...I spoke to another cousin of mine who lives in Vancouver. Yena her whole conversation was in English , mina ngitshaya ngolimi lwethu.I was hoping she would switch and tune in to ulimi lwethu oluhle but she didn't, then I got to understand why ma dad would get ticked off if all we did was converse in English, it was nothing personal towards the English lingo, guess old man feared one day our beautiful lingo would follow the dino and dodo to extinction.
Ever realize that the pple who don even kno isikhiwa sang'khona yibo abasithandayo. Not to say I am an English expert but am just comfy with the little I kno.
After the whole conversation, l had to play the rewind button to my life and ngapaka to when l was at Secondary School, back to the 3C classroom with u"Skindi" our english teacher.Skindi used to say,"Abanye benu isikhiwa liyasephula lisithi phaqa!!" and he was very right.He was a very good teacher, learnt a lot from him, and lets just say u would count your lucky stars if u managed to scrape a mere 30 % in his class.
One time when asked to write some essays, some gal decided she was going to impress the teacher. Nangu umntwana ebhala, '... birds of the same feather xhibit(to be pronounced as zhibit) within the same proximity...', and another guy wrote,'...he made he hold a stone...' (Direct translation of 'wangibambisa ilitshe')Ayisikho lakuqaqeka on that day, by the end of the term the gal's nickname changed from 'one metre' to 'xhibit'(no reference or relation to the rapper/actor )
We seem to forget that in the process of communicating , our ultimate goal is to convey a message that is to be understood , so we get feedback.So why not keep it simple, achieve your goal and save yourself from being called 'xhibit', and if that don work tune to olwakithi , and u'll neva go wrong , besides u'll get to use some expressions u can neva translate to the English Lingo.
Please don get me wrong, it is good to learn other languages, but remember to be proud of yours too its a great part of who u r.
2 comments:
you speak with truth. i believe ukuthi tina we have the unique advantage of hlanganisa-ring ulimi lwethu lesingisi to convey a better message. some things cant be described ngesiNdex while others will always be ngesikhiwa.
you are so correct. it is quite a pleasure to be able to mix our gorgeous lingo with english. but for some us msalads we only bring in the english nxa sona isindebele sangkhona sehlula!
loving your blog sister!
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