Chronicle Editor
Pathisa Nyathi
INVARIABLY, when I stopped my car upon arriving at home Fikile Nomadlozi our daughter will exclaim, “Phuma zonke!” She uses the expression accurately, but I have always wondered whether she is familiar with its origin.
Her paternal grandfather Menyezwa once worked for a white commercial farmer not far from Gwanda town and later white employers both in Bulawayo and in Johannesburg.
The medium of communication was some lingua franca generally referred to as isilaphalapha.
He continued to use that sort of language when communicating with us his children.
I have retained some bit of the language and passed it on to my own children.
There was time, not so long ago when what was known as isilaphalapha was a vibrant and functional language that characterised communication between blacks and whites.
Younger generations do not seem to know much about that lingua franca and why it existed in the first place.
Isilaphalapha defined racial relations and bridged the communication gap between the whites who were not proficient in the indigenous languages on the one hand and the blacks who too were not conversant with the English language.
Blacks with minimal formal Western education, through various colonial measures relocated to sites where they could earn wages to meet their obligations towards various taxes.
In fact, there was the Master and Servants Act that defined relationships between the white employer and the black employees.
Because of the Industrial Conciliation Act, blacks were not recognised as workers and were thus not allowed at law to form trade unions.
Racial inequality was at the core of the existence of isilaphalapha.
It was some form of debased language that served to facilitate communication and was applied across black ethnic divides.
Labour provision and wages tempered the language relations.
The colonial government did not provide educational facilities to black children.
That role was left to the numerous missionary denominations bodies that in addition to spreading the Christian message also provided health and educational needs to the blacks.
Young blacks began migrating to various sites of labour interaction and had to communicate intelligibly with wage providers despite their limited educational qualifications.
Isilaphalapha was thus resorted to.
The lingua franca dated back to the time when whites arrived in Rhodesia from South Africa where they had encountered Nguni languages, notably IsiZulu.
Several native commissioners came from Natal, home of the Zulu language.
That language was akin to IsiNdebele that they found being spoken in Rhodesia.
As a result, even those Africans who were not Ndebele speaking were communicated with in the same isilaphalapha.
Before colonisation, the whites who ventured into Matabeleland knew and appreciated the need to communicate fluently in IsiNdebele that then was the language that opened the doors to economic opportunities.
“Yini wena funa Pikinini?” would ask the potential white employer.
“Mina funa lomsebenzi Basi,” would respond the sheepish-looking young African boy or girl desperately seeking employment.
“Hamba wena kuluma la lo Mesisi.”
It was a functional mode of communication, nothing formal and obeying no rules of the language.
The whites nearest to the rural areas, the reserves as they were called then, were commercial farmers.
In Gwanda-Matobo there were names such as Simbavu, Springani, Mandayi, Fanifiri (van Vuuren) and many others.
Young boys went there to seek employment as cattle herders.
My own father was one such hence the isilaphalapha he spoke that continues to find relevance through Fikile Nomadlozi.
That was the time of trading stores (Sizabantu, Thandabantu) that were operated by Jews, Chinese and other exotic nationalities.
There were opportunities for the young to either work for the storekeepers or get there to buy modern items that they did not have but had developed tastes for.
Mines were another site for interaction.
Settlement compounds flourished and young males went there in search of work.
However, most of the workers came from Malawi (then Nyasaland), Northern Rhodesia and Mozambique.
Ndebele girls visited the mines in search of work in the domestic service or indeed to entice the young bachelors who were on wage employment.
Isilaphalapha was the functional language of communication between the whites and the black job seekers.
Native commissioners’ offices witnessed many blacks who frequented the offices that were engaged in the pacification and taming of conquered blacks by means foul and cruel.
Africans were being induced to fear the white man.
Hats were crumpled into men’s pockets when blacks came in sight of the white boss.
All the native commissioners were addressed as Basi and junior officials under his charge as Pikinini Basi.
The language of communication was isilaphalapha.
Institutions of occupation used isilaphalapha.
These included the police, dip tank officials, agricultural extension officials, medical doctors and others in the reserves where there was contact between blacks and whites.
However, the most important sites for the use of isilaphalapha were the newly established urban areas where there were greater opportunities for employment.
The African was not allowed inside commercial white stores and later supermarkets in the Central Business District (CBD).
Indian shop owners who in Bulawayo were restricted to west of Fort Street, were fervent speakers of isilaphalapha.
Remnants of those times are still detectable.
However, now there are fewer Indian shop owners, but many of them still communicate in the colonial lingua franca.
Industries were a major employer of black labour where the whites occupied supervisory roles.
The language of communication was isilaphalapha.
Economic necessities created the unequal conditions of interaction and isilaphalapha was everywhere within the contact zones and cemented and expressed unequal relations.
Then one Mr Zulu confronted me outside Pick n’ Pay in Bradfield wanting to know whatever happened to isilaphalapha.
I had to think on the hoof.
In fact, it was his question that prompted the writing of this article. I painted the picture during the colonial period.
Then I quickly moved to the time of independence when isilaphalapha territory began shrinking.
Many whites started retreating from public spaces and either left the country or confined themselves to new zones, their comfort zones.
Many would not countenance black majority rule and left for South Africa and other nations.
The industrial and commercial bases shrunk and where they remained intact the white supervisors left.
The net result was the diminishing zones for isilaphalapha.
Africans would, after independence, witness expansion in the education sector.
That coupled with growing unemployment saw young Africans who were conversant with English language seeking employment in the domestic sector.
In the industrial and commercial sectors, the same was true.
Africans were beginning to move to shop in the commercial sector where hitherto they had been denied access on racial grounds.
Hotels too were opening up to Africans who hitherto had been confined to hospitality facilities such as Marisha and Happy Valley Hotels, in addition to the numerous shebeens in western suburbs.
In response, some whites who were resigned to black majority rule began migrating to suburban business centres that they had established.
They patronised these new spaces that were generally beyond the reach of the average African in the western suburbs.
The more tolerated affluent Africans were able to access these new venues that were agreeable and sanitised forms of racial segregation.
This was even more marked in South Africa where there was a stronger white population. Sandton is a good example of the new phenomenon of disguised racism.
Isilaphalapha was losing out and its areas of operation diminishing.
The domestic workers that were in employment were retiring.
However, some of them remained in the same type of employment long after independence.
Here, I said to Mr Zulu, are the places where isilaphalapha continued to flourish, within the domestic set up and in the Indian sections of Bulawayo where employees of limited educational qualifications continue to work.
Online Reporter