WE’RE LOSING OUR SISWATI LANGUAGE

Madam,

In each and every country there is a specific native language which they use to communicate with each other. In most cases, we conclude a person’s country by the language that person speaks. In a person’s language we get to learn a lot of things about them, including their culture.

As we are the Kingdom of Eswatini, our native language is siSwati. I have been to neighbouring countries and I could hear by the language that a person is a liSwati. It amazes me when I hear someone speaking silver-tounged siSwati in other countries, especially in South Africa where they use Zulu as their main language in some parts. My teacher once told me that she mistakenly spoke siSwati in the USA and one man overheard her and said ‘lona wasekhaya’.

So, native languages are so important because of the fact that you can find your people in faraway places; it actually unites us when away from home. Our native language helps us connect and communicate with one another. It also helps us understand and appreciate the history of our ancestors and our own upbringing.

In as much as native languages are important, I have noticed that our language as emaSwati is slowly vanishing or changing completely into something new. This brings about great concern because the next upcoming generation will not find the pure dialect that is the heart and origin of our cultural language.

Corrects

Most of the time I listen to the radio and there’s this presenter known as ‘Mdokis’ who corrects people when they speak rotten siSwati. He always says: ‘Nigasoneli siSwati setfu’, and I myself salute him. I heard someone once saying ‘emanbongolo’ instead of ‘timbongolo’. There is also this word which is becoming a norm yet it is very wrong; most people now say tinsita instead of saying ‘labo labanika lusito’. Wait until you hear someone saying ‘tiloli’ instead of  ‘emaloli’ and you will understand why I am concerned.

Parents now expect their children to speak English to show that teachers are doing their work but at the same time these children forget about their mother tongue. In some schools you find the pupils speaking fluent English, even in town or on buses, in the name of being ‘classy’. Mostly these pupils, when they hear another pupil speaking fluent and pure siSwati, they just regard him or her as a low-life person. It may sound ‘classy’ when you speak English but the fact is that we are emaSwati. Those pupils regard themselves as emaSwati yet on the other hand they are so ashamed of their own language, which they should be proud of.

Explain

I am so against this rule in schools which says ‘this school is a English medium school’. What about our own language? Some pupils find it so difficult to understand some lessons because of the English, but just explain to them in siSwati and you will see how they get to understand and enjoy that subject.

I strongly believe that children should maintain their mother tongue so they can have a better understanding of the curriculum and have a positive attitude towards school and their cultural heritage. I would like to also the country to consider making a siSwati newspaper. This will show how vital the language is and the importance of  keeping it as pure as possible. If we can have an English channel and siSwati channel on television, then I guess it would not be a big problem to produce both siSwati and English newspapers.

Possible

Even I myself find difficult to speak pure siSwati. We need to also have siSwati novels, as many as possible. Let us be courageous in speaking our mother language because it proves we are so proud of being emaSwati. If it were possible, I would have even written this letter in siSwati. One poet once said ‘noma ngigcoke leti tebelungu tembatfo, lwimi lwami ungangishiyi’. Yes English makes us able to communicate with people from almost all parts of the world, but that doesn’t mean we should just neglect our own native language. Engabe sisilahlelabani lesiswati setfu?

Nobuhle Matse

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