Language is the carrier of the cultural heritage of societies, thus the death of a language constitutes the annihilation of norms, values, attributes and beliefs of a people. But with the rapid extinction of Africa's indigenous languages, what then is the future of our heritage? The situation is worrying as the intrusion of foreign cultures through the media facilitated by advanced communications technology are fast causing most Africans to lose ties with their roots.
The mass exodus of Zimbabwean families into the diaspora has not helped our case, so at speakndebele.com, we are using the very same means that have threatened the forward momentum of our language and culture, to combat this negative effect, and we are hoping that through the use of today's extensive technology platforms, such as the internet and social networks like YouTube and FaceBook, we can reverse this loss of cultural ties and in fact re-build a nations pride & solidify our heritage for future generations to come.
Since colonisation, to date, we have embraced the Indo-European languages and by doing so, our vocabulary stock only makes references to things of Western appeal. Most Zimbabwean children can hardly relate what they learn in English with their counterparts in Ndebele, Shona or any other local dialect. According to Stephen R. Anderson of the Linguistic Society of America, "When a language ceases to be learned by young children, its days are clearly numbered, and we can predict with near certainty that it will not survive the death of the current native speakers."
This is one of the things that drive the vision ofspeakndebele.com. We are hoping that parents will partner with us, in making sure that they pass on the legacy of our beautiful language and culture to their children and we are here to help provide various tools, platforms and the means to assist parents to this very end. Today's children are wired into using the internet and social media as part of their everyday lives, so we are making every effort to make learning isiNdebele as accessible as possible, especially for the Zimbabwean child and teenager, who is being raised in the diaspora, and has less chances of being able to grow up learning isiNdebele as their Zimbabwean raised counterparts do. To be continued ...
The Ndebele language is called isiNdebele, although it is also sometimes known as just Ndebele, or isiKhethu. It is classified among the Nguni languages (Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa, isiNdebele).
First and foremostly, the Ndebele or Matabele peoples are a branch of the Zulus who split from King Shaka in the early 1820s under the leadership of Mzilikazi, a former general in Shaka's army.
During a turbulent period of African history known as the Mfecane, Mzilikazi and his followers, initially numbering about 500 people, moved west towards the area near the present-day city of Pretoria, where they founded a settlement called Mhlahlandlela (a name which lives on in the modern-day Bulawayo suburb, Malindela).
Here they came into contact with the Tswana people, who are credited with giving this band of Zulus the name "Matabele". Tabele comes from tebela which means 'to chase away'.
They then moved northwards in 1838 into present-day Zimbabwe where they eventually carved out a home now called Matabeleland and encompassing the west and south-west region of the country. In the course of the migration, large numbers of conquered local clans and individuals were absorbed into the Ndebele nation, adopting the Northern Ndebele language but enjoying a lower social status than that of members of the original clans from the Zulu Kingdom.
Eventually, they sought a different identity from their Zulu origin and called themselves AmaNdebele and their language was subsequently called Ndebele, a language which usually enjoys more cliques.
I have then taken up a challenge to make my language easier to learn particular from non-Ndebele speakers. I would like to believe that at speakndebele.com we are among those hitting some internet firsts, in the arena of African language preservation.
The foundations of speakndebele.com, rest squarely on the idea that learning a new language must come through fundamentally speaking that language, so we take a less academic approach to teaching the language and have tried to foster as much of a natural and interactive learning environment as possible. In terms of digitalizing isiNdebele itself, our project is definitely an internet FIRST, and we are hoping to continue doing our part to work with others, towards preserving our language, culture and heritage for the present and future generations to come.
A huge motivating factor behind this project is that for too long our story has been written for us by others, and then it's told back to us from their perspective or their point of view. At speakndebele.com we say NOT anymore, we need to take this power back, and tell our own stories, in our own words, in our own way.
Did you know that to date, of the estimated 2000 native indigenous African languages, as recorded by the UN, 10% of them, a whopping 200, have already become extinct and are no longer in use today. There are those who argue that preserving our indigenous African languages is a worthless exercise.
Their argument is fundamentally built on the fact that we now live in an era of globalization where there is the need for the adoption of languages that have international appeal. In my opinion, this assumption is intellectually bankrupt. Our ability to preserve our indigenous languages is one way of empowering future generations to respect who they are and what they stand for. We firmly believe in this at speakndebele.com and we are working towards this end with every project and endeavour we undertake.
At speakndebele.com we believe that Language is the carrier of the cultural heritage of societies, thus the death of a language constitutes the annihilation of norms, values, attributes and beliefs of a people. But with the rapid extinction of Africa's indigenous languages, what then is the future of our heritage? The situation is worrying as the intrusion of foreign cultures through the media facilitated by advanced communications technology are fast causing most Africans to lose ties with their roots.
The mass exodus of Zimbabwean families into the diaspora has not helped our case, so at speakndebele.com, we are using the very same means that have threatened the forward momentum of our language and culture, to combat this negative effect, and we are hoping that through the use of today's extensive technology platforms, such as the internet and social networks like YouTube and FaceBook, we can reverse this loss of cultural ties and in fact re-build a nations pride & solidify our heritage for future generations to come.
Since colonisation, to date, we have embraced the Indo-European languages and by doing so, our vocabulary stock only makes references to things of Western appeal. Most Zimbabwean children can hardly relate what they learn in English with their counterparts in Ndebele, Shona or any other local dialect. According to Stephen R. Anderson of the Linguistic Society of America, "When a language ceases to be learned by young children, its days are clearly numbered, and we can predict with near certainty that it will not survive the death of the current native speakers."
This is one of the things that drive the vision ofspeakndebele.com. We are hoping that parents will partner with us, in making sure that they pass on the legacy of our beautiful language and culture to their children and we are here to help provide various tools, platforms and the means to assist parents to this very end. Today's children are wired into using the internet and social media as part of their everyday lives, so we are making every effort to make learning isiNdebele as accessible as possible, especially for the Zimbabwean child and teenager, who is being raised in the diaspora, and has less chances of being able to grow up learning isiNdebele as their Zimbabwean raised counterparts do. To be continued ...
Source - Ntando Nkala-Sarr
