[civsoc-mw] Use of indigenous languages

[KPD]

Dunstain,

I believe this is retrogressive.

Language or languages is of divisive tools used by man apart from tribe,
religion and culture.

Malawi did well to have one language. People give South Africa as an
example forgetting that South Africa is basically 9 countries in one. The
SA languages basically define one language per province. And still they
have major languages used nationally.

Zimbabwe constitution lists all languages as national languages but goes on
to list 3 major languages as Shona, Ndebele and English. But then Zimbabwe
is the worst country to be used as an example.

English has been accepted largely because it keeps growing. It has  words
from Africaans, Latin, Greek etc.

A good example of using a language for progress and development is in South
African mines. The Boers developed SA mines by using labour from all over
southern Africa. What united the workers was the common language
"Fanikalo". It was developed using words from various African languages.
The ones identified as easy to learn and use.

Malawi could have developed Chichewa\Nyanja language by adopting various
words from other languages. It could have, by now, become a language any
Malawian can identify with.

The moment you have several languages, the next natural thing will be to
carve out no go areas. It happens in South Africa where language is used to
deny people to stay in certain areas.

What beats me is that church people, who know what happened at the "Tower
of Barbel" are the ones advocating for 'indigenous languages". Will Malawi
go anywhere with this?

Parliament is a very important institution. It makes laws and approves
decisions made by the executive. I find the debates there deplorable. If
the current debates, not focused on facts and issues, are done by people
who have gone to school and understand English, then imagine when they are
allowed to use Chichewa.

It should be a case of educating our lawmakers in the importance of the
house. That they should do research and have facts when they are on the
floor. If we succeed with that then Chichewa can be used, not to
accommodate those who should rather have been councillors, but to enrich
contributions.

We have serious issues as a country than spending time bickering about
languages when so much effort was made to unite us under one language.

Keep your culture and leave language as a simple tool for communication.



On Wed, 23 Sep 2020, 09:51 Dunstain Mwaungulu, <dfmwaungulu at googlemail.com>
wrote:

> 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
>
>
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