<div dir="ltr"><div class="" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border-width:1px 0px;border-style:solid;border-color:rgb(192,192,192);outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;overflow:hidden;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,'Liberation Sans',sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:18px"><div class="" style="margin:0px;padding:8px 4px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:transparent"><h1 class="" style="margin:0px;padding:12px 0px 0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:22px;clear:both;line-height:24.2px;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">Zimbabwe: National Unity in Language<br></h1></div></div><div class="" style="margin:12px 0px 0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;overflow:hidden;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,'Liberation Sans',sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:18px"><div class="" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:15px;line-height:20.25px;background-color:transparent"><span class="" style="margin:0px 0px 12px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;text-transform:uppercase;display:block;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">OPINION</span><cite class="" style="margin:0px 0px 12px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;font-style:normal;font-size:14px;display:block;background-color:transparent">By Christopher Charamba</cite><p class="" style="margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">The late South African President Nelson Mandela once said: "If you talk to man in a language he understands, that goes to his head; if you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."</p><p class="" style="margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">Language is a key component of understanding a people, their history and their culture. In fact the novelist Khaled Housseni wrote: "If culture was a house then language was the key to the front door, to all rooms inside."</p><p class="" style="margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">Language carries with it important cultural nuances through proverbs for example that lose meaning or are watered down when translated.</p><p class="" style="margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">Therefore in order for one to fully understand another's culture and concurrently another's history it is important for one to speak the language of the other.</p><p class="" style="margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">Yesterday the country celebrated Unity Day. It is day that is couched in very important political and social dimensions.</p><p class="" style="margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">The conflict of the early and mid-1980s, which resulted in many losing their lives before an agreement was reached between the two dominant parties Zanu-PF and PF-Zapu led by Cde Mugabe and Cde Joshua Nkomo, was political as much as social. In fact, ethnicity and language became markers of differences among the people, namely Shona and Ndebele.</p><p class="" style="margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">Language is one aspect of national life that requires national introspection especially in relation to national unity and cohesion. The political pact of December 22, 1987 may have healed most part of the political differences but socially, and especially linguistically, it has not.</p><p class="" style="margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">Today, a speaker of a different language in a different region may spawn discomfit, even with political undertones.</p><p class="" style="margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)">This is because it is a fundamental that was not remodelled - but one that needs to be, as a matter of principle and fact.</p><p class="" style="margin:0px 0px 16px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.00784314)"><br></p></div></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message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