Our language policy is comical. I remember going to speak at my former school where they recently added isiXhosa in the curriculum and the Xhosa kids were taught by a white lady who knows less isiXhosa than the some of her learners. Being 'qualified' to teach a language and knowing it in its essence and understanding all the nuances of it together with the culture of the people who speak the language are two very different things. I love seeing white people speak my language but I don't like how a dumbed-down version of it can be taught to kids with the intention of improving their grasp of their mother tongue.
Hey that’s actually me and fun fact we got this a lot when I was a kid in Pretoria from Setswana speakers! Makes sense as abana is children in Kinyarwanda too. But the intonation is different and Rutabana for us means one that reacts or acts with haste (like a soldier, which is what Ngabo means)
The problem in South Africa is a lack of unity, the solution would be to keep promoting English in Education so that south africans can esily communicate with each other and the rest of the world.
I think a better alternative would be to promote the development and learning of languages besides English, promoting them as cross-cultural means of communication, without disregarding English as a lingua franca. We need to keep our culture and diversity through our languages, not completely disregard them for a colonial language like English.
Our language policy is comical. I remember going to speak at my former school where they recently added isiXhosa in the curriculum and the Xhosa kids were taught by a white lady who knows less isiXhosa than the some of her learners. Being 'qualified' to teach a language and knowing it in its essence and understanding all the nuances of it together with the culture of the people who speak the language are two very different things. I love seeing white people speak my language but I don't like how a dumbed-down version of it can be taught to kids with the intention of improving their grasp of their mother tongue.
Ruta bana in Sesotho means "teach the children" so Mr Rutabana is completely aligned with their calling
Hey that’s actually me and fun fact we got this a lot when I was a kid in Pretoria from Setswana speakers! Makes sense as abana is children in Kinyarwanda too. But the intonation is different and Rutabana for us means one that reacts or acts with haste (like a soldier, which is what Ngabo means)
ke Morutabana 😅,ke gone ke lemogang
He pronounced Xhosa wrong though. The way he pronounced it, it would be Qosa (different click sound).
sah quel plaisir
The problem in South Africa is a lack of unity, the solution would be to keep promoting English in Education so that south africans can esily communicate with each other and the rest of the world.
I think a better alternative would be to promote the development and learning of languages besides English, promoting them as cross-cultural means of communication, without disregarding English as a lingua franca. We need to keep our culture and diversity through our languages, not completely disregard them for a colonial language like English.