News: South African students getting tutored by text – Volunteer tutors wanted!

September 24, 2010 — lingoproz

Found on TCMnet on 24 September 2010
By Chris DiMarco

After a nationwide teacher strike left students unprepared for final exams the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa has lined up volunteers to offer tutoring support via a popular mobile phone messaging platform.

Final exams in the country are less than a month away and student will require a passing grade to graduate. In the face of time constraints and personnel deficits students are being directed to download study materials and access tutors via MXit.

MXit is messaging services similar in many ways to AIM or Skype. Mobile internet use has exploded in South Africa recently, and the popularity of MXit makes it an ideal way for the young people to actively prepare and collaborate with tutors in absence of teachers.

Over a 1000 messages can be sent on the messaging service can be sent for a Rand, which is about 15 cents U.S. “MXit is cheap and efficient,” said Laurie Butgereit in a statement Thursday. Butgereit is heading up the effort which is called Dr. Math. She created Dr. Math while helping her son and his friends prepare for the exams using the messaging program.

Student access the service by going to the company’s website and finding it under the “MXit cares” tab.

The teacher strike ended on Sept 6, but students have protested throughout the country that the time lost has left them unprepared for exams. Demonstrations have erupted throughout South Africa and have left at least one dead when police officers opened fire on a group of protesting students, killing a 17-year-old girl. There is hope that the mobile initiative will help calm dissident students.

“It is a perfect opportunity for South Africa to roll up its sleeves and help” she said. “Dr. Math is currently helping 12,000 learners on MXit, but we could be helping so many more if we had additional volunteer tutors.” More than 100 tutors have already signed up to help.

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News: Language still bitter issue in South African schools

September 24, 2010 — lingoproz

Found on Google/Associated Press on 24 September 2010
By Donna Bryson (AP)

JOHANNESBURG — A 16-year-old who believes she was kicked out of class for speaking her first language at school has prompted government investigations, and the case is demonstrating how volatile the issue of language in education remains in South Africa.

School officials insist a disciplinary problem and not racism sparked the case, but it’s now making headlines a generation after hundreds here were killed when students revolted over being forced to learn in Afrikaans, the language of their white oppressors under apartheid.

Luthando Nxasana says that when a business class teacher told her to speak English “or get the hell out of my classroom,” she gathered her books and left to complain to a more senior teacher. Luthando said she told her teachers she believed being kicked out of class for speaking Xhosa was “very racist.”

Xhosa is spoken by Nelson Mandela and some 10 million other South Africans and is one of the country’s 11 official languages along with English and Afrikaans. However, those languages of South Africa’s colonizers still rule in the classroom and elsewhere, a recipe for resentment in this nation of 50 million.

Shawn Scannell, head of the parents’ board at Roosevelt High School, said many of his students and teachers felt they had been unfairly portrayed in the storm of publicity since Luthando went public with her complaints.

“The school … encourages respect for all racial and cultural groups,” he said in an e-mail, noting that students come from South Africa, Angola, Namibia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Asian countries.

Scannell said Luthando was punished because she was speaking loudly enough to disturb others. He said other students who speak Xhosa said Luthando was criticizing the business teacher and other girls’ appearances.

Luthando, though, said she was only encouraging a friend who was worried about grades. Luthando said other students may have mocked the teacher in their home languages but she said she should not be punished for others’ bad behavior.

Tensions escalated, and Luthando’s father even went to the police, accusing teachers of trying to intimidate her and her twin sister, Lusanda. Prosecutors declined to pursue the case, saying it would be better handled by the Department of Education and the Human Rights Commission, which is investigating.

Chris Swepu, who heads another government agency investigating what happened in that business class, the Pan South African Language Board, acknowledges it’s not yet clear whether Luthando’s “linguistic human rights” were violated. But nonetheless he says the case has put the spotlight on the issue of language in schools.

Many parents and students have come to him with similar cases in his three years as chief executive of the board. For the most part, they are middle class black South Africans who can afford to send their children to schools like Roosevelt in neighborhoods where once only whites could live.

White parents still dominate the governing boards that wield most of the power at such schools. They set fees, determine in which languages subject will be taught and devise policies on behavior.

The tensions and anxieties run in many directions. Students thrust into an English-speaking school after speaking only Zulu at home for years sometimes resent their parents. Black parents proud to be able to afford to send their kids to schools in the best neighborhoods can be embarrassed when they visit their home villages and discover the children no longer share a language with their grandparents. Many black South Africans suspect white South Africans have failed to learn African languages because they look down on African culture.

Even after the controversy, though, the twin sisters are studying at Roosevelt. In an interview with The Associated Press, they wore their blue and gold uniforms with the school’s emblem on their blazers.

Luthando said if she just changed schools, she might find a worse situation: “The problem with racism is, it’s endemic,” she said.

This weekend, the girls plan to take part in a meeting about language with other South African teens in Soweto, an impoverished township far from their upscale neighborhood. The gathering will take place at the museum memorial to Hector Pieterson, a 13-year-old shot and killed by police trying to put down the 1976 Soweto uprising, protests against an edict ordering black students to be taught in Afrikaans.

The girls’ father, Thami Nxasana, is a policy analyst and communications technology expert who has advised the Department of Education and other government bodies. He says he would like his daughters’ battle to end in schools like Roosevelt offering courses in Zulu, Xhosa and other African languages alongside English and Afrikaans.

When asked if she could have been more tolerant of her teacher, Luthando pauses. Her father jumps in, repeating a refrain often heard since apartheid ended in 1994 — that while blacks forgive again and again, whites rarely respond.

Yes, Luthando then said, adding that her teacher’s situation could be seen as sad. But “she needs to start accommodating and adapting to the new South Africa,” she said.

This mag is brought to you by Lingoproz.co.za – Africa’s directory of language services – visit our main site to find or offer language services in 100+ languages!

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South African Book Development Council (SABDC) Indigenous Publishing Programme: Call for Applications

May 7, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on SA Book Council.co.za on 7 May 2009

SOUTH AFRICAN BOOK DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL (SABDC)

INDIGENOUS PUBLISHING PROGRAMME

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

The SABDC is the representative body of the South African Book Sector. The
Indigenous Publishing Programme is one of the SABDC’s programmes to stimulate
growth and development in the sector. It aims to increase indigenous-language publishing
and to support the ongoing production of South-African-authored books in the local
languages.

The SABDC invites registered publishing companies to submit applications for the
publishing of general creative works (including novels, short stories, poetry, drama,
children’s literature, etc.) Each submission should be an original work written in one of
the local languages.

If you are a South-African-owned and -controlled company, please apply. This
programme also contributes to the transformation imperatives of the South African Book
Development Council.

CLOSING DATE: 12 JUNE 2009

Application forms are available from the South African Book Development Council
(SABDC) offices or can be downlaoded from www.sabookcouncil.co.za

For more information contact the SABDC offices at 021-914-8626. Information can also
be obtained on the above website.

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News: SA: MPs can choose their language for oath

April 25, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on IOL.co.za on 25 April 2009

As the excitement of South Africa’s fourth democratic election fades to a memory, newly elected MPs will focus their attention on the next phase of the process – taking up their seats in Parliament.

The new Parliament is set to convene on May 6 for the 400 National Assembly MPs to be sworn in with Chief Justice Pius Langa presiding.

As in the past, MPs are expected to be inducted in batches of 10, and take the oath in their language of choice.

They will then elect a new Speaker, who will in turn preside over the election of a Deputy Speaker.

It is expected that President Kgalema Motlanthe, who remains President until the new President is sworn in, will attend the ceremony.

The Assembly will then likely adjourn for lunch, but reconvene afterwards to elect, again with Langa presiding, a new President – by all indications certain to be African National Congress President Jacob Zuma.

Party leaders will then have an opportunity to make short speeches, and the new President will also address the House.

The nine provincial legislatures will also convene on May 6 for MPLs to be sworn in and for them in turn to elect the new premiers and permanent delegates to the National Council of Provinces.

Senior judges will preside over the ceremonies.

Permanent delegates to the NCOP will be sworn in on May 7, and MPs will then travel to Pretoria for Zuma’s inauguration at the Union Buildings on May 9. Langa will again preside.

Zuma is expected to announce his Cabinet during the following week.

Parliament will convene with a joint sitting of the Assembly and NCOP on June 3 for Zuma’s state of the nation address.

The traditional debate on his address will be held on June 4 and he will reply to the debate on June 5.

Both Houses will then adjourn and are expected to reconvene on June 9 to deal with the budget, legislation, and other business.

The session is expected to run until about July 10, followed by the winter recess.

Further sittings are expected later in the year. – Sapa

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The Languages of South Africa

April 24, 2009 — lingoproz

By Lingoproz

The languages of South Africa depict the history and cultural diversity of not just one nation but of the continent itself. The variety of different yet often related languages used by the different tribes speaks to the diversity of human cultural development over time. Later on in its history, South Africa became a colonial frontier for the then-powerful Dutch colonizers. Settlers, missionaries, traders and the like brought their own influences to that region. They not only brought their own language but also helped to document the oral languages of the South African region.

Multi-lingual nation

The native languages of South Africa belong to the Bantu branch of Africa’s Niger-Congo phylum of languages. South Africa officially recognizes 11 official languages and an additional 9 “national” languages. Of the 11 official languages, 9 are Bantu and 2 are Indo-European – Afrikaans and English. Although a lot of the Bantu languages are related, not all are mutually distinguishable.

IsiZulu and isiXhosa

The two most commonly-spoken and widespread languages in South Africa are Zulu (or isiZulu, isi- being a prefix meaning “language” in the native tongue) and Xhosa (or isiXhosa). Both languages are part of the Nguni branch of Bantu languages and are more commonly spoken in the south-eastern provinces of South Africa. Of the two, isiZulu is the more popular language, spoken by at least 24% of South Africans. IsiXhosa is more commonly spoken in the eastern coastal regions. Native isiZulu and isiXhosa speakers will mostly understand each other and the other Nguni languages. They’ve also borrowed from Afrikaans and English in modern times.

Afrikaans

Afrikaans is a language that developed from a South Hollandic dialect. It traces its historical roots to the Dutch Protestant settlers of South Africa. It is the prevalent language in the western third of South Africa and the neighbouring regions of Namibia. Native Afrikaans and Dutch speakers should be able to understand each other. It is also very similar to a few Germanic dialects and languages.

Northern Sotho

The fourth most prevalent language in South Africa is Northern Sotho. It is also known as Sepedi. Not to be confused with Sotho, though the two are related languages belonging to the Sotho-Tswana branch of Bantu. Native speakers are mostly found in the more inland northern provinces of South Africa. Similar to the Nguni languages, Sotho-Tswana speakers will usually understand each other.

Don’t get lost in translation

Because of the diversity of languages within South Africa — whether official or non-official — the government has mandated that all languages be treated equally and used appropriately depending on circumstances. Effective communication in a multi-lingual nation will require resources for translation between languages, both related and unrelated. It will also require resources that will allow people to learn and be familiar with other non-native official languages. Online resources for translation and learning of South African official languages are set to prove an immensely useful tool for effective communication.

To find or offer language services visit Lingoproz, Africa’s only online platform for language professionals, at http://www.lingoproz.co.za. Here you will also find a terminology forum, a calendar of events, an index of resources, and an encyclopaedia of languages and language services.

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Using language to strike the right chord (in advertising)

April 16, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on BizCommunity.com on 16 April 2009
By Refilwe Tsimatsima

When it comes to advertising, I have always been driven by the philosophy that we should, at all times, speak with respect to the people who will be shelling out money to buy the brands and services we tout.
And if your target is the South African masses, not only should you speak with respect, but your advertising should also play a role in promoting the values and aspirations of black people. It sounds obvious, and yet almost 15 years after the fall of the old regime, we’re still neglecting mother tongue communication, and perpetuating old stereotypes about black people.

As a first world industry firmly rooted within a mainly third world environment, we don’t always succeed in truly understanding the headspace of the lower and middle income consumers we target.

So how do we begin to do this? One way is to tell a story, and to tell it in the right language. I understand the fragmented nature of our languages, so which do you choose? But there are various types of SA language that are emerging or have emerged. There’s SA English, as you’ll hear on the SABC 3 ad breaks: “Be back now now”. There’s what I’ll call the modern vernacular, which uses English and mother tongue, such as in the Redds Phola communication. There’s the pure vernacular and finally, the ever popular tsotsi-taal. You get to choose which to use, depending on what age your target group is, and what their motivations are.

Telling a story is one of the most powerful means of communicating with this market. South Africa has a highly evolved ‘talk’ culture. Stories are our way of passing culture from one generation to another. They are also a way to pass on values. And our stories aren’t passive. Africans gesticulate and punctuate their storytelling with clicks, hand-slapping and body gestures. Narratives have great historical relevance to this market, not only in South Africa but on the continent in general.

A 30” ad can take the same form as a story, albeit in shorthand. Like music or literature, advertising should take people through the same highs and lows as an unforgettable story. The African narrative is not complex, and is therefore ideal for advertising purposes. It has clear vulnerable or hostile characters, and on most occasions, it ends with a lesson and the triumph of the human spirit. Brand communications should convey the idea that people can always be growing and evolving.

Despite narrative being so central to who we are, there are nonetheless few good ads out there which tell the South African story. Some brands however, have got it right. Think of the Halls “Free Your Throat” commercial, where a flying saucer tries to abduct a very large woman, but its tractor beam struggles to lift her weight. A woman watching puts a Halls in her mouth, and tells the aliens to “Voetsek”. Throughout the ad, everyday South African characters describe the event in their own colourful way.

There’s also the commercial for Knorr with Robertsons, which uses the idea of cooking rivalry that’s so prevalent in most black communities. The storyline is about a township lady who can’t help but chuckle at her take away food rivals who will do anything to get customers to buy from them. What they are not aware of is her secret – Knorr with Robertsons – which makes food taste real good, making her food a real crowd puller. And SABC 1 has the right idea in its positioning of being “Mzanzi’s official storyteller” – how that has been translated, some might say is open to discussion.

Use the right lingo
Getting the story right is one thing, we also need to tell it in the right language. There is such richness and substance in the mother tongue of African cultures, that it cannot possibly be substituted with a quick English translation. As advertisers however, we still hold fast to the conviction that people, especially those in the metropolitan and large urban areas, have shrugged off the languages of their childhoods in favour of English.

We’ve silently agreed that English is the language of choice for advertising, and have convinced ourselves that people hear and understand us, especially those who live outside the cities. But when did we all start speaking English? When did mother tongue become redundant, especially on television? (Radio is often chosen as the mother tongue medium, while TV, its glamorous sister, is the English vehicle.)

To not speak to your market in their mother tongue not only defeats the very purpose of the communications geared at them, but also has our mothers and grandmothers up in arms because our mother tongues are being relegated to the past. We need to make a change. A solution could be to have a dedicated department within agencies for linguists or translators, especially if the bulk of your business commands that you know and understand the black consumer. It’s a high call (which it shouldn’t be), especially when English is so convenient and to the point, but something needs to give.

Because language is important. Just think of the local dramas on SABC 1 and 2, like Generations, Mhuvango and Death of a Queen, which all have a huge mass market following. The success of these local dramas can be attributed to the storyline, content and relevance, but beyond that, the fact that they’re in the vernacular, or have vernacular translations, contributes greatly to their appeal.

As advertisers, we should understand that while parents want their children to progress and be successful, they don’t want this to be at the expense of culture. People like musician HHP are going all out to reinstate the importance of mother tongue. His Tswana hip-hop is a breath of fresh air, an example we advertisers should try to emulate in our respective fields.

Some might wonder whether mother tongue can be aspirational. I would say yes, it can be. Mother tongue in music for example, can be both ‘sexy’ and ‘asiprational’. I do not see why it cannot fit equally well therefore, with the premium cues or sexiness of your ad or brand, depending on the target market demographics and mindset. Already, we have a choice of which type of vernacular to use (street, tsotsi and so on). Everything else which makes your brand premium or sexy will come into play with complimentary creative expressions.

We must speak the language of our markets. This doesn’t mean writing a catchphrase in township lingo, or translating an English ad into the vernacular. Rather, it means we should capture the true essence of our market with original copy in the vernacular, with those elements that are distinctly African, which might just breathe new life into and elevate your brand.

In this way, consumers will be more disposed to actually listen to the flood of messages with which we constantly bombard them.

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African Languages – What is Spoken Where?

April 10, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on About.com on 10 April 2009
By Anouk Zijlma

There are literally thousands of indigenous languages spoken in Africa and many more dialects. Every African country you visit will no doubt be home to more than a dozen (if not several hundred) languages, even the smaller countries. But because of the sheer amount of linguistic diversity, every African country has an official language (or 11 in the case of South Africa) which acts as the lingua franca for (at least) a reasonably sized region.

Since almost every African country was at one time a colony, speaking English, Portuguese, or French will also help you communicate. Many Africans will speak Creole or pidgin versions of these European languages and they may not be so easy to understand when you first hear them.

Arabic is very handy in Northern Africa and Swahili will help you get by in much of East Africa.

Learning a few phrases in a local language will do much to endear you to the local population and help you get around. If you’re spending more than a few weeks in a country it is definitely worth buying a phrasebook.

What African Language is Spoken Where?

Below you’ll find a list of the major languages spoken in the more common African travel destinations. As a general rule, the more rural a place is, the less likely you are to get by with just English, Portuguese or French.

Angola
Official Language: Portuguese
Other languages spoken in Angola are mostly Bantu languages which include Umbundu, Nyemba and Chokwe.

Benin
Official Language: French
Other languages spoken in Benin include English (in tourist areas), Fon and Yoruba (south), Beriba and Dendi (north).

Botswana
Official Language: English
The principal language spoken in Botswana is Setswana (or Tswana) which is spoken by 90 of the population.

Cameroon
Official Languages: English and French
French is more widely spoken than English but a combination of the two is becoming more widespread — frananglais. Over 200 hundred languages are spoken in Cameroon from the Bantu and Sudanic groups.

Egypt
Official Language: Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic is widely understood in Egypt and is used by the media and Government. But most Egyptians on the streets of Cairo and Luxor speak a colloquial Arabic that is unique to Egypt. English is spoken by many people in the major tourist areas and some French as well.

Ethiopia
Official Language: Amharic
Other important languages in Ethiopia include Oromo, Somali and Tigrinya. English is taught in schools and many people will know a few words.

Gabon
Official Language: French
Other important languages in Gabon include Fang, Mbere, Punu and Sira.

The Gambia
Official Language: English
Other important lanugages in The Gambia include Wolof, Mandinka and Pulaar.

Ghana
Official Language: English
Other important languages (out of 79) spoken in Ghana include Twi, Ga, Ewe, Dagari and Dagbani.

Kenya
Official Languages: English and (Ki)Swahili
Other important languages include Luo, Kikuyu, Luyia and Kamba. Young urbanites often speak Sheng which is a based on Swahili but uses words from many other languages.

Libya
Official Language: Arabic
If you’re traveling to Libya you should pack an Arabic phrase book since little else is spoken, especially outside the main cities.

Madagascar
Official Language: Malagasy and French
Malagasy is spoken by everyone in Madagascar and many people also speak French especially in the business and government sectors.

Malawi
Official Language: English
Chichewa is probably spoken more widely by most of the population than English in Malawi, but you can get by without it for the most part. Yao and Tumbuka are commonly spoken around the lakeshore.

Mali
Official Language: French
Bambara is the most commonly spoken language in Mali, other languages include Tamashek, Songhai and Fulfulde.

Morocco
Official Language: Arabic
As in Egypt, Modern Standard Arabic is widely understood but Moroccans on the streets of Casablanca and Marrakech speak a colloquial Arabic called Darija that is unique to Morocco and influenced by the Berber languages also commonly spoken throughout the country. French is useful as many educated people will speak it and it may help you get from place to place. English is not commonly spoken or understood in Morocco.

Mozambique
Official Language: Portuguese
Other important languages (out of the 43 mostly Bantu languages) include Lomwe, Makhuwa, Ndau and Tsonga.

Namibia
Official Language: English
While the official language is English, Afrikaans is actually much more widely spoken by Namibians as a second language, even in rural areas. Other important languages in Namibia include Herero, Ovambo, German, Portuguese (in the north) and Nama.

Nigeria
Official Language: English
Other important languages in Nigeria include Hausa (widely spoken throughout northern Nigeria), Yoruba, Ibo, Edo, Idoma, Fulfulde and Efik. Many people, particularly in the south and urban areas, speak a creole or pidgin English similar to Krio in Sierra Leone and Pidgin in Cameroon.

Rwanda
Official Languages: French, English and Kinyarwanda
Rwandans nearly all speak Kinyarwanda as their mother tongue, but Englih and French is also widely understood throughout the country.

Senegal
Official Language: French
The most widely spoken language in Senegal is Wolof. Other important languages include Fula, Soninke, Mandinka, and Bambara.

South Africa
Official Languages: Afrikaans, English, Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Venda, Swati, Sesotho, Sepedi, Tsonga and Tswana.
Yes, South Africa actually has 11 official languages. Most people speak their tribal mother tongue as well as some English and Afrikaans. Unofficial languages include San and Nama (Bushmen languages) and Northern Ndebele. Several creole or pidgin languages are also common including Fanagalo (used in the mines) and Tsotsi taal or Isicamtho (used in the townships).

Tanzania
Official Languages: (Ki)Swahili and English
Swahili is more widely spoken outside of the urban areas than English, so it’s useful to pick up a few phrases when traveling in Tanzania. Other major languages spoken in Tanzania include Sukuma, Gogo, Haya, Kwere, Makonde, Mambwe, and Nyamwezi.

Togo
Official Language: French
Other important languages (out of 39) in Togo include Kabye, and Mina. Some English is spoken in the tourist areas.

Tunisia
Official Language: Arabic
French is widely spoken and understood especially in the tourist areas. The Arabic spoken in the streets of Tunisia is similar to that spoken in Morocco, commonly known as Darija.

Uganda
Official Language: English
Most Ugandans speak English as well as an indigenous language, the most common ones are Luganda and (Ki)Swahili. Soga, Chiga and Runyankore are also important languages in Uganda, each have over a million native speakers.

Zambia
Official Language: English
English is widely spoken throughout Zambia, other important languages include Tonga, Bemba, Nyanja (similar to Chichewa) and Lozi.

Zimbabwe
Official Language: English
English is widely spoken throughout Zimbabwe but most Zimbabweans’ first language is either Shona or Ndebele.

Sources
Ethnologue.com
Wikipedia
Lonely Planet Guide Books

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African literature – Oral traditions – The nature of storytelling

April 9, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on Beibee’s blog on 9 April 2009
ByBeibee

African literature

Main

the body of traditional oral and written literatures in Afro-Asiatic and African languages together with works written by Africans in European languages. Traditional written literature, which is limited to a smaller geographic area than is oral literature, is most characteristic of those sub-Saharan cultures that have participated in the cultures of the Mediterranean. In particular, there are written literatures in both Hausa and Arabic, created by the scholars of what is now northern Nigeria, and the Somali people have produced a traditional written literature. There are also works written in Geʿez (Ethiopic) and Amharic, two of the languages of Ethiopia, which is the one part of Africa where Christianity has been practiced long enough to be considered traditional. Works written in European languages date primarily from the 20th century onward. The literature of South Africa in English and Afrikaans is also covered in a separate article, South African literature. See also African theatre.

The relationship between oral and written traditions and in particular between oral and modern written literatures is one of great complexity and not a matter of simple evolution. Modern African literatures were born in the educational systems imposed by colonialism, with models drawn from Europe rather than existing African traditions. But the African oral traditions exerted their own influence on these literatures.

Oral traditions » The nature of storytelling

The storyteller speaks, time collapses, and the members of the audience are in the presence of history. It is a time of masks. Reality, the present, is here, but with explosive emotional images giving it a context. This is the storyteller’s art: to mask the past, making it mysterious, seemingly inaccessible. But it is inaccessible only to one’s present intellect; it is always available to one’s heart and soul, one’s emotions. The storyteller combines the audience’s present waking state and its past condition of semiconsciousness, and so the audience walks again in history, joining its forebears. And history, always more than an academic subject, becomes for the audience a collapsing of time. History becomes the audience’s memory and a means of reliving of an indeterminate and deeply obscure past.

Storytelling is a sensory union of image and idea, a process of re-creating the past in terms of the present; the storyteller uses realistic images to describe the present and fantasy images to evoke and embody the substance of a culture’s experience of the past. These ancient fantasy images are the culture’s heritage and the storyteller’s bounty: they contain the emotional history of the culture, its most deeply felt yearnings and fears, and they therefore have the capacity to elicit strong emotional responses from members of audiences. During a performance, these envelop contemporary images—the most unstable parts of the oral tradition, because they are by their nature always in a state of flux—and thereby visit the past on the present.

It is the task of the storyteller to forge the fantasy images of the past into masks of the realistic images of the present, enabling the performer to pitch the present to the past, to visualize the present within a context of—and therefore in terms of—the past. Flowing through this potent emotional grid is a variety of ideas that have the look of antiquity and ancestral sanction. Story occurs under the mesmerizing influence of performance—the body of the performer, the music of her voice, the complex relationship between her and her audience. It is a world unto itself, whole, with its own set of laws. Images that are unlike are juxtaposed, and then the storyteller reveals—to the delight and instruction of the members of the audience—the linkages between them that render them homologous. In this way the past and the present are blended; ideas are thereby generated, forming a conception of the present. Performance gives the images their context and ensures the audience a ritual experience that bridges past and present and shapes contemporary life.

Storytelling is alive, ever in transition, never hardened in time. Stories are not meant to be temporally frozen; they are always responding to contemporary realities, but in a timeless fashion. Storytelling is therefore not a memorized art. The necessity for this continual transformation of the story has to do with the regular fusing of fantasy and images of the real, contemporary world. Performers take images from the present and wed them to the past, and in that way the past regularly shapes an audience’s experience of the present. Storytellers reveal connections between humans—within the world, within a society, within a family—emphasizing an interdependence and the disaster that occurs when obligations to one’s fellows are forsaken. The artist makes the linkages, the storyteller forges the bonds, tying past and present, joining humans to their gods, to their leaders, to their families, to those they love, to their deepest fears and hopes, and to the essential core of their societies and beliefs.

The language of storytelling includes, on the one hand, image, the patterning of image, and the manipulation of the body and voice of the storyteller and, on the other, the memory and present state of the audience. A storytelling performance involves memory: the recollection of each member of the audience of his experiences with respect to the story being performed, the memory of his real-life experiences, and the similar memories of the storyteller. It is the rhythm of storytelling that welds these disparate experiences, yearnings, and thoughts into the images of the story. And the images are known, familiar to the audience. That familiarity is a crucial part of storytelling. The storyteller does not craft a story out of whole cloth: she re-creates the ancient story within the context of the real, contemporary, known world. It is the metaphorical relationship between these memories of the past and the known images of the world of the present that constitutes the essence of storytelling. The story is never history; it is built of the shards of history. Images are removed from historical contexts, then reconstituted within the demanding and authoritative frame of the story. And it is always a sensory experience, an experience of the emotions. Storytellers know that the way to the mind is by way of the heart. The interpretative effects of the storytelling experience give the members of the audience a refreshed sense of reality, a context for their experiences that has no existence in reality. It is only when images of contemporary life are woven into the ancient familiar images that metaphor is born and experience becomes meaningful.

Stories deal with change: mythic transformations of the cosmos, heroic transformations of the culture, transformations of the lives of everyman. The storytelling experience is always ritual, always a rite of passage; one relives the past and, by so doing, comes to insight about present life. Myth is both a story and a fundamental structural device used by storytellers. As a story, it reveals change at the beginning of time, with gods as the central characters. As a storytelling tool for the creation of metaphor, it is both material and method. The heroic epic unfolds within the context of myth, as does the tale. At the heart of each of these genres is metaphor, and at the core of metaphor is riddle with its associate, proverb. Each of these oral forms is characterized by a metaphorical process, the result of patterned imagery. These universal art forms are rooted in the specificities of the African experience.

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News: K’litsha volunteers fight xenophobia through language lessons

April 1, 2009 — lingoproz

Found on WestCapeNews.com on 1 April 2009
By Brenda Nkuna

A group of South Africans and African immigrants are out to stop xenophobia and unite Africa. And their tool of choice is language lessons, which they are offering to Khayelitsha residents at the cut-price rate of R3.50 per hour.

Falling under the Get-up Stand-up Campaign, a Khayelitsha NGO, the lessons offer Khayelitsha residents the opportunity to learn Swahili, Portuguese, Shona, English and French.

Project coordinator Nkwame Cedile said by teaching languages to locals in Khayelitsha’s Site B and C they hoped that people would find “no need to argue and call each other names”.

“We want to build bridges in our communities,” he said.
Cedile said Khayelitsha residents were eager to learn English and other languages from the seven volunteer language teachers, who offer classes daily between 6pm and 7.30pm at the Holy Sirna Church in Site C.

Zimbabwean volunteer teacher Willard Kambeva said he was happy to know that he was making a “huge” impact.

Kambeva said when he first began classes three weeks ago, there were only five people, but now there were about 50.
He said it was important to keep the lesson prices low so that people could afford them.

Site B resident Thandokazi Cengani, a Grade 11 learner at Cathkin High School in Athlone, said the lessons would assist her in communicating with others and help her if she wanted to pursue a career overseas.

Cengani said so far she had learnt basic Shona words.
She said she always took notes in the classes and most of her friends and family were also interested in learning.

“I am making a sacrifice to come and study at these lessons, but they are worthwhile. I want to be multilingual,” she said. — West Cape News

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Column: Talking Street ‘Taal’ by Jo Jordan

March 30, 2009 — lingoproz

Part Two, March 2009

By Jo Jordan
Jo.Jordan[at]lingoproz.co.za

The next challenge to you may be understanding the street slang that is so very prolific in South Africa.

Each language group has its own colourful expressions uniquely their own. To walk the minefield takes caution and a mettle detector.

Let’s start with Afrikaans. It is spoken in small pockets throughout South Africa by various groups of people. Composed from mostly Dutch origin, it contains words from English, Xhosa, Khoi, Asian Malay, Malagasy, San, Portuguese and French. In the ‘old’ South Africa, it was the hated and forced second language. Still today, it is spoken by most white South Africans as a second language and many black South Africans as their third language.

But the most entertaining aspect of ‘Die Taal’, as it is affectionately called, are the fascinating, sometimes hilarious, Afrikanerisms that have appeared over the years in several of the national groups.

If you want a drink in a bar in any part of South Africa, ask for a dop – For example: “Can I have a dop (a drink)?” You might then be asked what kind of dop – make your choice wisely – never, ever, accept Witblitz or Mampoer – it means white lightning and just might strip your oesophagus … trust me.

If you want to head back to the hotel/motel/bed & breakfast/hostel, tell your South African hosts that you want to go back to the porzie. It will tell them you want to go to your temporary escape from the jol or party you might be attending.

If you really like something, tell the person you’re with that it’s kief. That word oddly comes from the Afrikaans word for poison (gif) and it means something is great. But please, if you’re in Durban, don’t ask for ‘gif’ because that is local stuff that could land you in jail. Okay, to make it a little less obscure, Durban gif is better known in SA as dagga or marijuana. You have been warned!

Perhaps, to steer you away from murky waters, rather use the Afrikaans word kwaai to describe something you like. For example, “That jol was kwaai!” See what I did there? Two localisms included in one sentence. You’re going to blow them away!

And lastly, jawelnofine – This is a word that literally means “yes, well, no, fine”, all scrunched up and covers just about everything. So, go on, get out there and talk the talk!

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