adminNqobile Tshili, Chronicle Correspondent
THE National Building Society (NBS) yesterday torched a storm after it placed an advert in the print media with incorrect isiNdebele spellings.
The bank joins several institutions which have disregarded consulting when coming up with adverts resulting in them misspelling isiNdebele words.
Instead of putting an advert reading “vaka yako” in Shona and “yakha eyakho” meaning build yours, the bank wrote ‘yaka eyako’ — a meaningless statement in isiNdebele.
The advertisement infuriated isiNdebele speakers who said misspelling a word violates a people’s language and the country’s constitution.
Social commentator Mr Cont Mhlanga said Government through the Ministry of Rural Development, Promotion and Preservation of National Culture and Heritage should take advertising agencies to task for improper spellings.
He described the spelling mistake as defacing a heritage because language is part of a people’s heritage.
Mr Mhlanga said a language needs to be protected from being changed through such mistakes as it will end up being distorted.
“A people’s culture becomes destroyed through inactivity of the monitoring of their culture because if people do not monitor their language it will suffer extinction. What is clear is that there are people who want to use isiNdebele to communicate,” said Mr Mhlanga.
He said universities who teach African languages should move in to address the problem that seems to have found a home in the business sector.
A Journalism and Media Studies lecturer with the National University of Science and Technology (Nust), Mr Thando Nkomo, said the spelling mistake shows lack of professionalism by the advertising agency involved.
He said NBS should be leading in terms of promoting local languages as it was a Government’s baby.
“One would expect that Government agencies and parastatals would be at the forefront of setting a positive example of creative and appropriate use of national languages. It is really in the best interests of these organisations and also in the interest of nation building.
“Such careless mistakes not only tarnish the images of these companies but they cause rifts between affected communities and the rest of the nation,” Mr Nkomo said.
A local researcher Dr Samukele Hadebe said the spelling mistake would attract negative attention for the bank and obscure the message it wanted to put across.
He said generally, adverts are supposed to attract customers but if an advert faces a backlash from potential customers it defeats its purpose.
After being lambasted by social media users, NBS apologised through its micro blogging site Twitter saying: “We’re sorry about the error that was made. We have rectified it”.
Later they posted another advert with proper spelling on their social media page.
@nqotshili
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