Language Matters

Hello there again..

This is a response to the letter written by Dave Rankin(Language Matters, DD, November 17).

Firstly, out of general interest the, Al-Karaouine madrasa is part of a mosque, founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri. In addition to a place for worship, the mosque soon developed into a place for political discussion, gradually extending its education to a broad range of subjects, particularly the natural sciences. It is Africa’s oldest recorded institution of higher learning.

Secondly, Rankin points out that the library of Alexandria in Egypt was built by Greek conquerors of the ancient land, Alexander to be precise, and that Ptolemy was a Greek general under him. A few things need to be contested here. It might be true that Greeks built the library after invading, terrorizing and destroying the ancient city of Kemet and the original library and other monuments of Egyptian culture. One of those monuments was the Temple of Waset. According to Dr Kwame Nantambu, “The salient reality is that no one can deny the historical truism that the Greeks (the world’s first Europeans) went to ancient Kemet to study at the Temple of Waset (later called Thebes by the Greeks and Luxor by the Arabs).” Clearly, the renaming of the Kemet region and verily is monuments into European names like Alexandria came after the above mentioned invasion. Thought of the library itself being not in existence prior to this is not true because it is chronologically logical to note that prior to the Alexandra’s conquest(Hellenistic conquest of Egypt), Greeks like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle studied in these academic centers of ancient Egypt. Dr Nantambu further states this as he sites Dr. Theophile Obenga in his book A Lost Tradition: African Philosophy in World History, (1995) that, “Europeans were by no means the pioneer of human civilization. Half of man’s recorded history had passed before anyone in Europe could read or write. The priests of Egypt began to keep written records between 4000 and 3000 B.C., but more than two thousand years later, the poems of Homer were still being circulated in the Greek city-states by word of mouth. Shortly after 3000 B.C., while the pharaohs were building the first pyramids, Europeans were creating nothing more distinguished than huge garbage heaps. The fact of the matter is that the famous, well known Greeks (Europeans) whom we study and revere in school curricula today all studied at the feet of the ancient Egyptians–Afrikans in the Nile Valley, Kemet. For example, Plato studied at the Temple of Waset for 11 years; Aristotle was there for 11-13 years; Socrates 15 years Euclid stayed for 10-11 years; Pythagoras for 22 years; Hypocrates studies for 20 years; and the other Greeks who matriculated at Waset included Diodorus, Solon, Thales, Archimides, and Euripides”. Also to note: Ptolemy was not of Greek descent but Egyptian descent, an African without any equivocation . He became a Greek citizen as Greece had colonized Egypt, and like any other subject of a colonial master, he became a Greek citizen by law and order. He served not under Alexander the Great but Julius Ceaser.

Thirdly, the issue of a lack of evidence of Bantu Languages being written down before the era of European colonialism is one Rankin stresses to be pivotal in establishment of an argument of indigenous language learning. What I was pointing at was not Bantu languages in isolation, but Africa as a community. Rance suggests that no African language based global scientific paper has come out of Africa. I disagree with this and I have proved why. The issue of Bantu languages being or not intellectualized, before colonial expansion is another debate on its own I believe. But then Rankin makes reference to the effort made by Afrikaans speaking or French/European speaking people in Europe of intellectualizing their languages so as to promote their national languages over super imposing Latin. He makes a good point here by stating that there is no particular reason why we cannot do the same for Bantu languages. I am proud to say that effort s have been made, even in the past by people like Solomon Plaaitjie and SEK Mqhayi to mention a few. Plaaitjie wrote academic and fully scientific papers in several Bantu languages (predominantly in Setswana). His work Mhudi, a historical Novel is well published in Setswana. He wrote novels, prose and folktales to an ability that is equivalent to any Egypt schooled Greek or Roma of ancient times. He translated European texts(Shakespearean to note in particular) just like Afrikaans community did, the issue is the political agenda that was supporting him was not as established as that of the racist Union of South Africa in the early 20th century. The people who are “bleating” about mother-tongue education are doing just that, bleating/talking out of context instead of writing and publishing like Plaaitjie.

Lastly, to answer the response by Raymond Harry, I must note this quote by R.H.W Shepherd: “The fact is that the mass of vernacular literature published in the past emanated, and still today emanates, from missionary presses and naturally such literature has sought to fulfill the aim of missionary societies”. Now, John Bennie of the Glasgow Missionary Society was probably the first to produce an isiXhosa written text in 1823 in Tyhume, Alice (Edikeni). From here on, other writers of African/Bantu followed suite and published literature written in IsiXhosa, namely William Gqoba, Tiyo Soga, JJR Jolobe, DDT Jabavu and so forth. On the issue of recently written peer reviewed articles or scientific articles, textbooks in the Xhosa language, not much has been done in this field. As I had stated, historically, African Languages have been intellectualized, but recently, our day to day African languages, specifically Bantu/Nguni languages have not been intellectualized to the level of writing university text books for example. That is why Rankin and I suggest that this be done as soon as possible. Afrikaans community did it so now let’s move on to the vernacular. Most recently though, a Zulu peer reviewed article titled “Ukusebenzisa Indlela Yokwethula Ngomlomo Ukufundisa Nokufunda Isizulu Ulimi Lwasekhaya: Ucwaningo Lwamakilasi Amabili Enyuvesi Y akwazulu-Natali, Eningizimu Afrika” by Zinhle P. Nkosi University of KwaZulu-Natal, Faculty of Education was; was delivered in a conference at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.