Having spent a number of years overseas in exile, I speak various languages, including some Dutch and fluent Norwegian. Throughout my time abroad, my parents insisted on speaking Sesotho to me – and I must admit that I was very reluctant to converse in it at first.
Today, though, I’m deeply grateful to them because what they did prepared me for my return to the country.
A problem faced by South Africans is that we’re holistically colonised. A South African child would rather learn French, Italian or the like than explore the culturally rich languages of the African continent.
The question now is: how do we prevent languages that aren’t our own becoming the dominant ones in our beloved country?
My youngest son is among the children who are taught in English and who battle to speak an African language. He’s had difficulty picking up his mother tongue passively, although his command of the language is very important to us as a family.
As a result, he’s unwilling to talk Sesotho because he’s self-conscious and somewhat ashamed of not being conversationally fluent in it.
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