Chronicle Editor
Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Reporter
My language is part of my identity and without it, a part of me would have died, said Mr Mthandazo Vundla (68) from the marginalised San community in Tsholotsho.
Mr Vundla is on a mission to save his language which is no longer spoken in the San communities.
He is illiterate to an extent of not knowing when he was born despite having a national identity card.
When quizzed about his age, Mr Vundla said he was born in 1993 but just a mere look at his wrinkled face and his hair which has turned grey shows that he cannot be that young.
Mr Vundla insisted that he was born in 1993 until the news crew requested for his ID which indicate he was born in 1953.
He blamed living among the Kalanga and Ndebele people for the death of his language.
In Mpilo Village under Chief Siphoso, Tsholotsho in Matabeleland North province, Mr Vundla said he is the only one who can still speak the San/ Tjwa language.
“In this community, I’m the only adult who can speak the San language. Very few of us can speak our language,” said Mr Vundla, who would first speak using the San language before translating to Ndebele.
Even his grandchildren no longer speak the language that defines them as the San people.
“If my language becomes extinct, I would have lost a part of me. So, I want it to be revived like other languages. We are a minority group as we now have more Kalanga and Ndebele speaking people in our community. Our language is facing extinction because of our integration with the Kalanga and Ndebele speaking people,” he said.
However, all hope is not lost as Mr Vundla has dedicated his time to impart his knowledge to younger generations so that the language can be revived.
He said despite being illiterate, he is leading a process of writing books in San language that young people could use.
“We are using John Landa High School in trying to revive the San language. This is where our children are learning and that’s where we are trying to revive our language. They are taught by a teacher called Mr Ndlovu (Davy) who is the founder and director of Tsoro-o-tso San Development Trust. I’m the one writing the books that they are using at the school,” he said while confessing that he was never formally educated.
“I didn’t go to school. I don’t even know the letter “a”. I use my memory in the writing of these books. I speak and someone would translate what I would have said. The programme is still at infancy level but I’m hopeful that with time, it will start expanding. Our children seem to be grasping the language.”
Mr Ndlovu said he started working with the San community in 2010 but only discovered that their language was fading in 2013 and that’s when he dedicated his energy towards reviving it.
At that time only 14 people could speak the Khoi San language.
He said it has not been easy as some of the people that he started working with in the translation of the San language have died.
Mr Ndlovu said they are teaching the San language at secondary school level but the ideal situation was to start teaching it at primary school.
“We engage Vundla if there are things that we want translated. He tells us and we transcribe then translate. All the Covid-19 material that we are using at the moment was translated by him. While the parents cannot read and write, the children can, so we are using them so that they can communicate with their parents,” said Mr Ndlovu.
He said what was encouraging was that the pupils were eager to learn the language which they say was being spoken by their grandparents.
“Even though many people here cannot speak the language, when they are doing their cultural rites, they sing in San language,” he said.
Mr Ndlovu said he is in the process of crafting the San language dictionary.
“For example, you would try to say a classroom, these are words that are not even there in San language. We had to come up with new words because traditionally we did not have such words in the language,” said Mr Ndlovu. — @nqotshili.
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