Our dying languages (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Our dying languages

by: Mzati Nkolokosa, 12/23/2005, 5:29:16 AM
http://www.nationmalawi.com/articles.asp?articleID=14312

They often shout their mantra, Angoni satha onse (the Ngoni still
exist), in Chichewa because Ngoni is a culture without a language.

“Ngoni for all practical purposes is a dead language,” says Pascal
Kishindo, an associate professor of linguistics at Chancellor College.

The reasons are historical. The Ngoni left Zululand, among other reasons
running away from Shaka Zulu’s wars, and moved to Malawi in two groups,
on different routes, waging wars, losing and conquering people on the
way and finally settled in Mzimba and Ntcheu.

The majority of the people who came to Malawi, therefore, were those
captured during wars and not necessarily Ngoni. Only the royal clan and
a few others could speak Ngoni in Malawi.

As a result, Ngoni was not an everyday language, it was not passed on to
future generations and became a second or third language.

“When a language is not used everyday, it’s on its way out,” says
Kishindo.

Indeed Ngoni is out because only chants remain. These are recited by old
people on important occasions like initiation and installation of
chiefs, for example.

Such old people are at Mpherembe in Mzimba and around Inkosi ya Makosi
Gomani’s area in Ntcheu. Now there are efforts to revive the language.

The Mzimba Heritage Association is running Ngoni classes throughout
Mzimba so that Ngoni culture should not die because in the first place,
a culture is conveyed through a language.

This initiative was approved by Inkosi ya Makosi M’mbelwa and
government. South Africa donated textbooks for the exercise a couple of
years ago.

One of the people involved is Aupson Ndabazake Thole, who works for
Mzuzu Museum. He says one real challenge is that few Ngoni words still
in use have been mixed up with Chitumbuka.

Perhaps Ngoni is not so much of a worry because something is happening
to resurrect it from the dead. It’s languages still in use like
Chilomwe and Chitonga that should be guarded against gradual death.

The danger, says Bright Molande of English Department at Chancellor
College, is that a person can speak a language without owning it. Such
people do not live their languages.

A 1966 population census showed that Lomwe was the country’s second
largest spoken language. Chichewa was number one, Yao came third with
Tumbuka on fourth.

Some have, as in every census, doubted the accuracy of the statistics,
saying the enumerators simply asked the tribe of the respondents and
assumed they could speak the language of their tribe.

The real challenge is that while Tumbuka, for example, is spoken in
Blantyre, Chilomwe, a language close to the commercial city, is rarely
spoken there.

While Chiyao becomes a language for a bus to Mangochi and Chisena for a
bus to Nsanje, Chilomwe is never heard on public transport to Mulanje.
“It was very difficult to find people who speak Lomwe very freely at a
market, for example,” says Kishindo of his 1999 study on Chilomwe in
Thyolo and Mulanje.

One sad observation, says Kishindo, is that it was old people who were
interested while “the young folks were annoyed”.

History is part of the explanation. The Lomwe were the latest people to
come to Malawi. Some as late as 1910. They ran away from oppressive
rule of the Portuguese in neighbouring Mozambique and picked up humble
jobs in tea estates in Thyolo and Mulanje, including Phalombe.

“It would be hypocritical of me if I don’t accept this,” says Ken
Lipenga, an ardent speaker and researcher in Lomwe semantics.

As a result, some Lomwe shied away from their ethnic identity and were
reluctant to speak their language.

“It’s not surprising, therefore, that there has been a language shift
from Chilomwe to Chichewa,” says Gregory Kamwendo in his contribution
to A Democracy of Chameleons, a 2002 book on politics and culture in
new Malawi.

Lipenga accepts the shift but says Chilomwe is not developing
characteristics of a dying language.

“Lomwe’s speak other languages in order to communicate with people
outside the tribe,” says Lipenga, adding that among themselves in
Phalombe, for example, they speak Chilomwe.

But he realises the need to pass on the language to future generations,
first by giving children Chilomwe names.

“My two children have Lomwe names,” says Lipenga.

Perhaps, the worst setback to all languages in independent Malawi was
the Malawi Congress Party’s 1968 convention which resolved that
Chichewa be a national language. The introduction of one language was
partly good for the sake of national unity.

The problem was the selfish manner in which first President Dr. Hastings
Kamuzu Banda imposed his language on the nation.

Despite the nationalisation of Chichewa, Livingstonia Synod of the CCAP
has been a custodian of Chitumbuka, for instance. The Synod uses
Chitumbuka for worship.

This has helped the Chitumbuka language to thrive. But the Synod is not
a custodian of Tumbuka culture which is supposed to be carried by the
language.

It’s clear, therefore, that only people, owners of a culture, can
promote a culture through its language. That’s what the Lomwe and other
tribes have to do.

Yet promoting a language requires a lot of political will and a number
fanatics to despise all ridicule.

The first political will in recent years was the introduction of several
languages on MBC Radio One. But this is not enough.

Still there are signs of hope. The suggested instruction of junior
primary school pupils in the vernacular may help, confirms Alfred
Mtenje, professor of linguistics at Chancellor College.

However, Malawi has over 10 languages and it’s not yet known which ones
will be used from the list of local languages which include Chichewa,
Chiyao, Chitumbuka, Chisena, Chilomwe, Chingonde, Chinyakyusa,
Chilambya, Chindali, Chisuku, Chinyika, Chitonga, Chisenga, Chingoni,
Chimambwe and many more.

Some of these languages are spoken by a few hundreds of people and may
not be a medium of instruction.

But for those that are on the danger of disappearing, there is need for
a programme to collect information from old people because once they
die it’s like a library has caught fire, books destroyed.

Any preservation of a language, however, should come from the people
themselves because the Chilomwe distinctiveness, for example, is very
interesting to a linguist like Mtenje.

But his feeling is that the Lomwe themselves should be interested in
their culture and tradition — folktales, rituals and initiation.
A language, as we say, is a carrier of a culture. Therefore, to live a
language is to live a culture.

The instruction of junior pupils in mother tongues is perhaps a good,
but bumpy starting point. Our children, and all of us, should not only
speak but live our languages to preserve our cultures.

This means Lomwe people should not only dance tchopa but should also
sing Chilomwe songs. Likewise, Yao and their manganje, Ngoni and beni
and so on.

When we live our languages we shall use them daily, pass them on to
future generations and make them preferable to others.

That’s what all tribes in Malawi should be doing.


This story was printed from The Malawi Nation website,
http://www.nationmalawi.com