[civsoc-mw] Use of indigenous languages

[Dunstain Mwaungulu]

As I pointed out in two statements - which sparked this debate ' I made at
the CENTRE FOR LAW AND POLICY, this is a constitutional matter.The National
Assembly was, for the past 25 years, acting unconstitutionally. The
Constitution provides that the language of the proceedings shall be English
AND other languages. Parliament could not therefore have been acting
constitutionally by using Englidh alone.

I followed up this by saying that all Malawina languages must be used and
there should be simultaneously translation - this can be easily and cheaply
done. There is appropriate technology available. I even suggested a short
translation course to an institution that I know.

I argued that by definition all languages spoken by Malawians are
nationalsnguages and advocated that they be listed as such as has happened
in South Africa and Zimbabwe. The latter has included Chinyanja as a
national language.

I argue that the word Chinyanja or Kinyasa did not refer to Chichewa alone
- but all languages of the lake people. So there was nothing wrong with
breaking Chinyanja into the distinct languages of the lake. So Kamuzu was
right to single out  Chichewa.

I think all languages should be promoted fully and equally because a
Malawian has a  constitutional right to a language and culture

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://chambo3.sdnp.org.mw/pipermail/civsoc-mw/attachments/20200923/7c724f88/attachment-0001.htm>